The Suburban Incident

Oops...so I've already neglected my 28 day challenge and haven't blogged for the last two days. Well, I was fishing all day Saturday (I caught my first fish EVER!!!) and Father's Day is kind of a bummer, so I'm just going to skip those two days and pick up where I should have been: Day 6: "A moment you wish you could relive." BUT...I'm also going to combine it with Day 9: "A photo that you took" (I can do that, right?)

Anyhow, this particular moment takes me wayyyyy back, a whole 4 years to my junior year of college. One of my bff's, Ms. Emily Jackson (or how you've seen her referred thusfar, Emj), had just returned from an entire semester at sea, and was going through what she coined a "semester at sea hangover"--which was clearly a euphamism for "I've been all around the world on a boat, and now I don't want to do schoolwork, I just want to get drunk every night with my friends and cherish my college years."

Did I also mention that this was when Emj went through her emo phase?

So, being the good friend that I am, I decided to indulge in her wishes for awhile, assuming that she would run out of steam after one or two nights. Clearly, I was mistaken. It became a weekly, nightly ritual that we would go over to our friends' house (the good sports: Blake Martin, Rob Purple, and Chris Chugden), consume wild amounts of alcohol and then play guitar hero. I was usually ready to go at a decent hour since this was typically on a weeknight, but the Emj's "abroad hangover" had exacerbated to the point to which Chugden would have to blast Semisonic's "Closing Time" right before he had to physically push Emj out the front door like it was last call just to politely remove Emj from his home.

But, as you can see, Emj was not ready to leave the party yet.

Yes, I did take that picture, but that is not the infamous picture, nor does it capture the infamous incident that occurred about an hour after this one was taken. For some reason, on this occasion Emj had been even a bit more "overserved" than usual. She insisted that she be allowed to play guitar hero, even though she was swaying back and forth like a palm tree during hurricane season. After much persuasion, Emj was allowed to play a little "Carry on My Wayward Son." However, moments after the song started, we all realized that Emj was not actually playing the song, just blindly banging on the buttons like Ray Charles on a piano (minus the skill and harmony). As a result, Purple and Chugden decided to "help her out." And here, my friends, is the picture I took:

And by "help her out" I actually meant PLAY THE GAME FOR HER, whilst Emj jammed out like she was at a death metal concert.

I wish I could tell you the story ended there, but then this awesome anecdote would not include the moment I wish I could relive. About 20 minutes after "Closing Time," it was customary for me to walk Ms. Drunky McGee safely back to her dorm room across campus. However, tonight Emj was feeling extra saucy, and decided she wanted to play "catch blackout Emj" instead. And here's where it happened...

Emj did run track in high school, and I can safely say she would beat me in any kind of race. Sober. I can also say that from experience, I will give her credit that she can smack-talk with the best of them (which is always fun when she's on your beer pong team). However, this girl cannot combine both of these skills simultaneously. And when she tries, the situation takes a turn for the worse. Or, for the better if you were me that night and got to witness this rare event.

So as Drunky McGee is running down the street and jibber jabbering some incoherent smack talk, she didn't realize that she was now running in a perfect, diagonal line. When I say jibber jabber, she sounded like a cross between The Muppet's Swedish Chef and someone who was playing Chubby Bunny for the first time. I literally had no idea what she was screaming at me. Well, I'll give her credit, she made it a good 40-45 feet ahead of me before I heard a sickening THUD. Did she fall down? Did she hit that elusive curb that somehow seemed to pop out of nowhere for her every once and awhile? Oh no, that would have been too simple. In fact, she ran into this:

Yep, smack into the back of a suburban.

She hit it with such force that every light in the vehicle came on. She also hit it with such force that I watched her sink like a wet noodle out of a boiling pot onto the street. I have never seen anything like it. Since I'm so incredibly mature, the first thing I did was fall to the ground and almost pee my pants. And luckily, Emj did the same thing. So there we were, on the street, both peeing in our pants simultaneously. After rolling around and laughing until I couldn't breathe I diagnostically assessed the situation and realized there was no permanent damage, I walked her back to her dorm room.

Incidentally, I did not remember this last detail until recently when I retold this story to someone else. On our "walk" (if you want to call Emj's post-collision-elegant-two-step "walking",) back to her dorm room, Emj looked up at me with all sincerity and states with (somehow) coherent conviction:

"Thank God I have this puffy vest on. Whew."

To this day I still cannot tell this story without dying laughing, and my only regret is that I was the ONLY one who saw this happen, and that I didn't catch it on video. So yes, minus the (pain?) that Emj (may?) have experienced whilst slamming into the back of an SUV like a wrecking ball, I do honestly wish I could relive this moment in college. And since all of us are now adults, none of us drink like THAT anymore...right?