A Ride-Along

Have I ever told you the story about how I went on an unplanned "ride-along" in Denver? 

It was the January of my senior year of college and I flew to Denver to meet up with a few friends and attend the National Western Livestock Show and Rodeo.

I am all about honesty, both on this blog and in real life, so in the following lines you are going to read about some bad decisions that were made by me and some friends. 


The good news is, I have grown up and moved past these decisions.


So, we're in Denver. I'm staying with a friend and she lives way out of town. Luckily, a friend of hers lives in town so the plan was to pick her up, hit the town, and end up back at her house for the night. 


We started the night (afternoon) at the Yard Bar. We drank our share of adult beverages before decided that we should move on to the Grizzly Rose for some concert, and then Teddy's at the Holiday Inn.


You see, this is the natural progression of events for the National Western. 


So we spent a little time at Teddy's, as our last stop, and then things get a little fuzzy. 


I think that we were going to drop the one friend off at a hotel to meet a guy that she knew. So, off we went.


My friend was driving her car, a VW Jetta, and she tried to make a left turn in the wrong place and got the car high-centered on the railroad tracks. Her attempts to get it unstuck probably made it worse.


It was probably close to one in the morning and there weren't many cars on the road. So we sat there, in the car, on the railroad tracks, for what felt like forever, trying to figure out what to do. 


For some reason, I knew that if you were under the influence of alcohol and sitting in the driver's seat of a car, regardless of it was on or not, you could get a DUI.


So my friend turned the car off, put the keys on the floorboard, and climbed into the back seat with me. Where we proceeded to make up a story about the person who was driving the car and where they went.


At one point a car pulled up, and I'm pretty sure the people in it had been drinking. They told us that we should get out of the car in case a train came and then they left in a hurry - probably because the police were coming.


One police car arrived and knocked on the front window, the friend rolled down the window and the officer asked her what we were doing. So she proceeded to tell him our story.


It went something like this: We were at the bar and we realized that we needed someone to drive us to that hotel over there to stay with our friends, but none of us could drive. So we found a guy that we had met earlier in the night, named Jeff, to drive us there. When we got stuck, Jeff told us that he was going to go get a friend's truck to pull us off of the tracks.


The officer asked us what Jeff's last name was. None of us knew.


He asked what Jeff was wearing. A blue jacket and jeans.


He asked which direction Jeff headed. We all pointed in the same direction.


We were good. The police officer was getting angry.


So he called for back-up.


Another police car arrived and they put me and the friend in the back of it. Then they put my friend in the back of the other one. But they left the cars parked next to each other and the windows rolled down, so we continued to talk.


They realized what was happening and moved our car away from hers. Then our officer got in the car and started asking us the same questions. 


We stuck to our answers.


Finally, they decided that they weren't going to break us down so they drove the friend and me to the police station. 


We asked if we were in trouble, the officer said no.


We asked how we were going to get home. The officer said that we could use the phone at the station to call someone.


It was now close to three in the morning, we had no one to call who could drive to the police station to get us and our purses were in the car so we didn't have money for a cab.


But we didn't have a choice. We called the cab company and they picked us up at the police station. While we were waiting we looked up the number for the hotel that the girls' friends were staying at and we called them to say that we would be pulling up in a cab shortly and we would need someone to come out and pay for it.


Oh, and by the way, we'll be staying with you.


Oh, and we don't know where my friend is.


As the cab driver was driving us to the hotel, we see my friend up ahead, walking.


We stop to pick her up and get the rest of the story.


The officer dropped her off at another hotel and told her that if the car was moved before noon the following day, he would come and arrest her for DUI.


I'm pretty sure he couldn't do that, but we definitely didn't move the car until 2 pm the next day.

The Principal's Office

This morning I was having a coffee meeting at the cutest little market and they had Valentine's candy out already.

Looking at the candy made me yearn for the days of elementary school when things were so easy.

When everyone got a card, and you made special ones for your friends. When NECCO hearts were all you needed to be happy.

Then it made me think of my most traumatic Valentine's day experience ever.

I can't remember what grade I was in, but Match.mom had purchased me cards for all of my classmates along with those heart suckers that come in the long string of packaging. So I worked diligently on writing a nice card out to each member of my class (probably paying special attention to a boy or two...) and put the cards and suckers into a paper grocery bag to take to school.

Sometime between getting to school and distributing the goodies, the bag was stolen. I was devastated!

I'm pretty sure I cried.

Either way, when it was determined who had stolen the bag, we both had to go to the principal's office. I can remember how scared I was. (This was back in the day's of paddling.)

I vividly remember the feeling of my stomach being in knots. Sitting in the chair, on the verge of tears while I waited for my turn to talk to the principal.

I hadn't done anything wrong, so I don't know why I was so nervous, but I will never forget that feeling.

I actually don't remember anything about my actual discussion with the principal. And it was the last time I had  to visit a principal until my freshman year of high school.

But that's another story for another day.

I think, in the end, the cards and suckers were returned to me. Or maybe one of the playground aides bought me more suckers.

Either way, the sight of that Valentine candy in that little market this morning made me think of that for the first time in a long time.

Weird.

Would You Like A Drink?

When we were sophomores in college, IT and I were RA's. Looking back now, I think it is hilarious that anyone chose us to fulfill this duty. For a lot of reasons.

Midway through the first semester, IT got reprimanded for some dumb thing and had to leave her post as an RA. In a show of solidarity, I stepped down from mine as well.

And we moved out of the dorms late one night before Christmas break.

The process of moving was HILARIOUS!

For some reason, they allowed IT to keep her room at her dorm for like a week longer than me. And her dorm was a block down the road from mine. And we only had one dolly. So we would drive one of our cars up onto the sidewalk at my dorm. Ride the elevator up to the eighth floor, load up the dolly, ride the elevator down, and transfer the boxes to the car. And we would repeat this process until the car was full.

Then we would get into the car, with the passenger holding on to the handle of the dolly hanging out the door, and drive to her dorm. Where we would proceed to unload the contents of the car. This continued over and over until my room was empty. And we only got questioned by the police once.

Then we showered, I slept for like two hours, and then went to work at Old Navy. (Which, for the record, was the worst job on the planet. Ok, maybe Quebedeaux was the worst job on the planet, but they were both during this time in my life...)

We had found a VERY small apartment to move into for the remainder of the school year and summer and once we moved in, IT's parents came to visit us.

When describing the apartment her dad said, "I'm touching a wall, then I turn around and I'm touching a wall, then I turn around and I'm touching a wall..." I think you get the picture.

So, being typical college students, we had some alcohol in our fridge. As I was heading out the door to work at Old Navy (the God forsaken place), IT's mom opened the fridge and very dramatically asked if we were alcoholics because we had so much alcohol.

I quickly responded, "No, we're drunks. Alcoholics go to meetings." And left, closing the door behind me.

She has never gotten over that statement. To this day, she tells everyone she meets that she was so worried about us in college because I told her we were drunks.