Happy Easter y'all. How was it this year? Mine sucked rancid eggs.
The plan was for me, the bartender and the bartender's roommate to drive out to Galena in my car for Easter dinner. A fine plan to be sure, except that the bartender's roommate is a complete smacktard. I hereby christen him with the blog name Fuckwit.
About a week ago, Fuckwit got it into his head that it would be a much better idea for him to drive instead. Fuckwit's driving record is less than perfect. He's had himself a motorcycle accident, had his license suspended for three years, and last Wednesday received a speeding ticket that probably should have also included a bonus DUI. Needless to say, I was loathe to get in a car with him behind the wheel and the bartender shared my opinion. Fuckwit wouldn't budge, and so it was decided we would take separate vehicles for the three hour trip. This appears even more stupid when you know that part of Fuckwit's reasoning for not wanting to ride with us is because he wasn't sure how much money he should bring for gas and tolls. So clearly since he doesn't know, he should drive by himself and pay three times as much.
We got off to a weak start almost immediately. Because, you know, it NEVER EVER rains in Illinois so no one knows how to drive when it does. Really people, why is this such a difficult skill? You are FROM here, you should be used to this by now. Combine that with your typical holiday traffic in Chicago and it took us an hour and a half to get out of the city. It continued to rain on us for the entire trip. Fuckwit got, we thought, pretty far ahead of us since we ended up stopping twice. So we were a little surprised when we got a call from Fuckwit who had missed an exit, blown right through Rockford, and was now lost. Only a little surprised though, because it's Fuckwit and he's not known for being the sharpest knife in the drawer. It would not be the last time I said "He just HAD to drive himself, didn't he?" on this trip.
The bartender and I arrived at the restaurant in Galena, and to prove he has a sick sense of humor, God allowed the heavens to open and turn regular rain into a torrential downpour just as we got out of the car. Ha ha God. You're hilarious.
We wetly entered the restaurant where the bartender's family was already waiting, and then proceeded to wait another 45 minutes for Fuckwit's lost ass to show up. After all that, dinner turned out to be pretty good. I had king crab legs, which were delicious, and I traded the bartender one leg for one of his ribs, which was also delicious. Meanwhile, Fuckwit ordered what seemed to be an entire cow and had himself a few cold beers. We'd predicted that would be his beverage of choice; yet another reason why we didn't want him driving us.
After dinner, we drove to the bartender's mother's house, where we had cake and ice cream in honor of his sister's birthday. It was here that I experienced the highlight of my day - tiny little kittens! Really tiny. A month old and they squeak like mice when you pick them up. So cute.
After about 8.2 seconds of being at the house, Fuckwit started pestering us to head back to Chicago. Now, he'd driven himself, so why he couldn't just leave without us any time he felt like it is beyond me. But he insisted and so we headed out with him following behind us. He had mentioned he was kind of tired (maybe because he came home at 7:30 in the morning?) and might stop for a Red Bull, so when we lost sight of him behind us we figured he'd pulled into the gas station. We drove along companionably, mooing at the cows we saw and singing along with the NoFX cover of Gin and Juice. Traffic was light and the rain had even stopped. All was right with the world.
Forty minutes out of Galena, the bartender's phone rings and I hear the following half of a conversation: "Yeah._____Wait, you WHAT?______By the look out tower?________Fuck.________HOW DID YOU DRIVE YOUR CAR INTO A DITCH?__________Well, it's going to be a while, we're a half hour past that._________FINE." As it turns out, Fuckwit hadn't gone after a Red Bull. Instead he'd relied on the beer he had at dinner and his fabulous driving skills to lose control of his car, run off the road, down a hill and smash his car into a fence. Correction, make that smash his FATHER'S car into a fence. Additionally, he had $30 in his wallet which was obviously not enough for a tow truck, and so could we turn around and come ALL THE WAY BACK and give him some more money?
As the bartender turned around, an uncomfortable silence filled the car. A minute later I couldn't hold it in any longer: "He just HAD to FUCKING DRIVE, didn't he?!?!?" As I heard earlier in the week on my favorite podcast, Punky Radio, saying we were angry is like saying that Hitler was mildly annoyed by the Jews. We now found ourselves parked on the side of the road behind a police car watching the sky get dark and the rain start falling again, staring down an embankment at Fuckwit's car, wondering how the hell it didn't roll over, seething, and waiting for the tow truck. The bartender briefly got out to speak with his roommate; I did not as I was afraid I might invert his nutsack. The tow truck took 45 minutes to arrive and then cleaned the bartender and I out of an additional $100 with Fuckwit's $30. I can't really blame the guy, if some complete fuck up interrupted my Easter dinner, I'd make him wait and rape his wallet too.
An hour and a half after we left the first time, we got back on the road. It was now pitch black, raining like a monsoon and we had about $1.37 in loose change left over from an episode that 1) was not our fault and 2) SHOULD NEVER HAVE FUCKING HAPPENED IN THE FIRST PLACE. Additionally, we had waited just long enough for the milk trucks to leave the farms and head to where ever they take the milk, so we were stuck behind a convoy of them with no passing lane. It's so much fun to drive in the dark when it's raining, but oh, it's even MORE fun to drive in the dark when it's raining and the spray from the trucks in front of you cuts what little visibility you do have in half. We could not cut a break the whole trip. When the road briefly opened up into two lanes so we could pass the trucks, we got cut off by a truck trying to pass the other ones and ended up passing nobody. Some shithead thought it would be a good idea to pull over to the side, half on the shoulder and half still in the road and shut off all his lights. We were repeatedly blinded by people going the other way who didn't have the courtesy to turn off their brights when they passed.
When we finally got to my house, I turned to the bartender and we hugged each other for a long time. "Happy Easter," he said to my neck.
"Happy Easter to you," I said pleasantly. "This was terrible. Let's never do this again, as long as we live."
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