Posted 3/25/14

Some things are better left in horror movies. But no, Whitherward takes them on the road. In the middle of who knows where Texas between the hours of 1 and 3am, we get stuck in a torrential wind/rain storm and we need gas. Ed is holding onto the steering wheel with all the strength he can muster while struggling to keep the car between the trucks on the highway. Finally, we see a gas station and pull off to fill up only halfway due to the insane prices. The inside looked like someone abandoned their trailer and filled it with random snacks mom didn’t want in the house and a cash register. When the lights flickered and the toothless cashier didn’t blink, we decided it was time to leave.

Ed fought a good battle with the storm until we decided to wave our white flag and wait it out at “a Denny’s or something.” The problem being, there was no “Denny’s or something” in sight. The light at the end of the road was a truck stop some miles ahead.

We ran into the supposed truck stop, and upon entrance heard the attendant yell “cash only, registers down.” Luckily, we had $7. We passed the crate of socks handmarked $1.99 on taped up scrap paper, following the other bin of $3.99 white t-shirts, following the wall of porn DVDs. We wisely chose our snacks of fritoes, coke, and peanut m&ms and sat in the clean-ish back booth of the dark abandoned cafe area behind the string of 1980s video games. We were slightly nervous and more so interested in trying to understand the thick accents of the random customers attracted to this fine establishment at 3 in the morning. Then boom, the power goes out. We ate 3 more fritoes in silence before getting kicked out. “Powers out, y’all gotta go” says the short fat grease stained attendant. And with one trio of a sigh we headed back into the storm.

Not one minute before settling back into the wind rocked car in our rain soaked clothes, we hear a knock on the window. There stands a beautiful woman in distress of maybe 19 years old, wrapped in a thick blanket draping off her shoulder just enough to reveal her perfect little tank top. We only rolled the window a crack incase it was a setup, and we’ll forever never know the truth. “Excuse me, but we just ran out of gas and my friend lost her credit card,” she said blinking her doe eyes, “do you have like, just $30 you can spare?” We told her we honestly didn’t and the power was out so there was no way we could help them anyway. We rolled the windows up before her pimp had a chance to pull a gun on us and steal our car, leaving us in the rain to hitchkike to the Bates Motel! (Ok, that all may be a bit extreme. We did see her and her friend waiting in their Scion on their cell phones at the end of this story.) And this is when we realised Ed left his glasses inside, and more importantly, obviously, my m&ms.

Ed runs back out into the rain and up to the pitch black truck stop to knock as hard as he can on the locked double door. The greased attendant, now startled from the disturbance, graciously opens the door for Ed, but not without making the presence of his big Texas gun well known. Ed retrieves his glasses, but sadly not my m&ms, runs back into the car, and says “LET’S GET THE TRUCK OUTTA HERE.” Except he didn’t say truck.

Finally, the storm clears, and we make it safely out of Texas. You will be relieved to know that Jaron had a spare stash of m&ms in his bag of snacks. The end…or is it?

-Ash