Chapter 9: International Not-Smartness

  The Last Leg

 

We took off from the hotel around 9:30am. I was driving. We made it to Butte without incident. Ness and I were just doing what all good road-trippers do, blasting our music, eating junk food, and recounting funny stories from our trip. After a while I looked up at the GPS and said, “Good thing I looked up in time or else we would have missed that exit.” As it turns out, we missed the turn anyway. In my defense, it was really snowy and icy out, and I could hardly see the exit let alone slow down in time to get onto the ramp. Thinking logically, we decided that it was no big deal. We could just go to the next exit and turn around. Seven miles up the road was the Deer Lodge exit. We took the exit, turned around, and started driving east. That was when we noticed that the GPS was telling us to go 32 miles east. That was back the way we came! We didn’t want to go that way. Instead, Janessa and I came up with a better plan. We would simply get back onto the original exit that the GPS told us to turn onto and all would be well. The exit was easy enough to find. We got onto the ramp, turned around, and headed back west. Perfect… Or rather it wasn’t. It didn’t take us long to realize that our plan was slightly flawed. Since we just found the exit and turned right back around, it was like we had missed the original ramp all over again. Great. Another turn around was in order. Not wanting to get onto another ramp, we thought maybe it would be alright if we just used a median. You know the places where cops sit and hang out, the ones with the signs that say “Authorized Vehicles Only”. We found a good one and hurriedly flipped a “U” and just like that were headed east again. Janessa came up with a plan. “Let’s just drive until we see the sign for the original exit that GPS wanted us to take on the opposite side of the road. Then we’ll just find another median, turn around, and take the exit.” That idea sounded genius to me, so we put it into effect. After a few minutes Ness spotted the sign, so then she was on the lookout for a nice median to turn around in. The first one we came to was too snowy. We would’ve gotten stuck for sure. After a few more miles, we saw another one. We had our hazard lights going and were starting to get a little bit flustered. Janessa starts yelling “Yeah, this is a good one! Turn! Turn!” I think it’s a good one too, so I turn into it.

The second I turned, I realized how dumb it was to do so. We were stuck in a median for authorized vehicles only making an illegal u-turn. For the first minute or so there was nothing we could do about it, because we were both just laughing too hard. Great! Finally we regained our composure somewhat and assessed the situation. We had to get out of there before we got caught. The car had other plans though and would just not budge. Janessa tried pushing, but to no avail. Then she had a wonderful idea. She sprinkled cornuts around the tires, for traction. I was just so impressed with my friend’s ingenuity! It was quite unfortunate that it didn’t work. After about 15 minutes of pushing and shoveling around the tires (with an ice scraper) a snow plow came by and started slowing down. Needless to say, Ness and I were just so embarrassed. We tried to hurry and get out before the guy could get to us, but nope. He told me to straighten out and back up. I did so. Then he came up to my window and said, “We’re going to push. Keep your tires straight, drive until you get across the road, wait there, and don’t use these medians anymore. It’s illegal.” As if we didn’t know! I’m sure we would have gotten out eventually by ourselves. Janessa came running across the road, doubled over with laughter. Then right after we started driving again another car turned around in the median we had just got stuck in. It was ridiculous. At least we were heading west again though.

 

Our trip had been a little bit delayed. That was ok though, because we were finally going to get back onto the original exit that GPS had told us to take. The problem was that the GPS had other plans for us. It told us to turn onto a ramp that was like three exits before the one we wanted to take. After much debate, Ness and I decided to trust the GPS. Well, then we were upset that we had listened to it, because it was just telling us to turn back around and go east AGAIN for 32 miles. No way were we going to do that! I pulled the car over and for a second wondered if we should just ignore the GPS and keep going west. Why should we go back 32 miles in the direction that we had just come from? I took my phone out to see what my GPS would say… It said the same thing. We still didn’t like that answer, so Janessa took her phone out to check if her GPs might have a different answer. No such luck. With three different navigating systems against us, Janessa and I decided that we should probably turn back around and head east for 32 miles. We passed the plow guy who helped us (yeah, the one who helped us get out of an illegal median to head west), which was quite embarrassing. After thinking about it long and hard, Ness and I came to a conclusion about why we were so turned around. We had taken a wrong turn somewhere around Butte and had driven 32 miles west (AKA in the wrong direction). The whole ordeal (what with going 64 miles out of our way and getting stuck) added about an hour and a half extra to our trip. We sure felt dumb after that. Heck, how could we not? But hey, at least we got an hour’s worth of extra laughs out of it. What a great trip!

The blue is where we wanted to go...Deer Lodge is where we ended up before we turned around.

 

Chapter 8: On the Road Again

I’m falling behind again. I have like a million stories building up, but I guess I just start with the most recent ones. We’re going out of country for these ones though.  I believe a little bit of an introduction is in order. Everyone, this is my friend Janessa. I just love her to pieces! She’s from Canada, but lucky for me (and her hubby) she lives here in Provo now. Well she got her green card a few weeks back, and she asked if I would like to go on a trip to Canada with her. Um yes! So we went. Lucky for us Canada isn’t like Vegas. What happens there doesn’t have to stay there. I’m going to start with the end of our trip, because well…. I can.

The First Leg of the Last Leg

We decided to split our 18 hour trip home into 2 days. We left Edmonton on Saturday morning. Unfortunately for us something with the heat in the car went wrong, so we were quite cold. We just bundled up until we looked like a couple of bumpkins. Then, not too far down the road we got very thoroughly sprayed with muddy snow and found out that our wiper fluid wasn’t going to spray. Since, visibility was poor at best, pulling over was probably our best bet. We pulled into a Starbucks, thinking we could get some hot water to pour onto the thingermajigs where the washer fluid comes out. Well that plan was a bust. I have no idea why the darn wiper fluid wouldn’t just spray. There was nothing to be done about it though. We thought about asking a guy who looked like he might be the mechanical type, but there were none to be found. There was only one thing left to do, so Janessa did it. A lady walked by and looked at her really funny though. Ness had to explain to the lady that she wasn’t crazy and the reason that she was throwing handfuls of snow at her windshield was because we had no other way of washing it. How could that lady not think we were crazy though really? Just picture it: Janessa outside bundled to max throwing snow at her car while I’m inside the car, also bundled to the max, operating the wipers and laughing at her. Both of us were just disheveled as heck. I’m sure it was quite the sight to behold. Eventually we got on the road again and continued on our way. When it started to get darker we switched drivers (Janessa can’t drive well in the dark), and I took my turn. As the sun dipped, so did the temperature and the already icy road turned into a well layered ice rink highway. The rest of the way to Great Falls, MT, was definitely slow going. What a relief when we finally made it to our hotel!

 

                                                    ...to be continued...

 

Bloog and Tess's Excellent Adventure

Episode 1: My New Roommate

I loved living with Schunt. We had some great times for sure. As far as roommates go, he was a pretty great one. Living with Stefan and Tycy has been a new adventure, and of course I mean that in the best way. My new roommate is as cute as they come, and I love him to pieces. Who wouldn’t want to share a room with a 18 month old baby?...

I am a pansy when it comes to scary movies/shows or anything even remotely close to being scary. Of course, I get the appropriate thrill from being terrified. It’s the months afterward when I have to go bed that the troubles really come. What does this have to do with the roommate situation? Allow me to enlighten you. Emery cries in his sleep. At those times, I generally wake up but promptly go back to sleep knowing that he will do the same shortly. Other times though, things don’t go so smoothly. It doesn’t happen very often, but sometimes the sweetest guy gets up in the night and cries and cries until I console him and lay him back down. There’s nothing scary about that right? Well here’s the thing, he cries until I get up. As soon as I’m out of bed, he just sits there with a blank and, quite frankly, really creepy look on his face. He’s like a zombie baby, and it fills my heart with terror every time. In the back of my mind I always feel like he’s going to turn into one of those supernatural creatures from my scary shows and attack me with lightning speed and sharp, tiny, baby fangs.  I’ve already told you that I’m a pansy. Still I feel like if you saw him with that blank dead look on his face in the dead of night that you might be a tad frightened too.

There are certain occasions when Bloog’s and my bedroom door isn’t closed all day. When it’s time for bed on those nights there is usually a certain crunchiness to my sheets. This is generally due to the large amount of crushed saltines scattered under, in, and over my blankets. Not to mention the carpet of saltines on the bedroom floor. There was also the time when I got into bed only to find it soaking wet. Upon further inspection I found an empty (though I’m sure it was previously full) sippy cup. I’m sure that won’t be happening again though, because I talked to my tiny roommate about it. We’ve set some boundaries. I said to him, “Emery, no crushing crackers and certainly no food or drink in Auntie Tess’s bed.” He smiled, laughed, and then ran… so I’m sure he understood. The crackers found in subsequent nights were probably left there by someone else, because Bloog and I have an understanding.

 I wake up relatively early to various different baby noises. Usually I pretend that I'm not awake in the hopes that the smallest guy will follow suit. Now, let me make one thing clear. I am in no way complaining about my tiny roommate. What other alarm clock is more excited to see you in the morning than mine. One look at that sweet little baby and all thoughts about creepy eyes, sleep deprivation, and crumby sheets evaporate. Take a look at these pictures, and feel free to let me know if you've ever seen a cuter roommate. Good luck! (Possible side effects include: uncontrollable squealing accompanied by baby talk, clenching of toes and teeth, and exclamations of "he's so cute!")

Schef and Tyc I think you guys can safely quote The Sandlot and say to yourselves, "We did a pretty good job."

 

Chapter 7: One More Sleepless Night

Hey guys! Long time no… talk? It would be futile for me to try and explain everything that’s happened over the past few months, so I’ll just say this: I currently live in Provo, UT with my oldest brother, Stefan, his wife, Tycy, and their sweetest, cutest, most tender baby, Emery (commonly known as Bloog, tiniest one, sweetest guy, or other names of that nature). Hunter married sweet Laci Tee Clawson (now Laci Berry :D), and they also currently live in Provo.  That’s good enough for now.

Let’s jump right in!

                I moved to Provo sometime in the middle of June. Of course, that meant that once again I had to stuff my life into my Baby Truck. It wasn’t as full as last time but still fairly jam packed. For the first few weeks I slept on Schef’s couch. For those of you who don’t know, that couch is probably the most uncomfortable couch to sleep on, at least for long periods of time… or if you’re over 5 feet tall. One night I decided that it might just be more comfortable to sleep in the cab of my truck. It was pretty late. Schef & Tycy had already gone to bed. I slipped outside and locked the door behind me, rather unfortunately so as it turned out. My truck keys were in the house, behind that aforementioned locked door. Ugh. Great. It was like 1:30 in the morning, and I was locked outside! Perhaps most people would have knocked on the door or perhaps given their brother a little jingle to let them inside. I, being the considerate sister that I am, decided to do neither. There was only one logical thing left to do: try to break into my truck. I crawled into the bed of my Baby. Well, it didn’t take me long to realize that with all the junk in the back I wouldn’t be able to get enough leverage to slide that back window open. With my option stream run dry, I bunkered down for the night.

                What with my mattress being buried under such things as boxes and a table, sleeping in the bed of my truck wasn’t as comfortable as one might think. In fact, it was probably one of the worst night’s sleep I’ve ever encountered, though it might not be fair to include it in the “night’s sleep” category, as I didn’t actually do much sleeping. Finally, at probably 9 that morning I decided to see if anyone was awake. Lucky for me, my sweet sister-in-law doesn’t do much sleeping in. I was excited. I had made it through the night without any encounters with hobos or anyone else with the same sleeping arrangement ideas as I had. Now, you might think to yourself that there’s nothing too great about this story. That’s just absent-minded Tess for ya. Well, here’s the kicker. That same brother that I didn’t want to wake by calling or knocking was awake the whole time. In fact, he watched the whole thing. He saw me crawling in and out of the back of my truck bringing out chairs (and other such uncomfortable bedding) and throwing them in the back of his car.

                I guess the moral of this story is this. Communicate. Don’t be afraid to knock. Also, be grateful for what you have. Just as the grass isn’t always greener on the other side, the bed isn’t comfier in the truck.

The Hunger (These are NO) Games

PG-13

Thematic elements, gore, and violence (but no language, drugs, or sex so that’s good)

It was a pleasant evening in the Berry home. Tess and Hunter sat at their small table laughing merrily as they as shared stories from their day.

“Oh Hunter you’re so funny!” Tess laughed.

“No, Tess. You’re the funny one.” He corrected with a smile.

A stomach growled. The friendly banter came to an abrupt halt. The siblings stared warily at each other from across the table.

“The weather was nice today,” said Hunter trying to keep his voice light, but to no avail. The merriness of the moment before had been lost. A hungry stomach was no laughing matter.

“Indeed¹,” agreed Tess. She could think of nothing else to say.

They sat in strained silence. The doorbell rang. Relieved at the sound Tess got up to answer it. At the sight of the pizza guy, that relief left as quickly as it had come. Anxiety now clutched her. The man was paid. The pizza set on the table. It was as if the Berry children were looking through a camera lens, and it was zooming in on the pizza sitting on their kitchen table. Steam wafted lazily toward the ceiling. The scent of garlic, cheese, pepperoni, and all the other wonderful ingredients that make up the delicious life-staple that is a pizza filled the small apartment. Both smiling tight-lipped at the other, they each reached for a piece of pizza and began to chow down.

Though only a few minutes had passed, it seemed like hours to the brother-sister duo. The pizza had only eight slices. Hunter had finished three of his already while his sister was still working on her second. Soon his fourth piece had been gobbled up too. Tess was still struggling to put down her second one. Finishing off her third was going to be rough, but what else could she do? Ideally, she would like to save it for later, when it could actually be enjoyed. After all, nutrients in their apartment were hard to come by. Tess sensed her brother’s gaze and turned to face him. His eyes dropped to the two remaining pieces. Hunter was bigger, and so naturally he reasoned that he was in need of an extra slice. Their eyes locked from across the table. There was a brief pause, and then the action started.

Tess ducked a steak knife hurtled over her head. Hunter was reaching for the pizza, taking advantage of the distraction. He was close, but he didn’t make it. He dodged as his sister advanced toward him, swinging the lanyard holding their keys over her head like a mace. He took a heavy blow to the back. He found their bucket of change and flung its contents into Tess’s face. Hunter scrambled to the kitchen in search of a new weapon. Tess, unable to do the same, grabbed a “couch lid” to use as a shield. Seeing a glass candle holder, Tess picked it up and smashed it against the wall. She sorted through the shards, picking a large piece with one edge jagged and one smooth. It would serve as a good shank. With caution she headed for the table which held her lifeline. The younger Berry was able to get a quick bite in before he charged her, wielding two large knives like an ancient warrior would a sword. He slashed at the hand holding the pizza and was rewarded with his sister’s cry of pain. She thrust towards him with her makeshift weapon, but Hunter was too quick. He charged her again, swiping with one of his knives and barely missing her throat. Thrown off balance by the movement Tess fell, and her piece of glass clattered away. Acting quickly, she reached for a pair of scissors on the television stand. Tess turned just in time to fend off Hunter’s blows, leaving a gash of her own along his left cheek. There was a howl of pain, and the girl scrambled to the kitchen in desperate need of a good knife. Hunter caught her as she reached the counter, yanking her hair from behind. Frantically, arms out she felt around for something, anything to use as defense. Her hands closed around a ketchup packet. She tried to sweep the jagged edge across his face. Of course the effect was a weak one. But as she squeezed, the packet exploded, sending a spray of ketchup into his eyes. His grip on her hair loosened but not enough. Tess clawed at the gash in his cheek. It was enough. Hunter released his sister, temporarily blinded by ketchup and pain. There was a sickening thud as Tess swung a frying pan with all her might at her brother’s head and made contact. Lights danced before Hunter’s eyes. The brother staggered backwards, trying to regain himself before his life became forfeit. Tess swung again, but he heard her coming this time and sidestepped. For the second time, Tess was thrown off balance and nearly fell. Now able to see, though not clearly, Hunter sent a swift kick to her back. She crashed; face first, into the wall. Blood from her now broken nose sprayed the white walls, painting them red. Tess crumpled to the floor, unable to see for the blood in her eyes. Hunter seized his opportunity. All thought of knives and weapons were gone. He was now acting on blind rage, kicking her savagely again and again. Then, remembering the pizza, he headed once more for the pizza. Tess’s hand feebly grabbed for his leg. Hunter shook it loose, and kicked her in the face. She lay moaning on the kitchen floor. He picked up the pizza and began to devour it.

The girl opened her eyes. Only seconds had passed since her brother had left her lying on the floor. She didn’t have time to assess her injuries. Tess knew that her time was running out and with it, the pizza. She slowly crawled across the floor. Every move was agony, but she needed to reach the knife lying only a few feet away. Moving to the doorway and leaning heavily on it, Tess rose to her feet. Hunter was just laying hold to the last piece of pizza. He brought it hungrily to his lips. With a sudden jolt forward he dropped it and slid to the ground. Reaching to behind him, Hunter plucked the knife from his back. Tess was still standing in the doorway. With much effort, she moved into the next room where her brother sat next to the table. The pizza was only a few feet from his right hand. No longer able to stand, Tess was crawling towards the pizza. With his last ounce of strength, Hunter took of his shoe and hurled it at his sister. She cried out. Crumpling to the ground as the force of it caused one of her already broken ribs to puncture a lung.

The siblings lay only a few feet apart from each other with the last slice of pizza between them. The room was silent now except for the shallow breath of the two lying wounded on the ground. The pizza lay tauntingly close to each of their hands hand, but neither was able to grasp the source of their desire. A slight scuffling noise was heard. The brother and sister looked around warily. Sniffing the air as it went, a little mouse began making its way toward the lone slice. Neither able to move, Tess and Hunter were helpless to stop the mouse’s nibbling. Soon, the nourishment that had been so brutally fought over was gone. With nothing more to be done, each Berry child began to attend to their wounds.

Tess and Hunter sat at the table. Once again they were laughing and talking together as if no battle had been fought between them only a couple days before. It was a pleasant day. The sun was bright, and there wasn’t a cloud in the sky. The wind whispered lazily to the trees. All was well. Then the doorbell rang. 

¹ For those of you (namely my family) who have seen the Bud’s version of The Lord of the Rings imagine me saying this like Paxson says it while playing Gandalf.

Chapter 6: "That's REALLY mature, saying exactly what I say... You're an Idiot!"

I think that’s pretty much all of the main stuff as far as the move goes. So with that updated, everything else will be more recent. I’m excited to get all caught up. That way I don’t have to worry so much about forgetting any of the good stuff. And let me tell you, there’s a lot of good stuff to go over. I can’t guarantee that it will all be in chronological order, but I’ll do my best.

Let me start by filling you in on our furniture situation. I have to giggle a little every time I think about it. I’m pretty sure the first visitors to see the inside of our house were the sister missionaries. So, imagine this. The Sisters are at your door. You invite them in. Normally a person might say something like, “have a seat” or “pull up a chair”. At our house, there are no such invitations. If anything it’s “the carpet is awfully nice to sit on” or “feel free to lean on the wall”. This is not due to Hunter and I having a lack of common courtesy (our mama raised us right). It is however, due to the amount of furniture that we have…or rather the lack thereof. We have a little ottoman, a little t.v. stand, a card table, and two fold-up chairs. The chairs do have cushions on them though (even though Hunter broke the strings that held them to the chairs, ha which of course he’ll deny even though I watched him do it), so that’s nice. Anyways, it was all good, because the Sisters thought it was quite funny. We’re tight now. Oh also, recently I made a couch… or rather I threw a little airline blanket over two of our big Rubbermaid tubs and put them in the corner of the living room. Hunter, who has a kind of deep love for couches having had one for his bed quite often throughout his life, was quite offended. He said that “thing” was a disgrace, and I was never to refer to it as a couch again. Of course I never heed to that demand, and probably call it couch more often because of it. A few days ago Hunter and I were both sitting the “couches” talking about something or other. He must have shifted his weight or something, because the “couch” that Hunter was on fell right in. It was pretty funny. I say he had it coming for dissing them in the first place. Another recent addition to our little furniture collection is our t.v., which was given to us by our friend Ariel. With her generous donation and Hunter’s X-box, we are no longer resigned to watching movies on our laptops. Hooray!

The next thing worthy of mention is our food situation…which reflects our money situation, but we won’t dwell on that. We’ve got to be kind of careful with what we buy, even though on the same token we probably aren’t careful enough (at least where food is concerned). Pretty much everything Hunter and I have is pooled together, including our money. Every decision we make, takes heavy consultation. When it comes to food though… I think Hunter put it best when he said, “When food comes into this house, it’s like The Hunger Games.” That’s no joke. Hunter has his own opinion on the matter, but let me shed some light on my point of view*. For one thing, I’ve been living literally by myself for pretty much the last 5 or 6 months, so if I bought a half gallon of ice cream…let’s just say it’d last me longer than a day. While Hunter is always complaining of being scrawny due to lack of nutrients, I believe I’ve actually gained weight since living here. At first I was perplexed. How could that be? I’ve come to this conclusion. Think of a sled dog. When they get food, they immediately set to work devouring every last piece of it. They can’t afford to save it for later, because if they try the other dogs will eat it. Attempting to defend their saved spoils would be to no avail either, because the other dogs will kill for the leftover food. This is how I feel. I must gorge myself when we do have food, because if I try and save any of mine for later it will most assuredly be gone before I can get to it. If I try to protect my food stash, I will surely be killed. I have begun to realize that I simply can’t keep up with the eating habits of my always-famished brother. That’s just the way it is.

 

Slipping slowly...

It’s not quite so bad now, but for the first few weeks that we were here Hunter and I had trouble thinking of enough activities throughout the day to keep us busy. In fact, we often dreaded the weekends, because there wasn’t even school to get us out of the house. We did go to a couple of dances at the institute. We’re not really dancers, but it did get us out of the house, plus there was ice cream so…how could we pass that up? We also go to FHE every Monday, and our friend Allison was quick to get our numbers and has broken up the monotony for us on more than one occasion. However, there are still 7 days in a week, and we simply didn’t have enough going on to fill each one. Most days all we could do was lay in bed, stare at the ceiling and slip slowly into madness. Our days went as follows: 4:00, wallow in self pity; 4:30, stare into the abyss; 5:00 faint from hunger; 5:30 jazzercize; 6:30 dinner with just the two of us – we would’ve loved to cancel that; 7:00 wrestle with our self-loathing (ok you guys should DEFINITELY get this movie, even though the quoting is slightly off). When we weren’t doing that, we were usually fighting. Now when I say fighting I don’t mean like arguing. I mean more like, wrestling… which is actually more like Hunter pushing me against the wall pretending to bash my face in while I slice at his arm with a ketchup packet or something. It’s good fun.

  

...into madness...

                         

Wallowing in self-pity

      

* ”The Hunger (these are NO) Games” bonus story coming soon!!!

NOTE: Hunter rarely actually gets mad at me, so when I say that he was furious about something or “beat me up” NONE of it is real. He does those things only in jest. We can usually hardly breathe during our “fights” due to laughter.

  



Chapter 5: Your Mom Goes to College

(This chapter title was Hunter’s suggestion…and I ran with it.)

Hey guys, it’s me again. You probably thought I died or something, but nope I’m still here. You may remember from Chapter 4 that I said that things were about to start happening. Well let me tell ya, that was the truth. I’m pleased to tell you that our house hunting did come to an end on Monday, January 9, so we haven’t been homeless this whole time (and yes Amber we have gotten to shower in the past month J hallelujah!). I’ll get to that soon though. First I need to back up for a second. I don’t think that I put into full view what we did to search for apartments that week or so before we actually found one. Yes, we did look online and in the newspapers and such. But also, we drove around the town looking for any place that had a For Rent sign and called that number to get some info. The weekend before January 9, we were doing just that. Because I was driving, we had ended up on some back alley or other and weren’t really having much luck. Then, I saw it! As you can imagine, I got quite excited at the new prospect and was in a hurry to write the number down before we passed the sign. Now, the details are a little fuzzy so bear with me here. Maybe Hunter didn’t think the apartment was even a remote option, or maybe I just didn’t give him enough time to think (not likely). Either way, he wasn’t writing the number down as I drove past. Ok kids; let this be a lesson to you. Do NOT use your cell phones while you’re driving (even if it’s a worthy cause, and you’re just trying to help). I proceeded to try to put the number in my phone. While that was going on, my Baby Truck was heading towards the curb…which it then drove onto. Luckily enough, I had the good sense to hit the brakes rather than the telephone pole. Of course Hunter was freaking out… it wasn’t really that scary. We weren’t going very fast. But anyways…it’s stuff like that that eventually lead Hunter to say this to me… “Every time I get in this truck while you’re driving it’s like the frickin’ fear factor.” Haha what can I say? Hunter does most of the driving these days. If I do grab the keys before he does he’ll look at me and say, “Oh… you’re driving huh? Great.” (It is my truck though…haha love you Schunt!) Hunter does have quite a few wonderful quotes though, so keep your eye open in chapters to come.



We live on the left side.

Alright, we’re back to Monday morning now. By that time, we had narrowed down our housing possibilities to two choices. Sparing you most of the details, I’ll just say that after much agony of decision making (which both Hunter and I hate doing) we called up one of our choices and told he we’d take it. The excitement was palpable. Of course we were nervous, but the idea of being free of the confines of the Baby overpowered most other thought. At about 1 o’clock that afternoon, we signed the papers (cue party jams so Schunt and I can dance with joy!) We still had many, MANY worries, but for that moment we left them behind. The unpacking began! What turned out to be a little bit funny was that even though we had an apartment, we still had to spend a few hours in the Baby that night. We had gone to get our utilities all set up and junk, but they couldn’t turn them on until the next day, so our apartment had no electricity. Once it got dark, we sat in the Baby and watched movies on our laptops and dinked around on our phones. We did however, relish in the ability for our seats to be able to lean back, and we lounged to our hearts’ content (or at least something moderately close to it).

The next morning we set to work putting our little home into order, though I must say there wasn’t much zeal in our efforts. Unpacking, it just…isn’t very fun and let’s face it, Hunter and I are fun lovers. Anyways, later I was in the kitchen washing dishes or something, and Hunter came in. “Hey Tess, can I use one of your blankets to cover the living room windows.” When I asked what he wanted to do that for, he said that the blinds were broken. After a few minutes, I went to check the situation out for myself. I saw Hunter in the living room yanking on the cord for the blinds. When his efforts yielded no results, I stepped over to him (my 21 year old brother), grabbed the cord and pulled it slightly to the left. The blinds came down. I did the same to the other window with, shockingly enough, the same result. Crisis averted. “Hunter,” I said. “Haven’t you ever closed a blind before?” I may have thrown a “you re” in there somewhere, but who can know for sure really? He told me that he’d never seen blinds like that before and something along the lines of that if they were normal he would’ve been able to work them. With a sigh of exasperation (and maybe my dad would say a little bit dramatically), I informed him that pretty much every blind EVER was made that way.  I told you, he surely is a funny one!

The living room and through that door is Schunt's room

Chapter 4: A Night (and day and night and day…) on the town

January 5-8

The next few days blended together. Our first afternoon in town, we basically just walked around trying to figure things out. That night we went to a basketball game at the college. Hey, what else did we have to do? After that, I spent my mornings and afternoons calling apartments and getting job applications. Hunter got all enrolled in school and stuff. We talked to a couple of people at the institute building, trying to get some connections. Even so, there was a LOT of time to kill, and there’s only so much time we wanted to spend in the Baby Truck. So we spent a couple hours at Walmart… not to buy anything of course (you need money for that), but we did sit on one of their benches…so that was fun.

ow, thanks to Mroth and Froth we didn’t spend every night in the Baby. I count that as one of the many blessings of life really. There was one night in particular that we spent in the Baby Truck though which motivated us more than ever to find a place, any place, to live. I don’t remember what time-filling activity we did that day. Maybe it was walking around the town, or signing up for classes. Either way, our day was over by about 7 or 8 p.m. With that being the case we drove around to the back of the institute building, or home as we’d come to call it, and settled in for the night. To give ourselves a bit of extra room (hardly any, but hey in the Baby you don’t turn down any kind of extra space) and make things a little more bearable, I decided that we should put the cooler and other such things, the basketball and the jug of oil, outside for the night. Leaning our seats back was still out of the question, but at least then our vision was not impeded by a mound of pillows and other objects that we couldn’t cajole into fitting in the back. Now, I know I’ve talked some about our laughter which was generally tinged with craziness. At this point, we were on the verge of full-blown insanity. The laughter came more frequently, but we hardly knew what we were laughing about. For too long, sleep evaded us. We therefore tried to get as tired as possible, so that our bodies would be forced to ignore the discomfort that was laying siege to them. To start off, we decided that a trip to the

nearest gas station was in order (there was no bathroom in the Baby…). Instead of piling our belongings back into the Baby, we decided it would be more…practical? to hide them behind a bush near the institute building. Upon entering the gas station we looked over at a group of kids chillin’ in the bed of their truck. As we left, I whispered to Schunt, “I was just thinking about how dumb it is for kids to be hanging out at a gas station at like 10 p.m., don’t they have anything better to do?” Then I thought of what I myself was doing, and decided I had no room to judge.  In fact, once we got back to the Baby there was no room to do much of anything…  A few hours later after watching corner gas, playing hanging with friends, more maniacal laughter, and other modes of keeping ourselves entertained fatigue was beginning to catch up with us. Though not uninterrupted throughout the night, sleep did come. In the morning, a line from a Maroon 5 song came to my mind “I am in misery”…  

I think it was later that day that we discovered that Burger King had free wi-fi. HALLELUJAH! That became our new hangout. So long Walmart! Still, though BK is not an upscale restaurant (by any stretch…it’s hardly low scale) it was a little bit embarrassing to be seen there… or anywhere in public for that matter. Even with the hotel showers, we were grimy. We both had the unkempt look of the homeless. Unable to reach our clothes (even in the ones in the cab of the truck), we had been wearing the same outfits for days. It felt as if our clothes were beginning to corrode our skin. We needed to find a place to call home… besides a parking lot. Later in the Baby while I was munching on some uncooked ramen noodles, I heard a squeal of joy. Hunter had hit a little gold mine. He’d found his deodorant AND a pack of pop-tarts. It was a sign. Good things were about to start happening. 

Chapter 3: To infinity….and hopefully not beyond (to the grave)

January 3 - 4

The time had come, we were on the road, and we were in a rush. There was a 4:30 p.m. showing of the new Sherlock Holmes movie in a Fort Collins theater which was actually the inspiration for our 3:45 move out deadline. It was pushing 4 when we left (for those of you who don’t know, Fort Collins is like 45 minutes from Cheyenne). We still needed gas, and I wanted to sell some books back to the college. After some frantic, stressed-about-time debating Hunter and I decided that we needed whatever money we could get. To the college we headed. Of course every single light in the whole stinking city had to turn red. I mean for real! It’s like someone was behind the scenes switching all the lights to red saying, “you’ll never shut down the real napster” (name that movie). Anyways though, medium-length story short, after like a million hours we got to the school and received $89 for our troubles. Kaching!

When we finally got to the theater it was a little after 5. We chilled for a while and watched the 6:05 showing. It was a pretty great movie by the way. Way worth it. Also, on a separate-ish note we had free movie tickets from Christmas. There was no frivolous spending involved. Anyways, around 8:30 p.m. we continued on with our 15 hour journey…

As you can imagine, there wasn’t too much excitement during those long, uncomfortable hours. It wasn’t until about 2 in the morning that we came to a realization, and it changed our lives forever………..

Not really, we were just really hungry, because we hadn’t eaten all day (and I don’t mean the new day of the 4th that started at midnight, though we hadn’t eaten that day either). Apparently in New Mexico, most food establishments aren’t open at 2 in the morning. Who would’ve thought right? Out of desperation we pulled into maybe 3 or 4 different towns. There was nothing, not an open sign in sight. Worrying that Hunter might just eat me if we didn’t find something quick, I made one last attempt. There they loomed, bright and beautiful, the golden arches (cue dramatic music). Never has McDonald’s tasted so good. Six burgers, $6, and enough calories to last a week (just what we needed) later, we were satisfied. The start of our new was just a little bit brighter.

Other than a minor margarine mishap – It had melted and was dripping… everywhere! On my scripture case…not pleasant. Down Hunter’s arm…not right. (What movie?) – We (finally) arrived in Thatcher at around noon without incident. We pulled into the college parking lot and turned off the Baby. Hunter and I looked at each other with “now what” expressions on our faces. I assessed our situation. I had just left my stable (though only marginally) life in Cheyenne and had moved to Arizona with my brother…on a whim. All of my “prized possessions” were in the back of my Baby Truck. We didn’t know anyone, and had nowhere to stay… Bring it on.

Chapter 2: Dangers of Packing

Tuesday, January 3

Alright, “let’s get down to the nitty gritty" (what movie guys?). We woke up at 8 a.m. (remember though that we went to bed at 2 a.m.), took showers, and prepared for the long day ahead. It was our goal to be all ready to head out at 3:45. Fighting back discouragement and morning grogginess, we started working on our list of things to do. First on the list, change the oil in the Baby Truck. Ha piece of cake... or so it should've been. A few days before, we had the option to buy an oil basin thingy. Buuut it was too expensive. We improvised. Hunter got some grungy clothes on, and I diligently went outside to watch him work… I mean help. With the quick efficiency of people who know exactly what they’re doing we went to work. I fired up Baby Truck so that the oil would drain more quickly. After a few minutes, I shut him off and Schunt started the oil changing process. After about 10 or 15 minutes, the process is complete. He wipes his hands off, and we go inside to finish packing, and head out. Right on time

……. Ha yeah flippin’ right, only in a perfect world. I had you fooled though didn’t I? Here’s what really happened……

“Ah cra! Tess bring me a better container!” I scrambled out of the Baby Truck grabbing the only logical thing (well, the only thing that was next to me) a plastic Safeway bag. I handed Hunter the bag and watched as he tried to catch the streaming oil in the plastic bag. I looked under under the Truck. “Schunt, you should probably take off your watch.” He looked up at me with a confused expression. “I’m not wearing a watch.” Upon closer inspection it is a ring of oil. We didn’t catch as much of the oil as we would’ve liked, but the plastic bag helped I think. Now on a side note, and in Hunter’s defense, we didn’t have a jack or anything. Therefore, maneuvering underneath my aptly named Baby Truck was difficult for bro. Alright, so we got the oil drained, and apart from Hunter being dirtier than he’d probably intended, things were going not as bad as they could’ve been. We checked the oil before putting in the new stuff. “Are we still supposed to have this much?” Hmmm…. Good question. The answer was “no”. It was a little chilly outside so maybe the oil was just slower to drain then we expected. Schunt crawled back under the Baby, and I followed my instructions to start him back up. Only moments later came the yell. “Turn it off! Turn it off!” Quickly, I did so, but it was too late. I saw something next to the passenger window. It must’ve been “da tar baby”, because there was no way that dark, sticky creature could’ve been my brother. It was. He came around to the driver’s side. “Is it in my hair?” It was. I once again went to inspect the undercarriage of my Baby Truck. Oh goodness. It was bad. Laughter overtook us. How could things have turned out that badly? Why was it so funny? It just really was. A pool of black blood was oozing out from under my Truck. That was unfortunate. After finishing the job, we moved my Baby over a couple of parking spots and assessed the situation. We didn’t have any sawdust…. But there were a lot of leaves and other debris next to the sidewalk. We went to work sopping up our oil catastrophe. After doing what we could, we quickly gathered all of our evidence and ran away from the scene of the crime.

3 hours later…

Our deadline was almost up, but we were making fairly good time. The bed of my Baby Truck was full to bursting. The tailgate closed, but only just. While Hunter threw out the rest all of the trash in the apartment (including all the stuff I had to leave for lack of room), I was trying to organize the cab of the Baby. That was no small feat, let me tell ya. It was already full in the cab, but there were still bags of bedding, some food, and some odds ‘n’ ends that needed a home in the Truck. It was my job to make room. I took the bedding (blankets, pillows, and such) out of the trash bags and stuffed them into their own spaces. Next, I took the bag of food and utensils. It was too big. I divvied it out as well. After finding small places to stuff some silverware in the bed of the truck, I then found myself cramming packs of ramen noodles and boxes of macaroni into every available crack in the cab that I could find. Once even the cracks of cracks were filled, I realized that never before had I wished that my Baby Truck wasn’t quite so baby.

We were finally ready to go. What a glorious occasion… with a few minor setbacks. Such as:  

·         Neither seat could be leaned back, scooted back, or in any way made to be comfortable.

·         We couldn’t see anything out of the rearview mirror… except cra in the back of the truck.

·         The person in the passenger seat had to sit with 3 pillows and a basketball on his/her lap,  

as well as a 5L container of oil, a toaster, and various other items under foot.

·         The passenger and driver seats were separated by a cooler full of stuff that was probably

going to rot anyway (along with a few packs of ramen that wouldn’t fit elsewhere), and a

laptop.

The situation was really quite ridiculous. Movement inside the Truck was nearly impossible, and leaving the vehicle was no small feat either. We were laughing. It was the hysterical, crazed laughter of two people who had no hopes of survival, not really. “I’m so tired.” Hunter barely managed to say between bouts of giggling. After a few jokes such as, “well Tess, we’ve had a good run (of 4 days)” or “Schunt, we should just call of our friends and tell them good-bye...cause we’re not gonna make it”, we pulled away from my ghetto little studio and headed towards the scorching unknown.

                                                …to be continued…