Momnesia

That's Chicago, Part: Boss Wondering What is Wrong With Me

AUGUSTA, GA. - So, because I'm a genius, I told this story to my supervisor while we were out on sales calls. Now she thinks I'm psycho. I'm sure we'll be taking separate cars from now on.

When I was wee retarded lass, fresh off the short bus to college, I had a roommate in the tiny house in the Amityville Horror of Georgia known as Milledgeville (sorry, Josh. I know you'll be there for a couple of years. At least TRY to soak up the spirit of Flannery O'Conner). Actually, I had several roommates, from frat kings to goth queens... and one regular queen (Hi, TJ!). My favorites were, of course, Tonya and Penny, two of the most fantabulous chicas ever to grace the earth. I'm a better person for having known them.

But in a transition between dorm contracts - or maybe it was summer... or something... it's all a little hazy now - I had a short-lived cohabitant named Gibran Something-or-Other. He was an Illinois native whose parents had moved down to Georgia shortly after he graduated high school and he'd come with because he was 17 or 18 and it was the thing to do.

SIDE NOTE: Holy Crap! I just randomly googled him and here he is! He's all normal and Cosby-sweatering up the planet, NOT scrubbing gas station toilets like I'd imagined! Of course, he looks totally different now. But so do I. (sigh) Ah, Botox and Liposuction. Would that I knew thee.

So, anyway, he was homesick and we made plans to drive to see friends of his in Bloomington-Normal after exams, with the caveat that we spend just ONE DAY in Chicago. I had some money. He didn't have much. The deal was struck. We set off with my parents' gas card and a few hundred dollars (and by "a few," I mean about $200, a fortune to me then).

In Carbondale, we stopped to stay with his friend, Tom, at Southern Illinois University. We ended up at a rave in East St. Louis. I don't remember how or why. But I do remember climbing some statues on campus and watching "Fright Night" on Dorm TV. The makeup artist in that movie had some kind of dental fetish. There's no way even a vampire - even a vampire played by Chris Sarandon, who can, of course, track a falcon on a cloudy day - can fit that many teeth in his head.

Anyway, when we woke up, I went out to the car and got our rations of peanut butter and bread. When I went to replace them, the car was gone. Towed away. Apparently, you can't back your car into a parking space on the SIU campus. Would have been good to know that. Instead, since no one we knew or had met seemed to have a car, we hoofed it five miles to the garage, where they were very happy to sell the rights to my car for a mere $80. Awesome.

We went back the all-guys dorm where I took a short and rather uncomfortable shower, and then napped for an hour or two before we were to leave for Bloomington-Normal. When I woke up, I discovered that one of the two boys had taken the cash out of my wallet and given it to some douche to buy acid. As in, LSD, not the glycolic peel kind. No "underground" spa treatments in this scrungy dorm full of stoners. The plan was to sell it at a profit at our next stop.

Well, that wasn't MY friggin' plan. After hours of waiting and a big no-show from The Dude, I practically dragged the two boys over to The Dude's dorm room. There was much discussion among the drug-users about when "the guy was going to bring the stuff" and how it "was not cool" that he wasn't here. I swear I had to battle a contact high and grit my teeth through what I swear was 10 minutes of a Cheech and Chong routine somehow mixed with Who's on First before I butted in and said very plainly: "Look, either fork over the stuff or give me my money back. It wasn't theirs to give away in the first place. Pay up or I'm calling the cops." I was pretty mad by then. Tom and Gibran whined about how I had embarrassed them. I told them to shut up and stop taking stuff from my purse - unless they needed a tampon - which, judging by the pitch of their whining, would not have surprised me.

Four hours late, we reached Bloomington-Normal, where yet another booze-laden party was roaring. Everyone was carrying a 40-ounce and saying, "Yeah, I'm a pimp!" while slamming into each other to the dulcet tones of Cypress Hill and Rage Against the Machine. (Oh, shut up. It was 1994) To be polite, I mingled as best as I could, which mainly involved shouting, "What?! WHAT is your name?! BUG?! Oh, Cool!" over deafening music and doing a couple of shots. Hey, I was of age. Finally, I cornered Aenitia, proprietor of our free accommodations, and explained that I was fug-tired. She showed me to a bedroom. I fell into bed fully clothed...

... and woke up a couple of hours later to find two guys crawling into bed with me. "Hey! What the hell are you doing?!"

One of them raised his hands in a placating gesture. "It's cool! It's cool! We just need somewhere to crash!"

I was tired. It was a king sized bed. "Fine, whatever."

Then we started talking and made each other laugh like crazy until 5 a.m.

When we got up at 10 a.m., Gibran didn't want to go to Chicago.

"Dude. One day. That's all I asked," I pleaded.

He was weird and wouldn't make eye contact.

"Fine. I'll go by myself."

"You can't go by yourself," Guy 1 said.

"Sure I can."

"Where will you stay?"

"I dunno."

"Where are you going?"

"Downtown."

"Where downtown?"

"Uh... the down part of the town?"

"You have no plan whatsoever do you?"

Seeing as how that's pretty much the way I lived my life, I didn't see any reason to get all worried about it now. Of course, with a plan, we might not have had to walk 5 miles to pick up my rockin' Ford Escort hatchback in Carbondale, but that was a minor problem, I thought.

"Look, we're going to visit his mom," Guy 1 said, indicating Guy 2, whose name was David, I think. "Why don't you come with us?"

"Uh... hell. Okay," I said.

There. That was a plan... sort of.

To be continued...