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Your One Stop Shop For Bad Grammer!
I’m in San Diego for the weekend. I did the drive last night, leaving at 9pm like I usually do. I always drive in the evening. The traffic out of Santa Barbara and in the Valley is so bad that I can either leave at 5 and get home at about 9:45, or leave at 9 and get in at 12:30 with a heck of a lot less aggro. The one problem with driving at night is the bathroom factor. You’d thing that I’d be able to go 31/2 or 4 hours in the car without a bathroom break. You’d be wrong. I have a bladder the size of a pea. Snerk. No pun intended. Anyway, last night at about 10:40pm I hit the Valley and started to feel that subliminal urge like, maybe ... maybe I should pull off. I could have held it for a while but I decided to get off at the next exit. I was congratulating myself for not waiting like I usually do until; A) it’s past 11:00pm and everything is closed except creepy gas stations and B) I’m driving through Inglewood or some other part of LA equally bad for a single girl in a Toyota Camry to stop in. So I pulled off onto De Soto Ave, feeling confident. Right there at the end of the exit ramp, a Shell Station on one corner and a 76 on the other. I, however, am pretty sure I saw a Burger King from the freeway and I’d much rather go in a fast food place that a gas station so I keep driving. Five minutes later: No Burger King. Damn. Gotta turn around and head back to the Shell Station. I go into the little StopNGo and ask for the bathroom key. The attendant leers. Why do they always leer? The bathroom is around the side of the building. I insert the key and turn and ... nothing. The key wont move an inch. What the...? I try again, in the other direction (I always forget which direction locks and which unlocks, one of my stupid little secrets.) No dice. The key is not going to budge. I try holding the handle and throwing my full body weight into the turn. Nope. Other direction? No. Hrm, maybe the lock isn’t catching. I’ll lean against the door and then try. At this point I have totally disregarded the fact that this is a door to a bathroom outside of a gas station and lord only knows what is on it, I have to pee damnit. That doesn’t work. I take the card on the end of the key chain and attempt to jimmy the door open with it, all slick like. It’s a last ditch attempt. By this point I have spent at least five minutes wrestling with this door, in full view of all the people hanging out in the parking lot next door. I’m frustrated and close to tears and the slight urge to pee that I had when I got out of the car has become a roaring flood of need not about to be checked by man or locked door. Dilemma: Ask the (leering) station attendant for help or quietly slink away in mortification? Solution: Slink away. As I’m slinking, I notice that there’s a 7-11 right next door, its parking lot separated from that of the Shell by one of those low metal guardrails they put along freeways. 7-11s have bathrooms right? No, apparently they don’t.
Aside: Through all of this I am wearing my long denim skirt. Those of you who know me know exactly what I’m talking about, because I wear it all the time. For those of you who don’t, it’s a long, thin denim skirt with slits up either side to about the knee for easy movability. I have had this skirt since freshman year of college, I wear it everywhere and love it to death. I’m crossing back into the Shell parking lot after my unsuccessful 7-11 attempt when I hear rrrrrrrip. Oh shit Oh shit Oh shit. The back panel of my skirt, flapping as I walk like it always does, got caught on the edge of the damn metal guardrail . There is a huge gash down the back of my favorite skirt. Thankfully it’s no where that threatens my modesty but, still ... my favorite skirt. Now I really want to cry. And I still have to pee, damnit. I get very calmly, and very deliberately back into my car and drive out of the parking lot and over to the 76 across the street (in full view, I might add of everyone in the Shell parking lot who must at least be getting some great amusement out of this whole debacle.) The 76 bathroom (thank the Lord God Almighty) is inside their little store and unlocked. Finally sweet relief. Then I look down at my underwear. Holy Sweet Jesus. You have to be fucking kidding me. My period started ... again. Thank god (Thank God) I had emergency rations in my purse and was able to take care of the immediate problem but ...ew, I don’t want to sit in those undies for the rest of the drive. Decision making time. I kick off the undies (staying in my flip flops with dexterity. Like I’m putting my bare feet on the ground in a gas station restroom) wrap them in a paper towel and stick them in my purse. I saunter out past the (non-leering but still creepy) attendant, underwear balled in a brown paper towel, a flap of denim dangling from the back of my skirt, as if I haven’t a care in the world. “Have a nice evening” I say breezily “I wonder if she knows I can see through her skirt?” says his expression. I have reached the car, I dig a pair of undies out of my bag in the back. Unfortunately while I was in the station and bunch of ghetto fab boys have pulled up in a raised bed 4x4, blasting Nelly on the radio. They are looking under the hood purposefully. Great. They are totally going to be able to tell I’m putting on underwear. I slide into my car and consider turning on music so I look like I’m just sitting in the car, jamming before I head back onto the freeway. Then I remember that the mix CD I have in the tuner (made for me by a friend) currently has “Don’t Let Me Be The Last To Know” playing. A bad Brittany Spears song (if that is a distinction it’s possible to make) is probably going to make them more likely to look over here rather than less. I bite the bullet and slither into the undies while sitting down, trapped between the steering wheel and the car seat, the remnants of my skirt bunching up around my waist. I peel out of there (if you can peel in a Toyota Camry, which I rather suspect you cannot) as soon as I’m decent, but everything is still all bunched up. So I’m driving down the street and maneuvering up the on-ramp, holding the steering wheel with, like, my chin while pulling my undies up and my skirt down, attempting to maintain tenuous contact with the gas pedal, and thanking god that the person in front of me is stupid enough to try to merge onto the freeway at 40mph, so at least I don’t look like the moron. As I finally get myself settled and think about the ruination of my skirt and the picture I must have made for all those bums in the Shell parking lot I want to cry. Then I think, “Well, at least this will make a good blog entry.” 12:45 p.m. June 25, 2004
“Y’all aren’t from around here, are ya.” - August 21, 2005 |
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