Cities Ownage!

I pulled into the Honzay driveway at 7:11, four minutes early. Parking my car in my usual spot next to some sort of electrical box, I stepped outside only to be greeted by the family dog, Tanner. Not going to lie, I friggin’ love that hound. I used a bit of my extra time to pet the crazy creature before I headed inside to rendezvous with the Honzay clan. I went through their garage, kicked off my shoes, and stepped inside the house. I found Phil right away as he was walking down the hallway toward me.

Phil: Guess who’s not ready?
Aaron: Andrew.
Phil: Yep.
Aaron: [looks down at the shoes, Propel drinkable mix, and such that are resting on the floor by the door, spots Twilight] Dude, are you reading Twilight?
Phil: No, that’s Andrew’s.
[Andrew walks down the hallway]
Aaron: What a girl.
Andrew: [jokingly] I’m not a girl. [slaps me in groinal region]
Aaron: Oh, you JUST missed… wait… no, you didn’t (delayed reaction nut shot - how fantastic).
So that was how the day started for me, with a backhand slap to lefty. As unpleasant as that was to take, you KNOW that any day that starts as such is going to be a good one. Especially when you get me and Phil together.

Phil’s the man that I pretty accurately consider to be my brother. I’ve known him since junior high and the kid and I have done basically everything together. Super-stud. Andrew’s his younger brother, who I believe is 16 as of this writing. Solid, little whippersnapper, he be. For the horrendous class that is organized the evil Mrs. Giles, he had to job shadow someone; thus, he chose to do such a thing with his cousin, Nick, who works as some sort of a graphic designer for some company called “Fame” in Minneapolis. Ergo, Phil was to drive him up there on this day (Monday, January 5th), and since I pretty much fully and completely own the cities, Phil invited me to go with them.

The three of us suited up and headed outside into the cold Minnesota air. We hopped into Phil’s fantastic 1993 white Chevy Corsica (yep, Amy, just like the car Grandma drives) and headed off and rolled out. We all exchanged random pleasantries and small talk as Phil blasted down the gravel road leading to the ever famous highway 212 until Andrew (sitting in the backseat) busted out Twilight and started going to town on it.

Now obviously, Phil and I had to tear the young-in apart for doing such a thing. I mean, it’s bad enough that he’s actually reading a chick book such as that, but c’mon, the kid’s going to spend the day with Phil and me!?!? He’s going to learn sooooo much if he pays attention and contributes to the conversation because let’s be honest here, we two be studs with a lot of knowledge :-) Not to mention the fact that I can’t imagine why he wouldn’t want to join us in our sing-alongs in the car. C'mon, bramen noodles!

Anyways, we hit 212 and commenced the domination of it. It was quite noticeable, even given the fact that it was still before sunrise at this point, that the roads were a bit icy, but it was definitely nothing major, and certainly nothing that would force someone to have to drive below the speed limit, let alone substantially so. But apparently, EVERYONE missed this memo as seemingly every car we encountered on our journey was moving in slow motion. And not like they were going 50 mph as opposed to 55, some were kicking it at like 40. And this “some” I speak of includes large trucks carrying decent loads, so yeah with that.

Like, if Phil in his 75 pound Corsica can rock it at 55 mph, you certainly can as well in your monstrous moving truck. And just to give you an idea of Phil as a driver, let’s just say he’s a bit of a conservative one. The cat’s very economical in his manner of conductive vehicles. He doesn’t speed, and he’s not reckless. Quite similar to me, actually.

But even given this style of his, as previously mentioned there were still TONS of cars that felt the need to suck at driving. Commence driving awesomeness and comedic Phil genius. I wish I wish I wish that I could do justice to the man’s rants as we drove down the highway behind all these slow-smurf cars. I can only say that there were many references to his wondering of where his rocket launcher was as he brilliantly diatribed about how horrendous the drivers were.

At one point we got behind a line of seven of these vehicles. Six of them were moving in this ridonkulous manner, and one, like us, was clearly pissed and trying to get around them as well. Thankfully, we got a couple of them to turn off, and eventually the one other legitimate driver in this stupid line made his way to the front of it, but that still left us behind four ridiculously lente conductors.

Phil had been waiting for a moment to try and get around these cars, and when it finally arose, he struck like some sort of snake attacking a small marmoset… or something to that effect. He dramatically flipped on his left blinker and kicked that little Corsica into gear. Skillfully pushing the car to its limits on those icy roads whilst facing the dangerous Minnesota sunrise, he blasted past the first car. I reached underneath the seat and grabbed the rocket launcher in an attempt to even the score fully. I quickly dropped the window and leaned out as Phil remarked that he was going to make the move and crush the other three cars in line. I looked away from my target and at the road ahead. It was getting icier in this lane and we were rounding a corner. I can only imagine the concentration it must’ve taken on Phil’s part to pass these four cars all at once. I put the rocket launcher back as I watched on at this epic maneuver. Soon, it was all over. He pulled back into the right lane safely. Adrenaline pumping for both him and me, we realized just how ridonkulous this feat was. We yelled out in an almost animalistic manner as the aforementioned adrenaline coursed through our veins. Suddenly, Andrew looked up from his copy of Twilight and remarked, “What happened?” Phil and I could only look back and laugh. What a girl.

After this craziness had taken place and our nerves settled again, I took a little peak at the Mapquest directions Phil had procured for this day. I stared blankly at steps 4-7 on the page. We were to exit off highway 212 onto highway 41, merge onto highway 312, 312 was to become highway 5, and then 5 was to turn into highway 212. Now let’s just think about this for a second. Why the SMURF would we have to exit off 212 just to eventually get back on it? Now if there’s anyone reading this who’s not familiar with 212 (there’s not, but you know, just in case), I should state that this crap isn’t necessary for to remain on this highway. It just continues into the cities where it eventually turns into 62. Thus, what was up with these pointless activities, I thought.
All three of us recognized this ridiculousness, but nonetheless we decided to still rock the directions the way Mapquest mentioned just… well… just because, I guess. It wasn’t really any issue to get ourselves onto these mystical roads (although, we never found 312, we just hit 5 and turned onto it), but it was still baffling as we clearly ended up in the same spot we would’ve had we never exited 212 originally. Phil’s guess was that it probably saved us ½ mile and added like 5 minutes onto our journey. But since we missed 312 and the 9.8 miles we were supposed to spend on it, who the frigg even knows? Point is, we got to where we needed to. Eventually. It was a bit of a struggle to find where this “Fame” place actually was inside Minneapolis. As it was kind of hidden. I mean, we had the address, but it took us a few times circling the area before Andrew (who’d FINALLY stopped being a girl for a few seconds) spotted it.

Of course after this, we had to find ourselves a parking spot, which is never an easy task in the great city that is Minneapolis. It took a couple more times circling the block before we found a nice, little area just behind a snow bank. Problem, the parking meter was some sort of special one that we could only be at for 15 minutes. Unfortunateness. Phil grabbed his change as Andrew and I threw on our coats and got ready to make a run for Fame (nice play on words, no? :P). We stood outside as Phil dropped the change in the meter. 15, 15, 15 minutes left better get it done. 15, 15, 15 more minutes, get ready, GAME ON (yep, slightly modified HSM 3 reference, my friends :p)!!!All three of us knew that what we were to do here was what we were going to leave behind, so we booked it for this elusive building. Rounding corners and crushing down the streets like the family from Home Alone running through the airport, we power walked our way to Fame. We paused along our way in front of some random building that looked like it would lead to the other side of the street and give us a brief reprieve from the cold. Phil opened the door to the edifice like a champ and we entered in a manner eerily reminiscent of Elly’s opening of the puerta to the power room dealy in Jurassic Park. Except we weren’t being chased by velociraptors, but rather time. We continued pressing forth in a confused but simultaneously knowing fashion through this building, bounding up and down stairs, owning the turns, and ignoring all accepted methods of indoor movement. It wasn’t long before our determined selves exited the construction, and we found our-said-selves back on the streets. Which, coincidentally, is where we’re from, so it was all hood.

We quickly realized that this roundabout adventure indoors literally took only like 15 feet off our journey. Nice. With little time to spare, we booked it down the street only to be briefly thwarted by a stoplight and a don’t-walk sign. Showing little regard for humanity, Andrew crossed anyway. Phil and I screamed behind the man, “NOOOOOOO!!!!!!!! Andrew, what are you doing?!?!?!” Thankfully, he was able to cheat death as safely crossed, and the light changed shortly thereafter. Phil and I resumed our pursuit of Fame as well. The building was close at this point; we could see the door. Entering through the revolving doors, we found ourselves inside. Whipping out his phone like a player, Phil placed the call to his and Andrew’s cousin, Nick. We received confirmation from this person that we should indeed walk through the doors that said “Fame” on/near them that were located right next to the original revolving doors. After brief thwartation by this door, we finagled our way inside. Despues de brief awkward conversation with the secretary, Nick walked down the hall to greet us. We all exchanged momentary greetings before Phil and I recalled that we had little time left on the parking meter.

We headed out the revolving door with a look of determination that could only be seen to be believed. Our eyes blazed with fire hot enough to melt the snow or to warm any woman’s heart. We skillfully avoided the building in our journey back to the little engine that could that was the Corsica. It didn’t take long for two people with our speed to reach the vehicle. Bounding up to the meter, we were surprised to find that we still had six minutes left on it. Dang.

Of course we couldn’t leave before running down the time to darn-near zero, because hey, we (and by “we” I mean Phil) paid for that space, and dag-nabbed if we were going to let the man have our (his) money. Eventually, the time ran down, and Phil and I rolled out of the spot and toward my old stomping grounds in the University of Minnesota. Son.Oddly enough, we stumbled upon the same route to campus that we had accidentally taken a couple weeks prior when we had been in the cities for a different purpose. Coincidence? I think not. Relevant? I also think not.

Several minutes went past until we found ourselves in Gopher territory. Gosh, I don’t like calling it “Gopher territory,” but I blanked on a legit synonym right there. Sorry about that. I’ll be better in the future… hopefully… perhaps… Nonetheless, we were there.We made a brief stop at the house that is to be my home for this coming semester in an attempt to just take a look around and to see what I was going to need to bring. Unfortunately, the doors were all locked and there were no real signs of life going on there. Sadsies. But whatevs, I’ll sort it out when I move in in a couple days.

After this weak sauce-ness, we decided to make our presence known at the Bell Museum of Natural History. Heck, we had tons of time. After driving around for like a half hour looking for a suitable parking area, Phil remarked that he thought he was starting to get a pretty good grip on driving around the cities. Foreshadow, much? We eventually parked the Corsica moderately near to where this museum was located and pondered how much change to drop in the meter. We weren’t entirely certain how long we’d need to chill there, so Phil made sure to drop an extra quarter in just to be safe. An hour and twelve minutes should suffice, we thought.

We meandered our way over to this museo and were instantly taken aback upon reading the hours on the door. CLOSED?! On a friggin’ Monday? What can nationalist socialist propaganda is that? We turned away from the door in disappointment only to be met, oddly enough, by a woman walking past who apparently works there. In a jovial manner, she told us to come back tomorrow. She tried to explain why a lot of museums are closed on Mondays (whoa, that’s a common thing?), but alas, it still baffles me. Monday seems like the perfect day to rock such a place. But then again, I’m not a doctor, so what do I know?Thus, Phil and I had a lot of time to kill on our hands, so we just started walking into random buildings and looking around in an attempt to kill time and to get out of the cold. Wait. I know what you’re thinking. Did we just come to the cities with no plan in mind? Do we just have to waste several hours until Andrew gets done job shadowing? Claro que no, Amy! I had talked to my awesome friend Laura the previous day, and we’d decided to rock some lunch together. Ergo, I was waiting until a more legit time to call her and get everything set up. After a fair bit of just literally and figuratively chilling around campus, I decided the time was right to make the call.

I whipped open my phone and started to take care of business. A clearly groggy person answered. Of course at this point it was like 11:18, so I should’ve known that I was going to interrupt her nap. One of the many things I love about that girl is that she gets up (while at home) at like 7 or 8, eats breakfast, perhaps reads a bit, and then usually takes a nap for a while. Reminds me of my younger years during summer when I would wake up at 6:30, watch some TV, and then just fall back asleep on the couch until whenever I pleased. Eventually, I figured out that it’s just easier to sleep in than mess with that, but that’s just me. Of course, these days I don’t even go to bed until like 2:30 or 3, so there a’int no way I could continue to rock that old habit. Moving on, we talked briefly before deciding to meet for lunch at about 1:00 somewhere on campus. Money.

Obviously, Phil and I still had a lot of time to waste then. A fair amount of time remained on our meter, so we just went walking. Soon enough we found ourselves at Coffman (the student union center deal thingy). Phil remembered that I needed to renew my U Card (student ID) due to some sort of stupid Carlson (business school) thing. Entonces, we decided to rock that.
We headed over to the office to get that all on lockdown. We entered and I walked up to some dude who looked quite reminiscent of one of the dudes who used to work in the Centennial dining hall last year. An Asian-ish fellow, with longish black hair, and a Hawaiian shirt. Hmm… perhaps he was Hawaiian. Meh, nonetheless he looked like he’d rather be smoking pot than helping me out. I interrupted his work of blacking out some words in random brochures to ask him about what I needed to do. Clearly, he was a busy man.He said that I could just go and talk to anyone of the three other people working RIGHT NEXT TO HIM to get my stuff done. I looked back at him questioningly. He had all the equipment and such in front of him that everyone else did, so I was a bit befuddled by this pot addict’s (alleged) desire to not do any work, so I re-asked the question.

Aaron: I can just go to anyone of them [looking at the three peeps next to him]?
Dude: Yep, any of them.
Aaron: [puzzled look on face] Uh-huh… thanks… [quick shake of head].
I moved four feet over to the friendly looking women who was SITTING RIGHT NEXT TO HIM to get my stuff done. She was wearing a Cru shirt, so she had to be legit. Well… unless it’s that one Cru girl, but that’s a long story, and don’t worry, Keith, I got you on that one! What am I talking about, you ask? Don’t worry about, it’s on lock. Apparently all I had to do was let her take my picture (yeah, that sounds weird, I know), she’d punch in all the specs, and I could leave with my new card. Money.I was a little worried about the fact that the camera might steal my soul, but I pushed through it and without giving a second thought to my appearance, I took a couple steps back and let her snap the photo. Mistake. Now let’s think about this for a second. I was wearing my big friggin’ blue parka and a brown hooded sweatshirt. So that’s a fail straight up as the hood looks ridiculous all tapered off awkwardly to the side. And since it was crazy-cold outside, I had had my hood up, so my hair was all messed (and not in that legit, nicely tussled way that it usually is :p but more so like grim death). AND my nose was red due to said cold as well. Of course I didn’t smile either as I usually don’t for official cards as they’re supposed to taken in a serious manner. All of this added up to a ridiculously stupid looking picture where I look like a complete tool.

This is in stark contrast to my original U Card where the pic I used was actually my senior picture. I mean, that was taken three years ago, so I look young as frigg in it, but at least I look good. *shakes head at the fail that this endeavor was* This picture might as well be a mugshot of an accused pedophile, it’s that bad. Ok, that’s a bit of an exaggeration, but point is, it’s not good.After finishing this process, Phil and I walked over to the Weisman Art Museum only to be find it to be closed as well. Friggin’ Mondays, so we headed back to the car on the other side of campus. We arrived back at the Corsica again with six minutes to spare. Money in the meter. Literally. After waiting for that to rundown, we decided to head over to Burger King to rep a quick sandwich as a basic pregame for our lunch with Laura as both of us we’re getting pretty hungry and it was a little after noon.

We parked ourselves and headed inside so we could each dominate a spicy chicken crisp. But before that could go down, awesomely enough while Phil and I stood in line some African American chap with approximately two teeth walked up to him and started talking.

Guy: [sounding quite hood] Hey, man, can you help a brother out?
Phil: What do you need?
Guy: I need $3.80 to get down to the impound to get my car.
Phil: How much do you need?
Guy: $3.80
Phil: [reaches into wallet, pulls out a 5, and hands it over] Here you go.
Guy: Thanks, man [puts out fist for to have it pounded in a salutation-esque manner]
Phil: [pounds fist]
That’s just tight. My man Phil helping a brother out. Who knew that Mr. Honzay was, in fact, black? But moving on back to the aforementioned spicy chicken crisp; now I’m not ready to say that it’s on the same level as a McDonald’s double cheeseburger, but those things are pretty darn good. And heck, for only dollar? I’m down. They’re pretty much disgusting, though, to think about eating. Not that any fast food isn’t, but anything with mayo in it just brings a disgusted look to my face for health reasons. Ugh, it’s just like pure fat… and mix that with lettuce and it’s just gross looking and feeling. Not to mention the innuendo with it. But whatevs, I demolished it.After we’d finished the consumption of said sandwiches, it was about 1:00, but we both knew that Laura wouldn’t be on time. This is due to the following logical thought. Now stay with me on this one:
If all girls are late (punctually, kiddies :p),
And Laura’s a girl
Then Laura will be late.
So we wandered around the area waiting for her to call. T’was actually 1:03 when she called me, though. Not too bad.
Aaron: What up, yo?
Laura: HE-llo (hello said with accent on the “he” portion)
Aaron: What’s up? Where you at?
Laura: We are just entering the campus area now.
Aaron: Sounds good. We are… [looks around] just outside Noodles & Co. right now.
Laura: Oh, are we eating there?
Aaron: [stumbles over words and apparently gives an affirmative response] Wait… who’s this “we” you speak of?
Laura: Heather’s with me.
Aaron: Yay! I get to meet Heather!
Laura: Yep.
Aaron: Cool, so we’ll meet you at Noodles in a few.
Laura and Aaron: [exchange peace-outs]

Phil and I weren’t entirely sure of how the timing would work for when they’d actually arrive at said restaurant, so we decided to rep up Golden Country, which is quite near to Noodles in an attempt to find Phil a stocking cap, or “hat,” if you will. We spent a few minutes there looking around and being BAFFLED by the absurd prices (which Phil was surprisingly really good at guessing) before Laura called me back.

Aaron: Yo yo yiggity yo.
Laura: Hey, what Noodles are you at?
Aaron: [confused look on face] The… one on Washington… by the Burger King…
Laura: Ok, because we’re actually there, but we don’t see you guys.
Aaron: Oh, well, we’re not there, but we’re like next door.
Laura: Ah, ok.
Aaron and Laura: [exchange see you shortly’s]

So my man Phil and I rolled out of Golden Country and back into the White Land o’ Death that is January Minnesota and over to Noodles. Following the theme that was this day, the door thwarted us briefly. Someone who was already inside finally opened it up for us. Briefly confused by the problem with said puerta, we turned to one of the employees of this establishment as he walked over to it. Turns out there was a zip-tie on it. What? Why the Smurf would one put a zip-tie on a door? Makes no sense, but meh, after that short confusement, we turned to try and find Laura and Heather. Of course, I had never met Heather before, so I had no idea what she looked like. Phil and I kept looking around but it was to no avail as I didn’t see Laura.At this point, a girl with FANTASTIC hair walked up to us and asked if I was Aaron. For some reason I was taken aback by this and wondered how this girl knew who I was before it hit me. This was Heather. We three were all shaking hands and exchanging pleasantries when Laura emerged from behind me. I smiled and gave her a hug. Fun.

We all moved up to the counter/cashier/place of ordering to… um… place our orders. I’d only eaten at this crazy place like once before so I had no idea what to get. I followed suit with Laura and Heather and procured for myself a small macaroni and cheese. Of course, Phil had to be different and order some Pad Thai. Crazy rebel :-)The four of us headed to the downstairs portion of the restaurant for to hang and wait for our food and, I suppose, to eventually consume said food. Everything seemed to be going quite well. Laura and I spent most of the time talking to each other, and Phil seemed to be rocking some solid convo with Heather. Of course, there was fantastic conversation all around as well. Soon enough, our food came and we started going to town on it.

Now back when I was in Spain, I was pretty much a champion eater. I ate a FRIGGIN’ lot. But it was all pretty clean. I ate a ton of fruit and vegetables along with main dishes that weren’t too bad in terms of health, so it was all good. But after getting back to ‘Sota I reverted back to not eating as much; thus my stomach wasn’t quite what it was a few months ago. I had an embarrassingly difficult time taking down that macaroni. It was no doubt the cheesiest thing I’d ever consumed. That was probably more of the issue than my apparent not being too hungry. It was friggin’ cheesier than an episode of Full House. Nonetheless, though, I eventually pounded it down like John Henry on a railroad spike.It wasn’t too long after this that Andrew texted Phil and told him that he needed to be picked up at like 3:00, so sadly we had to cut our awesome hanging out short to go pick up that whippersnapper.

We left Noodles & Co and stood outside to exchange our goodbyes when Phil suggested that perhaps we could all meet up again after we picked up Andrew. Laura said that they were just going to be at Espresso Expose down the block, so that could maybe work. Pleased with that possibility, Phil and I peaced-out and headed back to the Corsica which was still parked by Burger King. We talked about how remarkably well the whole thing had gone on our quest to Fame.

Now remember that foreshadowing from earlier? Yeah, turns out that Phil may not quite be ready for full-on cities driving as he almost blew a redlight right in front of a cop. Nice. That was one of three that ALMOST got ran by him that day. To be fair, though, in the cities the stoplights are about as hard to see as the point to Cloverfield is as they’re all off to the side… and well… just difficult to spot. Like the point to that horrid horrid movie. Ugh, what a piece of dribble that thing was. I mean, I’ve seen movies suck before but that movie just plain sucked. It was the suckiest bunch of suck that ever sucked. Seriously, what the smurf was that monster? A lizard? A spider? F’real, what in the name of cream on an ice cream sandwich was it? Some sort of hybrid? A spizzard, if you will? And that shaky camera work? Who you trying to be, J.J. Abrams? You got Muhammad Ali working that thing (too soon?)? How about you just stick to Alias, and we’ll call it good. Stay out movies. You suck.Wow, that was good to get out of my system. Gosh, what a terrible excuse for a film. Anyways, Phil and I found our same parking spot from before and headed for Fame. 15 minutes, baby. T’was much easier to get ourselves where we needed to be this time as we avoided that directional hazard of a building that we utilized poorly before. We got ourselves inside and did our best to make charming conversation with the secretary while we waited for Andrew to emerge. I must say, mission accomplish on that front :-) The crazy kid walked out relatively shortly after our arrival and we headed back out to the car.We told him what our plan was in going back to hang with Laura and Heather; he seemed to have no qualms about such a thing. We found the car without problem (obviously) and took a little peak at the meter. Long story short, let’s just say that once again, we had six minutes left. Score! However, this time we felt that we didn’t have much time to waste as we needed to go meet our peeps. Laura actually called me in our drive back to see if we were coming or not as they didn’t want to overstay at the coffee shop. I told her that we were, and that they should defs wait for us. Money.

A couple minutes later, we found ourselves in the Applebee’s parking lot across the street from the shoppe. There were still 13 minutes left on the meter from the last person. Crush! This time, both Phil and I contributed to machine. I don’t recall exactly how much we put in, but it was a fair amount. Not that that’s relevant at all… or is it? We’ll see…:p

We headed into Espresso Expose and picked up where we left off… except with Andrew this time. The kid busted out his sketch book and started going to town on making drawings and the like while Phil, Laura, Heather, and I continued rocking our conversation in a manner much akin to the way that we did it earlier. The whole thing seemed to go quite smooth and was definitely enjoyable before I eventually called my broheim and suitemate from last year, Geoff. I’d talked to him the previous day and said that we should hang. I’d actually almost forgotten until Laura reminded me while we were chilling. I told the kid that I could be at his place relatively shortly. Thus, we agreed to meet up, so it was time for this party to separate.

We all got up and walked out as Laura and I serenaded the whole place with “Walk Away” from High School Musical 3. Money. I’m sure everyone appreciated my awesome voice /sarcasm. No doubt they enjoyed hers, though, as she’s actually a pretty dece singer. The five of us stood outside in the same fashion as we had after leaving Noodles earlier and all exchanged hugs, handshakes, and such. At the end of it all, Laura and I resorted to the only thing we knew. We went back to singing “Walk Away” as we… well… walked away. What a fantastic and poignant to end that meeting. Sadly, with Laura’s going back to Spain and the crappy Minnesota winter weather, this was the last time that I’ll see her until she returns in May. Thus, making this singing thing even more legit :-)

And just to be clear on this, I know that this pic is from "Night to Remember," and not "Just Walk Away," so don't be trying to pull that on me :-)

We found ourselves back at Phil’s Corsica in short time. With much anticipation, we looked at the meter. 19 minutes left. Wait. 19?! That’s not 6 at all! Hold on, though… there were 13 minutes left on said meter from the last person who’d used it. Thus, we actually had 6 left from what we’d put in. Tight! How is that even possible? Skillz. That’s how it’s possible, my friends.

Just like the one-legged hitchhiker, we all hopped into the car and rolled off to Geoff’s place, which was conveniently was only a couple minute drive… in theory. We quickly found his Melrose apartment complex and searched for a place to park. T’wasn’t too difficult a find, however getting into the spot was a little tight… if you know what I mean. I mean, it was a small space for a car. Dirty minds. Phil tried to pull the ever dangerous parallel park on the first spot, but it was to no avail as it just wasn’t big enough. He pulled up to a different space to try the maneuver again. As the man cranked the wheel hard, Andrew noticed that there appeared to be a bit of smoke billowing out of the little Corsica. Oh snap. We abandoned this parallel parking idea and drove a small jaunt away to an area that was predominately free of cars. Phil made an easy park, and we got out to assess the situation. Now I’m not going to lie you, guys, I don’t know much about cars. Like, I know how the basics of what’s under the hood (ha!), how an engine works, and other remedial crap like that, but really I don’t know jack shiz, so I just kind of stood around and talked to Andrew while Phil took a look at the coche. He placed a couple phone calls, but obviously no one could really give him a legitimate assessment of what was wrong with his car.

Thus, I called my boy Geoff and we headed up into Melrose. The three of us took turns rocking the bathroom in the lobby area whilst waiting for my broheim to show. I was giving them a brief description of what to do when he popped up/what he looked like as I was about to enter the said place of excretion when the guy made himself known. Ergo, my peeing venture was going to have to wait a bit.

The four of us exchanged greetings and the like as we got into the elevator to go up to Geoff’s room. After arrival and ditching my shoes/coat/such, I mentioned the fact that I’d destroyed his toilet a few weeks prior as I wandered back over there again. This time, though, to merely damage it a bit. Always fun to tell people of your stealth poops taken in their room while they were sleeping J I returned shortly and chilling commenced. Just like Geoff and I used to do… except this time Phil and Andrew were with. Nice. And just like how we used to do all the time last year, it wasn’t long before the kid busted out the Guitar Hero for us to rock. World Tour, though, this time, mis amigos.

At this point, Phil decided it was best that he go and check on the car as the engine had probably had enough time to cool down for to give a solid lookover. He took my phone so he could call to Geoff to get back in and then headed out. In the downtime, Geoff, Andrew, and I started doing up the music playing simulation greatness that is Guitar Hero: World Tour. We didn’t do too well at first as I suck at drums and Andrew was a bit off on the bass. Of course Geoff was money, cuz frigg, he’s just money at said game.After doing up a couple songs, Phil called Geoff and told him to come help him get in. Geoff quickly changed the channel on the TV to what’s been aptly deemed as “stalker-vision” just to get a view of what was going on. Now this stalker-vision of which I speak is basically a closed circuit view of the cameras that film the foyer leading into the building, the game room, the weight room, and some other room. Yeah, a little creepy, not going to lie. “Ah, I see you!,” exclaimed Geoff as he and I turned to leave the room and get my bro.

Phil still didn’t really know what was up with the car, so we just went back to Guitar Hero while he took a nap on the couch. I mean, what the Smurf else were we going to do? Socialize? Nah, Guitar Hero AND socializing > just socializing. My bro was out for about twenty or so minutes before waking up just in time to see us fail out on a song at 99%. Yep, failed at 99%. It was me too that failed. The rhythm for the song had just been super-hard for me to get down. I had struggled to get it that far, but then at the end it just picked up too fast, and I couldn’t handle it. That’s not usually a problem with me, I swear! I can typically handle anything… wait, are we talking about here? Oh yeah, Guitar Hero…

Upon Phil’s waking, he decided that it was probably best that we roll out just in case someone did actually have to pick us up in the event that the car exploded and we somehow survived said event. So we suited up and headed out. I made sure to flash Geoff a couple signs from his and my weird/awesome sign language that we’d created the previous year whilst traveling through the foyer on our way out, but apparently there was no way he could’ve seen them as Andrew pointed out that the camera angle was being blocked by a pillar or something stupid like that when I was throwing the signs. Wow, I’m a tool. And frigg, on the off chance that anyone else was actually watching stalker-vision at that point, dang, I must’ve just looked like a complete d-bag.We got back to Phil’s car and started that hummer up. It seemed to be making a high-pitched wheezing sort of sound which intensified every time he turned the wheel. Of course, this isn’t even mentioning the smoke emanating from the car nor the weird smell. Nice. But since we three are bad bad men, we decided to basically ignore all these things like they were stoplights in Minneapolis (retroactive burn, Phil!).

We drove around for a while just to test the little beast out (while that little girl Andrew read Twilight), but we still had no real answer of what was wrong with it, several ideas but nothing solid, so we bounced back to small town Minnesota. There really didn’t seem to be any problems with the car outside of what was mentioned, so everything seemed decent. Except for the lights. They were ridiculously dim. And getting dimmer as we traveled on. Alternator, perhaps, thought Phil. Fantastic.

We braved the night, though, and eventually made it to a gas station in Norwood to clean them off. We weren’t entirely sure if the cleaning of them did it, or the fact that the car could’ve recharged a bit (that’s not the term, but whatever, screw cars), but they started to work much better after that (that‘s what happens when you change more than one variable, kiddies :p). And no doubt we had to stop at the McDonald’s in Norwood as long as we were there. I mean, how the crap else is one going to end our perfect day? Just like the bullfight, it had to be McDonald’s, son!

Although, it’s time to complain about this establishment for a bit, my friends. I’d read whilst in Spain that the company was thinking about taking the double cheeseburger off the dollar menu because they were apparently somehow losing money on it even though it was by FAR the most popular item in the place. At the time I had no access to said double cheeseburgers as they apparently don’t exist in Europe, so I just hoped for the best and discarded the information for the time. It had been a couple weeks prior (at the same McDonald’s, no less) when I learned that this craziness had in fact occurred.

Aaron: [goes up the register to order him some of the greatness] I’ll have two double cheeseburgers and a small drink .
Dude: You know the double cheeseburger’s no longer on the dollar menu. Do you want the McDouble? It’s the same, but it only has one piece of cheese.
Aaron: [looks up to the sky for some sort of a vindicator but finds found nothing. And of course by “sky” he means that he gandered at the menu dealy that hung high on the walls - it read Double Cheeseburger: $1.19]. What? What the hell are you talking about, kid? [shakes head] They said this would happen. My whole world is crumbling right now. Just like my dream.So yeah, they put this “McDouble” on the dollar menu in place of the classic double cheeseburger. Get the Smurf out of here, McDonald’s! How can you possibly lose money on that thing? And don’t even try to explain this to me in economic terms that make sense, because con-flabbit it doesn’t even matter. And Smurfed it the McDouble’s anywhere near the same as the double cheeseburger. “It’s the same, but it only has one piece of cheese.”?!?!?! IT’S NOT THE SAME! GET OUT OF MY RESTAURANT!!! I could’ve taken a double cheeseburger, thrown it in the air, and it would’ve turned into sunshine! The McDouble, while good, would do NO SUCH THING if tossed against the flow gravity! I want my own dream so bad I’m gonna scream! Sorry, another HSM reference, it just calms me down.

My apologies for my inability to smurfify this pic... Sort of...

But anyways, the three of us consumed our food and then rolled out. Lights working fine, we resumed rocking out to the radio, to quote Nickleback, “sing[ing] along with with every song we kn[o]w.” Wow, I’ve got some great citation skills. We got back to the Honzay house at a little after whatever time we got there, exchanged pleasantries/marveled at the ridonkulousness of the day, and called it a night.

Not going to lie, this was one of those days that people make films about or that somebody like me would blog about. THAT’S how amazing this day was. I wish I were a good enough writer to have you guys fully take the journey here with me on this, but trust me, this day was SICK. Not to mention the fact that Phil and I didn’t have to load pigs either! Wait… load pigs? That’s a story for another time… As Phil and I like to say, the universe had our backs on this day. Money in the bank, my dear reader/Amy, money in the bank.