Saturday, August 23rd was George Chorvat’s birthday, so Natalie and I took a little road trip up to his and Vicki’s Poplar Grove lakehouse to partake in the festivities. It was a day full of sunshine, clear water, alcohol, good eats, smokey treats, and a 40-foot bonfire. I believe we also listened to an entire Metallica record.
Also, I have never had so many wasted moms feed me campfire food, tell me crazy stories, and ask me if I have pot. But more on that later.
As soon as Nat and I arrived, we went out on George’s boat for some water sports.
From left: George’s neighbor, Mikey Likey, Mike’s cousin, and brother-in-law.
Jason and Scott
George is basically the most bad ass 60-something-year-old man. Everyone hopes they’ll be as ripped and in shape as he is when they’re that age.
Mike lubing up his feet
My and Natalie’s butts
We decided to tandem-tube a few times. It was pretty much amazing. My body still aches from holding on for dear life. If I were white my knees would be bruised like crazy!
She also went out by herself and dualed with the boys. I personally didn’t want to further compromise my hair since Danny failed to bring us a flat iron.
She kicked their asses! Undefeated. Her leg bruises tell the story. Mike’s cousin and Natalie
Natalie vs. Danny
DDub also did some water skiing and rocked it.
And solo tubing.
..
“To avoid death…” “This is not a floatation device!” Wow.
We’re so sweet.
They’re basically the same person.
Miller Lite needs to pay their beer spokesmodels [and photog]!
Gunning it.
Melting pot of legs
Sknny btch
Sknny btchs
Windblown
Chillin.
They almost flipped but didn’t.
Anyhow, after all the xtreme water sportz, we devoured a platter of cheese and veggies then had a fantastic dinner. We were having dessert when the doorbell rang and about 20 of George and Vicki’s neighbors came pouring in with a candlelit cake and sang happy birthday. It was so cute!
The little girl in the pink’s name is Morgan, 7 years old. Later when we went across the street to join the neighbors’ backyard party, she told Natalie and I tons of stories of her breaking bones, splitting her head open, etc. Both her parents are medical professionals, so she is lucky, but pretty knowledgeable. She said to her mom [in the black], “You got your tubes tied!” Too cute.
The candle was a question mark.
The lady in the straw hat and peach-orange colored shirt was WAAAASTED later that night. When Nat, Mike, Danny, Mike’s cousin and whoever else were standing around chatting, she’d come barge in, give us a hurricane of a story, and leave just as fast. Stories about how they’re signing petitions to stop her 7-year-old son from being a boat spotter, stories about her ex-husbands and how at 35 she became impregnated by her 28-year-old boyfriend. She was also a pot FIEND.
After George and Vicki’s friends left, we finished eating and headed across the street. The parents played bags and drank, we younger folk drank and drank.
At one point, Straw Hat Peach Wasted Mom was telling us how her son only liked certain kinds of fish and she’d lie to him to get him to eat it and tell him it was his favorite kind. “Just tell ‘im they’re walleye fish sticks!” Her son was standing right next to her, roasting marshmallows, looking at her, and taking mental notes.
We were sitting in chairs around the fire and she was talkingtalkingtalking and we were all like…uh. Danny saved the day when he fell asleep for a moment and dropped his beer. That was her cue to exit. Dan sat up, looked at me and Nat, said, “What the HELL just happened.” and got up and walked away to find more brush to feed the fire.
He would later fall asleep instantaneously sitting up in the kitchen midway through singing a song, and again in a recliner. It was something else getting him up out of that chair so we could walk home, “…sorry, ‘leepin’!” he’d say. We eventually roused him cause I would feel so bad if he woke the next day in an unfamiliar hick house.
The fire. The fire was ridiculous. I’ll call the house owner Ron cause I don’t remember his name. He’s the man in the red shirt and Cubs hat above. He went CRAZY, throwing a gallon of gasoline on the fire to make it flare up. He threw in buckets of oil, everything flammable. He was also wasted as shit and kept feeding us shots in the house.
There’s Ron again, standing next to his 40-foot high bonfire. Insanity.
At one point near the end of the night, basically everything in the yard went in. The citronella mosquito repellant torch things, people’s poking/marshamallow roasting sticks….a PLASTIC YARD CHAIR that was perfectly good….an ENTIRE wooden swing bench…. Wow. Just wow.
Here’s a short video of the flames. They were mesmerizing. I think in the background Mike’s talking about how Danny passed out sitting up in the kitchen chair again.
Great times. And thanks to Goomba for inviting us.
I don’t know, maybe the same thing that’s strange about THIS photo on the right?
I mean, I understand lighting can affect overall skin tone.
I personally like my skin tone best on Sararrr’s camera.
But damn, L’Oreal! AND damn In Style! I know both those women aren’t particularly dark, but their respective likenesses have been altered a little too much for my liking. We all know Beyonce’s had rhinoplasty, but that is obviously not her real face in that advertisement. And Rihanna is a gorgeous black woman but on the In Style cover, barring her nose shape, she could certainly, ahem, “pass.”
Speaking of nose shape.
I guess I’m not mad at them, considering their attractiveness, but still. Damn. Where does it end? Of course, something else could be said about people with extensions, colored contacts, and the like (ahem..), but I don’t know. I still think overt airbrushing to make one look “more white” is lame. I also think people saying, “I would NEVER have plastic surgery!” (ahem, Halle) but OBVIOUSLY having work done is LAME. Why even deny it when it’s so obvious?
One evening, in the late summer, after an exhausting day at work, I was more than ready to get home, relax and have a drink. Well, it wasn’t really exhausting, per se, because it was literally only four hours of working. But putting up with the intense sports fans for the Chivas vs. Barcelona World Cup soccer game was enough, and I was eager to head out. Plus, I had been at the Beers of the World bar and had a serious craving for a brew.
I dropped off my deposit, left the building and walked toward the bus stop. Working there is easy, but getting there was a pain in the ass! The designated parking area for employees is over a mile from the stadium, and you have to pay up to $15 and take a shuttle just to get to the entrance gates. Pay to go to work? No thanks. I park my car somewhere along Roosevelt near UIC and take the 12 all the way down to McFetridge Lane, and it stops right in front of the stadium.
As I approached my car, a bum-looking man in a white t-shirt and an overexaggerated swagger started talking to me. I quickened my pace and took my keys out of my purse, ready to unlock the passenger’s side door.
1, my quasi power locks were key-operated. A button on the inside automatically controlled the locks, but I didn’t have a keyring button to push from the outside. 2, the driver’s side lock didn’t work. 3, the passenger’s side door handle didn’t work. In fact, it would come completely off. Therefore, 4, I would have to unlock my car on the passenger’s side with the key, enter my car on the driver’s side, and then open the passenger’s side door from the inside if I happen to have a passenger. Fun times!
So I went to unlock the vehicle as the bum was babbling. The alarm disabled. My key turned all the way around. And around, and around and around. And the lock wasn’t going up. Hm, I thought, as the bum continued on his way and told me to have a good night and God bless.
I sat down on the conveniently raised curb on a curb and twirled my key around. And then I stared at the door, with all four locks down, stubbornly, securely in place. Doing their job. Doing what I told them to do. I twirled the key five more times.
I stared some more. It was the typical reaction one gives when they realize they’ve been locked out of their car/home/wherever. You stare at the door, as though staring at it will magically cause whatever is closed to open. This is corroborated by Augusten Burroughs in the book I’m reading. I wished for a few fleeting moments that I was Matilda from Roald Dahl’s book. She could move things with her mind. Sadly, my brain-powered-energy-channeling wasn’t quite up to par yet.
There is never a time when you feel more alone than when you’re locked out of your car and don’t know who to call. That’s another thing I hate about the suburbs. They have almost all of my friends. And the ones who do live in the city were either a) in the suburbs, b) probably asleep after returning from a vacation, c) hanging out and having drinks around town, or d) sleeping because it was Sunday night and it was back to work in the morning.
I started going through a possible list of people that weren’t in any of the above categories. It was then that I started feeling sorry, instead of glad, that I had recently downsized on my “circle of trust.” Where was Batman when I needed him? I wasn’t that far from his penthouse, right?
After feeling sorry for myself and alone came the anger.
The five stages of being locked out are:
Shock Denial Derelictness Anger Acceptance
Once you reach the acceptance stage, you start taking actual action instead of mentally berating yourself for being so stupid as to lock your doors. Usually, such self-condemnations begin with curses. Fuck, why didn’t I leave the window cracked? Last week the back window was open a half inch for three days! Or Damn, why did I turn the key so hard? If that bum hadn’t been talking to me I wouldn’t have twisted the lock so ardently. Or Shit, I should have known that the other lock was going to blow out. Why didn’t I foresee the future?
Futile.
Getting over it and finding this situation to be more comical and typical of my life, I flipped out my phone and wrote: “Hypothetically, what would you do if not one but both the locks on your pos car’s doors just stopped working and your car was parked about 4 miles from home?” I sent it to Jaley, Natalie, Shane, and Angelique, all of whom I knew probably couldn’t physically help me (because they fit into one of the above categories), but could maybe give me some sound advice. I also sent it to one of my roommates and a couple others who never responded (thanks, guys!).
“pos?” Jaley asked.
“oh, sorry, piece of shit. ”
Natalie asked if this was real. Yes, yes, it was. “So can you not get in/lock it or are you worried about it getting stolen?” Pathetically, the former. And I had the fucking key in my hand!
“Call the police to jimmy it,” was Jaley’s suggestion.
“You can call AAA or a tow company to try to jimmy the lock. Or try going through the trunk. Or breaking a small window in the back. Or if you see a cop ask him for help. Or get a boat hangar/thin stiff object to wedge in the window and pull the knob/push the unlock button,” Natalie told me.
Shane called me. I told him. He immediately started looking up ways to break into a car.
After the responses, I didn’t feel so alone. I just didn’t know what to do; all I had was my “saddlebag” purse with a bunch of useless objects and my Augusten Burroughs memoir. I twirled the locks on both sides multiple times.
The locks came out in my hands.
Car door locks aren’t supposed to come out of a car. Sure, it was 11 years old. But that’s no excuse. What happened to fantastic German engineering, huh, Volkswagen? These little metal pieces aren’t supposed to be crumbling in my hand. I’m not supposed to be able to take out these little teeth-looking bits. This rubber ring thing isn’t supposed to peel off.
I called 311. “City of Chicago,” the voice answered. I was familiar with the voice. This was the voice I called whenever my car was towed and I had to locate it.
“I’m locked out of my car but I have my keys but the locks are broken can someone help?”
She transferred me to non-emergency police.
“Non-emergency police, this is Miss Jackson.”
I resisted the very strong urge to say, “Forever? Forever-ever? Forever-ever?” This woman could be my savior and I didn’t want to blow it.
“I’m locked out of my car but I have my keys but the locks are broken can someone help?” I said again.
“Wait, what’s that? You’re locked out? Are you in a safe place?”
Her comforting tone almost made my lip quiver, voice waver, and a tear form on the surface of my contact. She had a voice that I could hear saying, “Oh, sweet, honey chile. Come rest yo’ head on mama’s bosom, mama knows.”
But she didn’t, and I didn’t.
And then Miss Jackson said, “Well, the police don’t do that anymore, I’m sorry. The Chicago police don’t open locked car doors,” she said again. “You can call a locksmith, or your insurance company, or…” I stopped listening, and remembered again why I hate the City of Chicago. They ticket you on the basis of lies, tow your car, make you buy ugly window stickers that never come off once a year, and make your chances of finding legal parking close to zero. They’re everywhere with their damn ticket pads at 7:02 a.m., but then when you need help, poof!
As I hung up, a new text came in. Andrea. “I come to u?”
“Yeah, can you? And maybe bring like a wire hanger or two I’m on roosevelt just before blue island”
“No problem, leaving here soon”
I spoke to Shane again. He had been watching some videos on Youtube demonstrating how to break into a car. He suggested using a ruler as one technique. Or, I could wedge a wooden doorstop in the top part of my door, pry it open, and insert something to reach the lock stub. By this point, I was considering using a rock on the windshield.
Quickly, before I did something rash in a fit of madness, I texted Andrea to ask if she could acquire a ruler and/or doorstop wherever she was.
In the meantime, I called my insurance company. Of course they weren’t open at 9:30 p.m. on a Sunday, but they didn’t even leave a phone number to call in case of an emergency. Good to know! I’m sorry, but after an accident, that “is NOT the time to wish I had [the number to my] insurance,” a la the Allstate commercials narrated by President David Palmer–I mean, Dennis Haybert.
I listened to the message twice, in both English and Spanish. As if listening to that was going to help me.
I dialed 1 800 Free 411, trying to keep the costs of this predicament as low as possible, and hoping I could maybe get in touch with the main insurance corporation instead of just the little office on Ashland Ave.
“What city and state? Or, you can say, ‘toll free,’” came the automated voice.
“Toll free,” I said.
“Excuse me?” She asked. I repeated myself. She asked again.
“Toll fucking free.”
“Okay, what listing?”
“American Service Insurance.”
“American Cancer Society?”
“American Service Insurance.”
“American Capital Strategies?”
“American Fucking Service Insurance.”
“American Founding?”
I hung up.
Then I remembered that T-Mobile has a roadside assistance service. I asked Shane to log into my account and see if it was part of the plan that reamed me every month ($60-80, even though I use, oh, 300 of my 1000 minutes a month plan, and I technically am on their lowest, $39.99/month [plus an unlimited text package]. How do they do that?).
While he searched, I “dialed 611 from my mobile phone,” and thankfully the fembot understood my request.
“Good evening, how may I help you?” Finally, a human being. I told him what was up. “Okay, I’d be glad to assist. What’s your mobile phone number? And first and last name?” After pronouncing and re-pronouncing my last name for him, the dispatcher put me on hold. “Sorry about the wait,” he said. “Are you in a safe place?”
“Uh, I guess. I mean, I have my trusty paperback and a pair of tweezers to fend off any deviants.”
“Haha, okay, well, we’re not showing that you have the roadside assistance package. We can do one of two things–call T-Mobile and have them and you on the line to show that you have it, or we can send someone out and just have it be a customer-cost service.”
“Well, if it’s not showing up, I probably don’t have it. How much would this customer-cost be?”
“Anywhere from $35-50.”
“Welp, my roommate’s coming with a ruler, so I’ll just wait this one out and call back if I need you. Kthxbye.”
Maybe I can just leave the car here tonight and come back tomorrow with someone if this doesn’t work out, I thought. But no, I need my computer out of the trunk. And my bowl’s in there. Too bad the lock on the trunk doesn’t work and I have to push the button inside the car to get it open. But what if I never get inside my car again? Maybe I should take everything out of my trunk in the event that that button stops working. But then again, it’s only crap in there that I’ve been hauling around the last five years.
At that moment, all I wanted to do was be inside my car, even though it probably smelled like a mixture of shoes and a Yankee Candle tangerine/cranberry air freshener. I walked to a nearby bench, read half a chapter of Possible Side Effects and waited for Andrea to call. She did as she pulled up with her girlfriend. Hopping out of the car with her cheery greeting, I knew everything would be a-okay.
“Hi love!” She and Heidi excitedly presented to me a cute, yellow 12-inch Barbie ruler. I smiled as I read along the bottom:
Cheesy. But cute.
Within 20 seconds, I was in my car and on the way home after a round of hugs and cheers on the side of the road.
After calling the police, my cell phone provider, and Free 411, who would have ever guessed that Barbie would come to the rescue? Of course, thanks to my lovely roommate.
When I got my car and the incident happened, I could have easily just called Andrea, sat on the bench, read, and went on home without the crazy what ifs and numerous phone calls. But as Hitchcock said, “What is drama, after all, but life with the dull bits cut out?”
I concur. And the next morning, I immediately looked up automotive locksmiths.
I was just being melodramatic. Especially after this past weekend, I’ve come to realize that the small circle of people I love most in the world live scattered about suburbia, and they alone are more than enough to cancel out the rest of the crazy yup-yups.
The lady in the straw hat and peach-orange colored shirt was WAAAASTED later that night. When Nat, Mike, Danny, Mike’s cousin and whoever else were standing around chatting, she’d come barge in, give us a hurricane of a story, and leave just as fast. Stories about how they’re signing petitions to stop her 7-year-old son from being a boat spotter, stories about her ex-husbands and how at 35 she became impregnated by her 28-year-old boyfriend. She was also a pot FIEND.
