This time the juju object was very clear – it was this ugly beast (and don’t you dare say
“but the truck it’s leaning on looks just fine…”):
That, dear friends, is our U-Haul truck that we drove
from Arizona to Chicago – and the juju object is that horrible auto transport
trailer attached to the back of it.
Husband is terrified of my driving. I don’t think it’s warranted, but every time
I drive over a curb when he’s in the car I have to concede he kind of has a
point. He was okay letting me drive the
truck – he made me the night driver! – but he kept cringing and gasping and
offering helpful pointers and advice and by the time we pulled into Chicago I
swore that if I could just navigate the damn truck to our hotel destination without
crashing then I would get Shut The Hell Up About My Driving (STHUAMD) rights
for the rest of my life.
That oath was my downfall.
I swore that oath in my own head just as we were turning
from the 55 onto the 94, which during nighttime rush hour was nothing less than
an overwhelmingly congested evil many-laned Cerberus nightmarish unholy beast of
a feat to attempt in a U-Haul the size of Texas. I had to get over two lanes in about a block and NO ONE was letting me in because
Chicago drivers are all (excuse my language) total assholes.
But out of nowhere, some angel decided to pause and let
me in. He waved, I waved, and I started
to merge.
And then the bad juju exploded.
See, when that gentleman got to telling us the story
later, he explained that he had thought our auto transport trailer with our car
on it was just another sneaky Chicago driver trying to get in behind our
U-Haul. So what does my angel do? He jumps forward to try and cut off the other
car. The other car which is attached to
my truck.
All I know is I’m going along just fine and then all of a
sudden that car is way too close and
then there’s a screech and a thunk as the trailer and his bumper collide.
Simple as that, in a span of seconds, away flew all my STHUAMD
rights. Evaporated. Forever.
And I still had to figure out
a way to get back across three lanes just to get off the damn
freeway and exchange information.
So after a lot of merging and getting shunted to other
freeways and off ramps and neighborhood driving trying to find a spot big
enough to pull over our four-axle cruise liner, we finally managed to stop and
get things squared away (with a sprinkle of good juju, because his bumper was
scraped up a little but our trailer was fine and we had damage coverage anyway
even though we never buy damage coverage or insurance or warranties for
anything in our blessed lives). And then
there we were, stranded in the dark in a strange city in a strange neighborhood
about which we knew absolutely nothing.
We didn’t know what the hell to do. We just turned right and right and right (and
maybe right and right again, for all I remember) – and then the juju
rollercoaster hit a new high. Within a
single nerve-wracking minute, there loomed a sign – for the 94 heading north! Seriously, if you’d seen all the damn turns I
had to make to get off that damn
freeway, you’d be way more impressed.
Imagine we were in Wonderland or the Labyrinth or something. It was like that.
Anyway, a few miles later we came to our exit… and the
juju coaster plummeted again when we failed to locate our hotel. I had thought the directions I had memorized would
be easy (ha!) and instead we circled forever through a maze of one-lane tiny
neighborhood roads searching fruitlessly for the damn place. We eventually pulled over and the husband excavated
his iTouch only to relearn that its battery was dead, and then booted up the
laptop but found only poorly-named secured wireless networks in that
isolationist little yuppie backwater neighborhood in which we found ourselves.
So I called my sister to beg for internet help – and gave
her the wrong hotel name because they
all sound the same to me and I was being an idiot. And
still she managed to interpret my idiocy and sent some good juju our way in
the form of accurate directions to our hotel, which was apparently only two
short blocks away.
As we pulled into the hotel parking lot all full of
jubilant relief at the realization that our horrible post-car-accident trauma
was finally over, we caught sight of a Chipotle across the street. Dinner secured! The good juju meter was off the charts by now.
So we checked in and got back in the truck to re-park
around the back of the hotel, got out all our belongings including our stuffed
animals and overnight bags and musical instruments and potted plants (so that
they all wouldn’t freeze in the car), and got to the door – and the juju flat-lined
again when the husband started searching for our room keys.
For ten minutes we sat there rooting through all our
stuff out in the cold trying to find those keys which we’d just been given mere
moments before. Nothing. Finally some lovely ladies showed up and let
us into the building, but that still couldn’t get us into our room which stood
so agonizingly nearby around the corner behind the first door on the right.
Husband finally gave up and bade me wait with the stuff
while he went off to get a new room key from the front desk. He was gone awhile, and I got bored and
wandered over to the door to our room…
…And found it ajar.
I was already unpacked and watching TV by the time he
showed up again.
