Does this cooler make me look fat?

I must have a sign on my forehead that says "Random, stupid things: happen to me!".

Every Wednesday, Whitney & I drive about an hour north (less than an hour if I'm driving, I thought you should be aware of this), and spend a few days with her great-grandmother. It's quite nice, her granny lives in the country with a really cool barn, woods & pond. Anyhow, it's usually a pretty routine drive. But like I said...random stupid stuff happens. Mostly to me.

We went up in the van with enough gas to get us there & back to the gas station...under normal circumstances. We just didn't really count on the 9 vehicle pile-up, blocking the entire highway for...oh...about 2 1/2 hrs. I guess that's what happens when a log truck hits a coke truck, which hits a school bus, which has the domino effect on 6 other cars. Anyways, we were stuck in a very long line of cars. However...there were enough cars leaving the line ahead of us to keep us slowly creeping forward, therefore deceiving us into thinking that we could actually get somewhere. So...there we sat, talking about other options (there really weren't any), discussing the accident every time we were passed by a wrecker or an ambulance running hot, and celebrating each new small change of scenery. I was getting bored, so I rolled down my window & began hollering, "Help! I'm going into labor!". Sadly, nobody showed up to help & Whitney was ready to shoot me. Thank goodness she didn't have a gun.

We turned off the van to conserve gas, only turning it on to move forward when we had to, but the needle was getting lower. After a couple hours, we had maybe gone a half-mile, it was dark, we were barely moving at all anymore & the van was on empty. Great. Thank you for noticing the sign on my head!

We were in a narrow section of road, so if the traffic would have started moving and we run completely out of gas, we could not have pulled over. I was thoroughly bored & volunteered to go find gas. Whitney went van trunk diving & came back with the only thing we had to put gas in: 5 little plastic water bottles, and a handy little cooler to carry them in. So, off I marched... into the night... past lots of cars...wait....I DON'T HAVE ANY MONEY! Ahh! So I ran back, past all the cars...with my cooler, got money, and marched off again. At least I provided entertainment for all the bored people. I should have charged admission.

Somewhere down the road, I got to a gas station. It was between a McDonalds and Taco Bell & across the road from Subway, and I was desperately wishing I had extra money to buy food & resell to the bored people. Ya know, so they could have dinner with their show.

Anyways, I walked into the station, showed the cashier lady my cooler, handed her some money & asked if I could fill up my little water bottles. She said, "Sure. Which pump are you at?" Apparently, she didn't hear a word I just said.
"I'm not at a pump. I want to fill up my water bottles in my cooler thingy!"
"Oh. I see. Sure."

It was then that I looked at the cooler for the first time in the light. What? It HAD to be PINK? Seriously?

Determined not to be embarrassed, I took my cooler out & started to pump gas, all the while trying not to think about how totally ridiculous I must have looked. By the way people, it does not matter how little you pull the lever, the gas is designed to come out at a speed NOT conducive to filling a water bottle. It seemed much more intent on spraying me in the face. And gas does not make a good face wash. At some point while trying to get more gas in the bottles than on me, I noticed a little audience forming. Apparently a bunch of older guys with nothing to do decided that I was fun to watch. I should have charged them too. They started asking questions like, "Did you run out of gas?"

"No, my car only accepts gas from a pink cooler."

About the time I had them all filled, one guy tried to be helpful, "I have a gas can with gas in it." How helpful. Another older guy actually was helpful, offering me a ride back to the van. I accepted. I put my awesome pink cooler in the back of his truck & climbed in. As we drove past the line of cars, I was picturing myself trying to sell them McDonalds cheeseburgers while being coated in a thin layer of gas. Yeah, I could see that one working out real well.

Suddenly, Mr. Nice Guy's cell phone rang. *In southern accent:* "Hello! Yeah, I'm headin' south. I got me a girl!" Yep, girls, the quickest way to get picked up by an old guy at a gas station is to show up with a pink cooler. I'm sure that is exactly what you all want.

Either way, after being dropped off at the van, I realized I had a new problem. Positive thoughts do not make water bottles fit in gas tank openings on vehicles. Of course. Nothing can ever be that easy. I ended up constructing a make-shift funnel out of another water bottle that had originally been rejected because it was too mangled. So there I stood, pouring the bottles of gas into the van as Whitney handed them to me & tried to become skinny enough to not get hit by cars going the other direction. My efforts were not in vain, because not only did I keep from becoming road pizza, but I got the gas in the tank & the needle budged to just-above-E. It wasn't too much longer before the road was cleared & we were on our merry way to Granny's.

I'm pretty sure I'm still high on gas fumes.    

SQUIRREL!..........

Cheerios and Anacondas

These are the accounts of Sara's adventures with The Girls:

The day to day activities begin with waking up (usually). Then Whitney and Sara have a grueling warm up by climbing out of bed. After they have done this, they do random lil odd jobs around the world. Sara prefers making a quick stop by Brazil to fight off various jungle life such as anaconda etc. Then she goes to work out during breakfast by crushing cheerios with her teeth (this usually burns more calories then she gets from the cheerios themselves.) Then she is ready to have some fun. So Sara along with a few girls go exploring. First, they hike up Mt. Watertower to look over the United States. Then the exploring begins. They hike down the south side where only authorized personnel are allowed ( they are not recognized by the Government as any thing more than Ninjas, when in reality they are wander beings.) There recent activities have involved investigating if someone of who's name I can not mention is taking over the US by brain washing kid's minds in the public schools. So since they are/were home schooled they have a much clearer view on things. They're still investigating. In the mean time, Sara can not wait 'til her 21st B-day for obvious reasons, and one of the girls has invited her to go have some Martinis the night of her birthday. Sara is also having to deal with a stalker who is always watching her. She is not sure yet if this has anything to do with her car problems. She has also recently had to fight off a hobo who had a machine gun but this was no problem for her. All that was necessary for her to do was to simply turn sideways. After that she was as good as invisible. Then she walked away, picked up a jaw bone, and hit him over the head. Well, that concludes her adventures for this week. Fin
Written by. Kaity Lynn

[99% of these stories are true as far as I can remember.]

Southward

Just to bring this up to speed...from WI, we drove to AR, where we have been staying. As stated previously, I can go nowhere without incident, and that drive was no exception. We were driving merrily along somewhere in the middle-of-nowhere north AR, when we passed a gas station. I glanced at my gauge & decided I had a bit more left & kept driving. Well...we were definitely in the middle-of-NOWHERE, because some miles down the road and Calvin was on empty, and still...no gas. I was thinking, "Seriously, this has to happen to me?" Some more miles and he was below EMPTY and yet...no gas. At which point I was pretty much thinking, "Where is a gas station?!?", and that was pretty much the only thing I was thinking. Finally, I saw gas, pulled off the freeway and felt immensely relieved. I parked at the pumps, walked up to the door and tried to open it, just to find it locked. The grouchy, overweight, just-finished-her-shift woman behind the counter stared at me & yelled, "We're closed." No kidding...I though you just randomly locked your door as a practical joke. I looked at the hours posted at the door, and noticed that they closed at 8:00, so I walked back to the car & discovered that it was 7:55. Aha! So, I went to the window right by the lady & yelled, "I'm out of gas". She stared at me. I stared back. For a minute, I was sure she was just going to ignore me, but she finally walked over to the door & said something about having already closed the cash register. She was nice enough to volunteer to follow me to the closest gas station, which I took her up on, even though I was mad enough to take her head off. We managed to have enough gas to make the four mile trip, at the end of which I thanked the lady, while she thanked me for the inconvenience. Either way, we got gas & were on our way without further incident.

Since arriving in AR, Calvin has proved to be quite the brat: blowing a fuse, needing oil, smelling hot...to name a few of his antics. Seriously, I think he just likes extra attention, or something. I guess I gave him enough for now, because he is doing fine.

So, now I'm living in a shed, trying to figure out what happens next, and enjoying the antics of the little girls...

The 10 yr old: "I have an encouraging word for you"
Me: "Yeah?"
J: "Drugs."
Me: *raises eyebrows*
J: "Yes... drugs, not hugs"

Yeah...it's been interesting. 

P.S. All you Northerners should know that I have been running around in a t-shirt. In February. Yep.