I Passed Out. On Someone's Couch, In Someone's House (Traveling XX?)

Hangovers make getting off to a flying start difficult. A hungover partner makes it even rougher. We rolled out of bed around 8a thankful that we hadn't set an alarm earlier that morning. It was hard enough to be organic about getting up- forcing it with an instrument of internal colonization would have been unbearable in the light of day.

The more serious concern was that there was no light to this day. The skies over NFLD had the all too familiar look of a snow storm about to unleash its proverbial can of whoopass upon us all. When weighed against Nena's well deserved hangover (shit was she HARDCORE the night before) it was decided that Nena would try and sleep it off in the car while I tried to get us the hell out of Dodge ahead of the storm.

After 9a we were on the road and steaming towards home. Everyone involved had skipped breakfast so as the fields of Minnesota streamed past us Arturo and I found ourselves daydreaming of the feast of unleaded and Sausage McMuffins that awaited us at our favorite truck stop on this drive- Trails in Albert Lea. Why is it my favorite? Because it's about an hour into the trip. Just long enough to make you feel as though you'd gotten somewhere ... but close enough that you could skip breakfast and not starve yourself.

It was in the midst of these daydreams when Arturo started to shake violently. Out of nowhere Arturo had gone from happy little daydreamer to convulsing bronco, unable to maintain any momentum and struggling to hold himself together Nena woke up startled to find me struggling to keep Arturo moving he was losing speed and fast his tranny upset with my attempts to coax any additional speed out of him and he fought me down to 30MPH all the while bucking and shaking away in the right lane Nena started to panic and the storm outside picked up to mirror the frenzy that was occurring within the car as i hit the hazards and wrestled Arturo onto the shoulder.

We were ten miles north of Albert Lea- dead in the water- when steam started streaming out from under Arturo's hood.

Once we were on the side of the road we calmed ourselves a bit and came up with a plan. Turn off the heater, stop the coolant fumes from streaming into the cabin, call AA get us towed .... wait, get us towed. To where? We have the fancy AAA so we could get towed to anywhere from here ... do we want to go to Albert Lea and get a hotel room? Where else could we go? We were trying to get home to Lawrence, right? It was Sunday, what would be open ... well, we could always turn around and go ... home to NFLD.

An hour later when the truck arrived to take us where we wanted to go we told him to take us back north -- to NFLD.

Back to Northfield. It seemed as if this town kept sucking us back in, we were stuck in some strange sequel to Groundhog Day and at any moment we could expect Andie McDowell and Bill Murray to meet us and invite us to dinner. No, we figured, there'd be no Sonny and Cher for us, rather there was some unfinished business for us in NFLD. Some growing we still had left to do in our stellar nursery. Fine, we figured. Back to NFLD. We called DJ and scored a place to stay and made a mental note to call Churchill and explain why a car they thought was out of their lives was back in their parking lot.

On the drive back to NFLD we tried to figure out what might have happened to Arturo. The temperature gauge hadn't registered that he was running hot, yet there was coolant all over the engine. He couldn't upshift right before we pulled off the road, yet his transmission fluid level was fine. The radiator was in tact and the coolant level was normal, but it looked as if we'd overheated, only the temp gauge never registered it. Right, we were just as confused as y'all are. Best we could figure Arturo needed a new tranny, or a timing belt or something else that was similarly expensive. That's when it began to hit us. This repair, in all likelyhood would be too expensive to undertake. Arturo might never leave The Minny again.

Arturo had come home to die.

As we rolled into NFLD for the second time in three days Arturo was being towed behind us, covered in ice. We towed him to Churchill and left him frozen and dead in the parking lot before calling our parents and telling them of what'd happened. Our poor parents. Mine thought they'd had enough of my calls from strange locales to inform them of Arturo's latest malady. Nena's were relieved to the point of nonchalance to hear that their daughter's latest automotive mishap didn't involve a hospital stay. Here we were again, in NFLD and checking in with our parents- it was as if the only thing that'd changed ... was that now we had each other.

We hiked up to HoBros for lunch and met up with The Grandmastah. We hung out with him for a while before bumming a ride off him to DJ's. She had a futon in her basement with our name on it. I intended to sit on it and eat a bag of Doritos in mourning for my frozen best friend.

For the next 24hrs Nena and I would try and figure out what we'd do if Arturo was, in fact, dead. Buy a car? New? Used? Truck? Wagon? I don't know how much of these discussions I was mentally present for, though. We kept talking about life after Arturo, but all I could do was worry about my friend. I know it seems silly to be so concerned about a car, to treat it and talk of it as if it's a person- but on some level, Arturo is my Velveteen Rabbit. He, no we've been through so much together he's become real to me.

Bought as a reaction to the worst day of my life, Arturo saw me through the hardest summer of my life. He was there when I was called "intellectually attractive" in the aftermath of a date gone wrong. He helped me get away from my life as the walls came down around me near the end of my time in NFLD, he was with me when I was lonely and angry in Missouri, and he's been with my for every crazy stunt I've ever pulled. From the Communist Party to proposing to Nena. Yeah, on some level, Arturo's more than a car to me- he's my spirit of invincibility, my reminder of how far I've come ... he's my best friend.

We watched the Super Bowl and DJ's and were glad to be there. There's just something comfortable about her home. We were welcome there and it was a chill place to sit and watch the game. Nena and I sat there, watching the game tick away, and reflected on how blessed we really are. When we were stuck on the side of the road a few hours earlier our minds instantly flooded with a number of folks we could have called for help. Then we started to think of all the other places on the map where we could have been helped out by our amazing friends, friends who would have shared their time and opened their homes to us. It's an amazing thing to feel like we did that night, to have such wonderful people in our lives. So, right now, I want to thank y'all (and you know who you are) publicly.

Word.

DJ loaned us the use of her car while we were in town, provided we drove her to work and picked her up for lunch and so on. It seemed like a great trade to us so we got up the next morning and drove her to work before trying to figure out what to do for breakfast. We'd been craving Ole Rolls but were denied them thanks to yet another casualty of NFLD's (sub)Urban Renewal. Yup, the Ole Store is no more. It's sad, really.

Faced with no other breakfast option (did I mention there is no more Bagel Brothers?) we hit The Tavern and their weak sauce coffee. After breakfast we showered and ran back to DJ's office to pick her up for lunch. As we walked out of her office my cell blew up- it was Churchill. Arturo lives! He'd blown a coolant hose that they'd replaced and he was ready to be picked up. After all that soul searching- he'd been felled by a $6 part. Brilliant. With a bit of luck, we could drop DJ off at home, go get the car and be on the road by 1p.

And we were.

Though we were sad to be leaving DJ, we were happy to be on our way home. We'd prepared ourselves to be stuck in NFLD for a day or two and now we were back on the road. It was sad that we couldn't spend more time with DJ, but ... HOME! That's when it hit us. As happy as we were to be in NFLD. As familiar a place as it seemed to both of us. It wasn't where we belonged. It wasn't home. Yeah, so many of our friends are in The Minny. But right now, we belong in Kansas.

Yeah, I come to this realization a lot. But, well. Every time it hits me, it means something different.

It was a much nicer day for driving than Sunday had been. All of the ice and snow had melted off the roadways and the sun was out. Every once in a while we saw a car that'd gotten stuck on the side of the road the day before and we counted ourselves fortunate to have been spared that by Arturo's $6 hose.

We got home around 7:30p- the same time we'd arrived in NFLD a few days earlier. It was good to be home.