Adventures in Defcon -A melodramatic comedy -Chapter 2
Chapter 2: How I survived trying to get home from DEFCON
Monday morning...and by morning, I mean noon, I wake up in my comfortable hotel bed, take a nice stretch, then saunter to the bathroom to get ready. Defcon is over, and we're all feeling the weight of having to say goodbye for possibly another year, but at the same time very much ready to get to our homes and back to normal life. I slowly pack up my things and prepare for my 4 hour ride home. My friend calls me and suggest we caravan back to LA, so we came up with a meeting place and headed out on our journey. The majority of the ride was smooth. A breeze through the most of it. Couldn't be more perfect. We finally get to the California AG inspection stop and prepare to slow down. I push the clutch in to change gears. SNAP. The pedal is gone. I immediately veer to the shoulder and wave my friend over. I look down and the clutch is completely depressed. Not good. I pull it forward. It stays. Ok, maybe it will be fine. I press it again. SNAP. It goes all the way back again. I'm screwed. I get out of the car to inspect all around. There's a nice large puddle of fluid on the ground and quite a bit dripping from underbelly. Not good. I call for a tow, and for a million dollars later they say they'll be there in an hour. The sun has gone down and now we are stuck until the truck arrives. Luckily, the truck driver arrives and is cool as shit. He gets my car up on the flatbed and says I can go on without him. He'll make sure it gets to the right place. We continue on our journey and finally make it to Barstow. The half-way point. Yes. We're halfway there. We decide to stop for a bite through the drive through and then jump back on the highway. It was great. We exchanged stories of our Defcon adventures and then all of a sudden there it was. A sea of red. TRAFFIC. At 9:45? Really?! We move along at 1 mph when I look up and see my sweet car in front of me. We caught up to the tow truck. Ted, the driver, and I text back and forth about the fun of the traffic, but we eventually pass him in the left lane. We finally got through 5.5 miles of construction traffic that took over an hour and made it safely back to LALA land. My car made it to the doctor safely and I'll know soon just how sick she really is. I'm thankful to my friend that wanted to caravan, and now I'm going to cuddle with my four-four-legged children. Till next year, Defcon.
#quincy