On the trip from New York City back to North Carolina, I knew I was coming down with a bug of some kind. Joni got it too, we called it the ‘Holy Shit My Immune System Has Never Ridden The Subway Before’ cold. I’m a hard ass when it comes to driving, though, so I still drove most of the way home, but when we got to the North Carolina border I was getting too sleepy to drive at peak safety, so I handed off to Joni.
I can’t really sleep when other people are driving, though. I’ve driven way too much cross country to feel comfortable with someone else driving, so I kind of dozed back and forth a bit, and got some rest. I was looking over the expanse of the road, and the lush green that is the East Coast, and I was thinking about Denver, and how the red and black earth and the harsh blue sky was so different from all this green, when all the sudden Joni yelled “Shit!” and there was a huge, unhappy thump noise.
I sat up in my chair. “What the hell was that?” and Joni looked upset. “It was an owl or something, oh my god, it’s still flapping…”
Apparently this owl was sitting right on the side of the road, and about three feet before we got to it, it flew right into the grill of the mini-van. I can just see this bird going “I don’t want to live! Goodbye, cruel world!” and then picking the biggest mini-van it could find (which would be my behemoth), and leaping in front of it. There was nothing poor Joni could have done to stop in time for the poor owl. She was racked with guilt over hitting the bird.
However, the owl got it’s revenge. We may have shuffled his feathered booty off this mortal coil, but it broke the radiator, and the front panel of the van. It cost three hundred and sixteen dollars to fix, which we would have rather spent on other things. But we have to hide the fact that the van was broken from Joni, who was feeling guilty anyway, because she’d want to help pay for it. Joni’s an art student, and there’s no way we would let her pay for the van being fixed (it’s got almost 300,000 miles on it, something like a kamikaze owl was bound to happen sometime). So, it’s a good thing that she hasn’t asked about the van. I can see it now, the conversation would go something like this:
Joni: So, how’s the van doing?
Bippy: The van? What van?
Joni: The minivan? The one you’ve been driving since you were 15? The big blue frikken thing? That van.
Bippy: Oh, the van. THAT van. Well, ah, we didn’t want to tell you, but... ah...
Joni: What?
Bippy: The van ran away.
Joni: ...
Bippy: Yeah, you see, it ran away, and now, um, it’s gone to live on a farm somewhere.
Joni: You’re saying the van…
Bippy: Yes.
Joni: Ran away.
Bippy: It’s in a much happier place, though. It gets to frolic in the fields, and play with the other…um, runaway car animals at the farm. Thing. Yeah…
Joni: Have you started taking lots of drugs?
Bippy: No! No, no drugs.
Joni: Did someone steal it?
Bippy: No, it ran away, dammit! And it’s gone to live on a FARM, with the FLOWERS, and FROLIC, with the ANIMALS.
Joni: …
Bippy: And I’m NOT on drugs.
Joni: If I was there, I’d back away slowly now, but instead, I’m going to go back to work, okay?
Bippy: Joni, don't be afraid to show your greif, okay? Okay? Joni? Hey, where'd this dial tone come from?
Yeah, it would be JUST LIKE THAT. Or not.
