The lame bunny ears around warm in the title should clue you in that this is going to be about my return to frighteningly chilly St. Louis after an all-too-short winter break in improbably warm southern California.
(The weather here has improved dramatically, as if right on cue, but it was pretty awful the day I got back)
Block 2 at the med school started on Tuesday. My flight left LAX at 11:40 am on Monday. My last view of Los Angeles was a gloriously sunny cityscape with the Westin hotel at the center. Which is why I smiled a wry smile 4 hours later when I collected my bag and exited St. Louis airport, and was greeted by a blast of very cold air. My trusty iPhone informed me it was 19 degrees.
A cheery good evening to you too, St. Louis.
Later that night, I hitched a ride with couple friends from my class to Walmart. You see, Walmart is our fairy Godmother here. We drive out there and get down on our knees to beg for groceries (mostly Totino's frozen pizza and Ramen). And we are rewarded admirably. So just as usual we stacked up on life-sustaining merchandise and came back.
So far so mundane. Here's the twist: our driver's car broke down. At 10 pm. Right outside my apartment. He came upstairs to help me unload my stuff, and when he went down again his car wouldn't start. Uh oh.
Now let me name some names here. Let's call my driver friend LY and my other friend SR (I use initials partly because I want to, and partly because I am sure they would be too embarrassed to be associated with this flimsy blog.).
There we were, LY and I, scratching our chins and staring accusingly at the car. We called up SR mostly for moral support. He came over and almost immediately said, "Hey why don't we push this car back to your apartment. You can wait till tomorrow morning to call tow service." There was silence for about 8 seconds. We frowned, looked at each other and after some thought, agreed.
Why the hell not?
One man in the driver's seat (to steer), two at the back of the car to push. 30 minutes, 2 stoplights, a lot of hysterical laughter, and one difficult right turn later, we reached the promised land.
Guess what I crossed off my bucket list that night?
(The weather here has improved dramatically, as if right on cue, but it was pretty awful the day I got back)
Block 2 at the med school started on Tuesday. My flight left LAX at 11:40 am on Monday. My last view of Los Angeles was a gloriously sunny cityscape with the Westin hotel at the center. Which is why I smiled a wry smile 4 hours later when I collected my bag and exited St. Louis airport, and was greeted by a blast of very cold air. My trusty iPhone informed me it was 19 degrees.
A cheery good evening to you too, St. Louis.
Later that night, I hitched a ride with couple friends from my class to Walmart. You see, Walmart is our fairy Godmother here. We drive out there and get down on our knees to beg for groceries (mostly Totino's frozen pizza and Ramen). And we are rewarded admirably. So just as usual we stacked up on life-sustaining merchandise and came back.
So far so mundane. Here's the twist: our driver's car broke down. At 10 pm. Right outside my apartment. He came upstairs to help me unload my stuff, and when he went down again his car wouldn't start. Uh oh.
Now let me name some names here. Let's call my driver friend LY and my other friend SR (I use initials partly because I want to, and partly because I am sure they would be too embarrassed to be associated with this flimsy blog.).
There we were, LY and I, scratching our chins and staring accusingly at the car. We called up SR mostly for moral support. He came over and almost immediately said, "Hey why don't we push this car back to your apartment. You can wait till tomorrow morning to call tow service." There was silence for about 8 seconds. We frowned, looked at each other and after some thought, agreed.
Why the hell not?
One man in the driver's seat (to steer), two at the back of the car to push. 30 minutes, 2 stoplights, a lot of hysterical laughter, and one difficult right turn later, we reached the promised land.
Guess what I crossed off my bucket list that night?
I love your writing style, TP. Big fan, biiig fan. Its very entertaining and very personal - I feel like I wrote it myself b/c its so clear to imagine myself there, AND I don't get that weird feeling you get when you read your own journals. Win-Win.
ReplyDeleteo thank you. appreciate it.
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