Take that, Chance, Sassy, and Shadow

If you know me, then you know how I feel about animals. If you are an exotic or wild animal, fine, you’re kinda cool. You can stay. But domestic animals? Gross. If I see you, I’m gonna have to get my Cruella on. Boy, was that woman misunderstood. Anyway, Even though I’m no fan of furry little creatures, I love me some animal movies. Dunston Checks In? Yes, please. Free Willy? Duh. Zeus and Roxanne? I think I’ll watch it twice. One of my other faves is Homeward Bound. For someone who has such a cold heart, I really give my tear ducts a workout during that shit. Can’t someone just help those damn animals get back home!? They’re out there getting assaulted by porcupines and rubbed up on by creepy old men in log cabins. Their journey home was, indeed, an arduous one with so many things standing in their way, BUT it has got NOTHING on my journey home yesterday…

Obstacle #1:
I had been in the DC/Baltimore area for the weekend visiting some of my peeps, and I decided to leave for home at around 11:45 AM for an ETA of 4:30PM. Fabulous. Before I left though, my dear friend and I decide to go to IHOP for breakfast! AWESOME! No, actually. Not awesome. While IHOP falls in my top two places in the universe, I forgot about the state that those damn short stacks put me in. After my pancake sessions, all I wanna do is roll home (literally roll, like log roll) and doze in and out of sleep for the next 4-6 hours while watching Unsolved Mysteries. Pancakes are essentially my Thanksgiving dinner. So after my last bite of pancake, I was ready for some bonding time with Fluffington (my son/pillow), until I realized that I had to spend the next 5 hours driving! Nooo! Anyone have any Jolt or speed I can borrow? Is Jolt even a thing? Are the kids still drinking that?

Obstacle #2:
RAIN. LOTS OF RAIN. Why, Zeus?? Pretty much right after I left, it started to down pour. When I’m driving long distances, I like to put that cruise control on, recline, file the nails a little, open up the People and catch up on some news, but when its raining, I’m forced to pay attention. Damn it to hell. So I spend about two hours trying not to drown on I-95, but then the rain just gets too heavy, so I decide to pull over for a few minutes and hope it lightens up. I stop at the next rest stop, which is the Fenimore Cooper rest area in NJ. Here is why Fenimore Cooper sucks- Roy Rogers. Rather, a LACK of Roy Rogers. The only time I will eat fried chicken is if it’s from RR and that is why I look forward to road trips. The only place to find a RR is at rest stops, and I pick the ONE in all of NJ that doesn’t have one! Crap, crap, crap. So I sat at a table for 10 minutes staring at this lady, and then the rain finally stopped. I also had to leave because Bobbarino was at home waiting for me to get back because I had the EZ pass and he was going to Albany last night. Sure, pops. I’ll rush home in inclement weather so that you can save $6.00 on the Throgs Neck Bridge. I walk out to my car, and there is a blind woman leaning against my car! Who is she and where did she come from? Why did she decide to rest herself upon my vehicle? I obviously have nothing against blind people, but my last two interactions with them led to me getting physically abused. Thaaaaats another blog. So I decided to wait it out. I spent about 45 seconds standing 3 feet away from this woman, facing her, hoping that she would feel my presence and relocate. At around second 46, a man came out carrying an ice cream cone and said, “okay, mom! Lets go!” WHAT?! You abandon your blind mother in a parking lot so you can go get some self-serve? Why is she not allowed inside? And I notice you have one cone in your hand. You didn’t even get a cone for your blind mother? I bet he didn’t even tell her he was getting ice cream. He didn’t want to pay for 2 cones. Grimy.

AND he got sprinkles.

Obstacle #3:
I’m back on the road, inching home, when I notice that I am in an exit only lane, heading to Perth Amboy. What the fuck is a Perth Amboy?? I still had about 100 miles to go until I got home, so I knew I had to get over. I go to merge, and this huge Huggies truck wouldn’t let me over! Not only did he not let me over, he pretty much drove me off the road. As I’m now veering toward this mysterious Perth Amboy, I look over and see those obnoxious Huggies babies on the side of the truck smiling and laughing at me. They were like the baby in Honey, I Blew up the Kid! I could see them thinking, “Have fun in Perth Amboy, bitch! Mwahahahaha.” Dumb babies. So I’m now somewhere in NJ, trying to get back to the highway, when I see a billboard for an outlet center. The picture on the billboard was someone in a Lacoste Shirt with Gucci sun-g’s. It was essentially me, except in a models body. And 25 feet tall. So I’m all like, you dumb babies, IM having the last laugh. As it turns out, they definitely did have the last laugh because I got lost trying to find the outlets and ended up at a meat distribution facility instead. Of course.

Obstacle #4:
Five and a half hours after my departure, I finally make it to the Belt parkway. For you non-New Yorkers, the Belt is a dumb, crowded parkway that goes from BK to LI, and still about an hour away from my house. I’m sitting in my car, and my eyes were getting a little watery. I was listening to Nas’ song “I Can”, and that song always gets me a little misty. So inspirational. So wise. As I’m about to wipe my eyes, I sneeze very hard. So hard, that MY RIGHT CONTACT POPS OUT! It was already lubed up and slippery from my tears, so that sneeze just propelled that sucker out. So to recap, it’s raining so hard my windshield wipers are basically useless, I’m on one on the craziest motorways in NY, and I’m trying not to get hit by the speeding motorist doing 85 on a windy, flooded, 2 lane road. And now, I can’t see out of the right eye. I didn’t see it on my shirt or on the wheel, so I assume it’s on the floor. I try to feel around for it with my toes. Contact, is that you? Oh, no. That’s an advil. Contact, is that you? Oh, no. That’s a braid that fell out of my hair days earlier. Contact, is that you? Oh, no. That’s a sneaker. *Note- I was not wearing sneakers that day. I almost give up and decide to pull over when I look down and see this.

My contact landed on my blue-raspberry Dum-Dum. For realskis? FOR REALSKIS??

So, at around 7PM, I make it home. I made it through the deadly rain, traffic, blind people, taunting babies, dashed polo shirt dreams, and artificial fruit-flavored seeing aids. Just like Shadow in Homeward Bound when he crawls out of the ditch and limps home to a welcoming family, I inch up my driveway and embrace Dar-Dar, who then tells me she can’t see the TV.