Out of Pod Experience

Goon Snipe

Wait, I just noticed that this tread says "renewed"

but ... it wasn't enough pages long yet! -tears-

I was present near the beginning of the first thread, and it seems that history has a habit of repeating itself

'Double like'.

Unpossible

Happy Halloween

You can have candy.

I demand cake!

Ugh... the morning after halloween....


/coffee

I hung out with Roannon and a couple other EVE dudes in Houston last night. What happened afterwards is the real adventure.

About an hour into my trip back home, I hit a large-ish animal that looked like a tabby cat except bigger. I assumed people only ever hit raccoons, so I assumed it was a raccoon. I only saw it for a moment in my headlights. I was doing 75 miles per hour.

I've hit a raccoon before, and it only did minor damage to my bumper, so I was only startled by it and cursed its animal stupidity. But there was an exit right there so I turned off just to check, rather than sit for another two hours wondering what the front of my car looked like exactly.

I open my door under the overhang of the gas station's pumps and get out to the strong smell of coolant. Yay!

Having been a mechanic for quite a few years, I knew that if it got into the radiator, it got into the air conditioning system as well (the condenser is usually in front of the radiator).

I get back in and park on the side lot of the gas station and turn everything off. It's 2 AM on the dot and I take a couple drags from my vape thing while following the trail of fluid with my eyes through the parking lot, out to the street, and up the off-ramp.

I've paid for insurance coverage for years without so much as a ticket or an accident, so I was eager to justify the cost after all those months. I've paid thousands of dollars to prepare for this moment!

I spend an hour with my insurance representative on the phone, and we conference call a tow service dispatcher. Then more waiting. It was daylight savings time, so once again it was 2 AM. I start having daydreams about groundhog day, and start having an existential dialogue with myself about the last hour of my life.

A local sherriff pulls up in front of me. I turn on my dome light and open my door to put him at ease and convey that I'm just a stranded motorist, and not a troublemaker. With a black on black car parked to the side of a gas station at 2 AM, the odds are stacked against me.

He asks if I need a tow. He's friendly.

"No sir, I'm on the phone with my insurance company and we've called one."

"You sure? I can have a tow truck out to you within ten minutes."

"Yessir, I'm okay. Thank you."

The sherriff returns to his patrol car and I shut my door. My insurance rep sits with me in silence for a few moments. The tow service dispatcher calls us back and says she had to call the local PD because she couldn't find anyone through the regular channels within 40 miles. I listen to her words as I watch the sherriff creep away through the parking lot and turn onto the street.

Well ****, thanks for calling us before the sherriff drove off. "Thanks, bye." We both tell the dispatcher who we don't want to deal with anymore because now she has the police frustrated with us.

I'm an easygoing person, and although it was late and it would really be nice to make some progress toward getting my very intricate two-ton paperweight some hundred and twenty five miles West, I agreed with my insurance representative that it would be a ****** phone call to have to make to 911 to ask for that tow again.

It was a small town that I stopped in, and it had a few motels. In fact I was parked right next to one. I told my insurance rep that I would get a room for the night and call him from the comfort of a bed in the morning. Later in the day, technically.

While hanging out with Ro I considered getting a room instead of driving back straight away anyway.

I call ahead to the motel next door. They have vacancies, their rates are reasonable. Sixty bucks. I walk through the parking lot and scout my route. I may be out of coolant in the engine, but it's cooled down now and running it just long enough to drive into the motel parking lot won't hurt.

I find a nice spot to make towing it easy later on, and enter the motel's registration office. It's small and attached to a somewhat larger nondescript building. Whatever, it's cheap. Don't ask questions.

I explain my plight to the elderly lady behind the counter and she's empathetic. I'm pretty sure I'm about to get a sympathy discount.

During my years in the military, I spent time all over the country, including a lot of places where asians are very definitely out of place. Louisiana, Mississippi, North Dakota, you get the picture. But this lady was very relaxed with my presence and California accent and mannerisms.

Holy **** I'm so getting murdered.

She cuts my rate down from sixtysomething to fifty one. I start to get sleepy knowing a bed is just minutes away.

My room is on the second floor, so at least I know there's no secret tunnels beneath my bathroom for people to gank me in the middle of the night. The refrigerator is barely cold, but it'll do. The bed has two sheets for me to get between, and I'm impressed. Sometimes there's just one and you have to pick between sleeping between it and the mattress or the curtain they call a blanket.

And then I hear the guests next door.

It sounds like two middle-aged men slowly lifting weights.

I walk across my room in the dark and turn on the faucet for some white noise. It's going to work, but the water in the sink doesn't look right, even in the dark. I find the bathroom light and the water is brown.

Black Water by Doobie Brothers starts playing in my head. I already know the hook is going to repeat and keep me awake.

Oh black water keep on rollin
mississippi moon won't you keep on shinin' on me...

I lay very still and try not to think about the couple next door getting their swole on. Some time goes by and I'm pretty sure I'm asleep then suddenly BAM!

The sky is white and overcast and the light is coming through an opening in the door to my room about six inches wide. There's a middle-aged spanish lady looking at me with her head ducked to see under the chain on the door.

"hapochitapote supotablay yatooooooo???"