milkshakes, hair buns, and karma

so college was rough. i won't really get into the whole nitty gritty of the whole mess, just trust me on this one. and even though i see myself as just barely surviving college and managing to get out with wounds that have since scarred over, there is at least one thing that i found in college that makes the entire experience (at least the first 2.5 years) completely worth the trauma and messes of my own making. her name is caron. and by some miracle direct from God, we have managed to stay friends for the last several years with only a few, brief weekends together scattered throughout. i love this girl.

however...when caron and i are together, we seem to create a magnet for disaster (this is usually a pretty big magnet). luckily, we both have an outstanding sense of humor (thank you very much), so a mess turns into a story (that's what this is) and frustration changes to falling into a heap in the middle of nowhere (ie: cedarville university) and laughing until you think you might pass out from lack of oxygen. it's usually that awesome.

so, it was a week night and we were studying like good little college girls (happy, dad?) and when there was studying, a break inevitably followed, and usually this break required chocolate of some variety. this night was no exception...except (haha)...that we decided a milkshake was in order. and since our college was located in a remote cornfield in the south western part of ohio (no one lives in ohio on purpose...it just kind of happens to you), we had to drive a minimum of 25 minutes to get to the closest milkshake. but chocolate is worth driving that far and then some, so it wasn't really a deterrent at the time. so caron and i hopped in my car and off we went. we had a good couple of hours before curfew -- plenty of time(yes, there was a curfew. yes, it did suck. no, i didn't sneak around curfew--usually. (i swear, mom)).

just for the record -- as we were driving through the back-country-corn-lined-desolate-murder's -best-friend roads of ohio, i told caron that we needed to get gas before we came back. (i told her--therefore, it becomes her responsibility to remind me to put gas in the tank. her job. not my fault. her fault.) betcha can't guess where this is going...

so we get to steak 'n' shake, get our delicious, well-worth -the-25 minute-drive milkshakes, and chill out for a little while. and, it must have been "bun night" there, because everyone and their brother had a bun on their head (not the bread bun, the hair roll bun...tracking now? yeah.) and, being the person that my mother raised me to be (maybe in spite of how my mother raised me...yeah, that's probably closer to reality.), caron and i had to sit there and poke fun of all the people with buns on their heads. it was entertaining. so entertaining, in fact, that we just hopped right back in my car and zipped on our way home so as not to miss curfew (cause we were such good little christian college students and not at all influenced by the $15 fine for being late) without a thought about my nearly empty gas tank. make that my completely empty gas tank.

we must have been running on fumes at that point, because right about the time we made one more turn into the depths of corn and side-road ditches, my gas pedal stopped working. and we were confused. that's how distracted we were about the hair buns. so i turned to caron and said something stupid, like, "hey, my gas pedal isn't working. weird." it took us about 10 seconds of coasting to a stop to realize just how dumb we were (or caron was, because it was her fault. i told her we needed gas.) i think that is what people might call karma. because you shouldn't make fun of people wearing buns in their hair, or even whole groups of people wearing buns and drinking milkshakes all together. it's not nice. and then you run out of gas in the middle of corn hell.

so there we were. crap. and being the strong, independent women that we were, we decided to call a boy for help (never mind that he was cute and i might have been slightly stalking him for the better part of the year). slight problem: we had no idea what road we were on. and finding out what road required actually getting out of the car in the middle of the now-pitch-black-back-country-corn-lined-desolate-murder's -best-friend roads of ohio. we needed a weapon, just in case we stumbled upon one of those corn hell murders, ya know. the logical choice for a weapon was the ice scraper. those bristles were pretty rough, and i was pretty sure i could leave a decent scratch on a murderer. unfortunately for caron, there was only one. so, she got the little scraper that was left over (if you can't remember to tell your friend to put gas in the tank, which is your job, then all you get is a 6 inch piece of plastic to defend yourself against murderers hiding in the corn. sorry. next time, you'll remember your job. (love you, caron!)).

armed with our ice scrapers we started to walk back towards the last turn to find the street sign so that the boy could actually find us and rescue us. we got within about 10 feet of the sign---our saving grace---when the murderer jumped out from behind the barn and ran at break-neck speed straight at us. and by murderer, i mean horse. now, it was really dark and creepy and quiet and scary in the middle of corn fields in the middle of the night, so it's not caron's fault that she dropped her 6 inch piece of plastic, screamed, turned around, and ran down the middle of the road....and then tripped over her own shoe and crumpled to the pavement...about 2 feet from where she started (this is one reason why i love caron. she can fall over anything, anywhere, anytime. (including the bushes outside of history lecture in front of pretty much every freshman college student. picture legs flailing, book bag flying through the air, bushes getting squashed. it was awesome.)).

so...caron was in the middle of the road, in a pile, without her weapon, with a murderer horse staring her down from behind his fence. so i did what any friend would do after her friend had a traumatic brush with a murderer horse--i laughed my ass off (sorry mom!). i laughed so hard that i had to join caron in her pile in the middle of the road. and there we sat for a good 10 minutes before we managed to crawl back to my car.

and then the cop showed up. and being the ever-helpful cop-type person that he was, he asked us if we were okay, nodded his head, and then left. awesome. so glad i pay taxes.

so, we waited for the boy to show up (which took close to a year, i think). and while we waited we sang songs. seriously. (hey, we went to a christian college in the middle of corn hell. entertainment was scarce. we made our own. no alcohol needed.) so we sang and waited and laughed about the hair buns some more (we didn't learn very quickly).

the boy finally showed up with approximately 1.2 gallons of gas and dumped it in the tank. and---the car didn't start. shocking, with that much gas?! really?! (did i mention that we might have shoved my car part way into a ditch in an effort to get it out of the middle of the road? and it might have been slightly nose-down into the ditch? hey--those back-country-corn-lined-desolate-murder's -best-friend roads of ohio can get busy at night, and i didn't want to take any chances *self-deprecating smirk*). so, now we had the boy and the gas, but not enough gas to actually reach the part of the car it needed to in order for the car to start and take us safely away from the murderer horse. bummer.

right about then God must have forgiven us for the hair bun jokes, cause a truck -- a tow truck, complete with two hillbillies and a hill-jack -- stopped and yanked my car out of the ditch and back on the road. and then the 1.2 gallons of gas was just enough to get us back to the closest gas station (back where the milkshakes were; the place where caron didn't do her job and got us into the mess in the first place (love you, caron!)).

and then we drove back to campus...three hours late for curfew (and with another reason to talk to the cute boy that i wasn't really stalking). but, that milkshake was totally worth it. pretty sure i would do it again if i got a milkshake out of it (and maybe a good hair bun joke or two).