The drive across Nebraska is really
nice if you're not the sort of person for whom the sight of acres
upon acres of dead corn fields dried up from drought causes
existential crises about the unsustainability of American
agriculture. Otherwise, it's great. It's also a great drive if you're
in the sort of car where the gas gauge has any bearing on reality.
So we're in a 1995 Ford Aerostar that
gets roughly 21 miles per gallon. It has an 18 gallon tank. So when
it hits an 1/8 of a tank, that should mean “start looking for a gas
station, but you'll be fine as long as you find one within 47.25
miles.” Not so for the Rusty Shackleford. We made it about 7 miles
before it sputtered off to the side of the road. OK fine. Joshua and
I both have AAA and we still had an hour of flex time before we
needed to be in Casper, Wyoming. We learned the hard way that the gas
gauge on the car is sort of arbitrary and that 1/8 of a tank = empty.
But otherwise, we'd be fine. This is Pen Pen waiting patiently for
roadside assistance.
So Joshua calls AAA and informs them
we're at mile marker 2, right before the turn-off for exit 1 on I-80
on the Nebraska side of the Nebraska-Wyoming border. Jennifer the not
terribly competent AAA employee proceeds to put him on hold for 20
minutes, then comes back to inform him that it's impossible, and that
where we were simply didn't exist. Also insinuating in no uncertain
terms that Joshua might be lying for some nefarious purpose. Some
sort of Joker-Batman conundrum? The world will never know. This was
news to us, but we had spent a good chunk of the drive discussing
time travel paradoxes, so we were totally in the right frame of mind
to be told that where we were didn't really exist. This is Pen Pen in
a time travel paradox, somehow existing both now and
a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away.
Oh wait, did I say we were in the right
frame of mind? Because no we definitely weren't. We were now almost
certainly going to be late for the show and stranded in the hot
Nebraska sun 3 tantalizing miles from the nearest gas station. Just
close enough to be walkable, but far enough that if we attempted it
we'd never make it anywhere even close to on time. 2 mind-bogglingly
frustrating calls to AAA and about
45 Tom-Petty-on the-ukelele-filled minutes later (during which not a single person stopped to ask if we were OK...so much for midwestern hospitality...) a guy from AAA shows
up. Re-fueled, we set off back on the road, slightly embarrassed for having
run out of gas 3 miles from a gas station, but mostly late. We
finally got to the venue only 30 minutes late and set about playing
some folk songs for the surprisingly awesome patrons of Casper,
Wyoming. This is Pen Pen strutting in to the venue 30 minutes late like
the rock star he is.
This is a song I wrote one time. You
should download it and share it with your friends.
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