~blog#2~
After our delicious morning Turf n Surf, we checked under the engine again and saw more oil. Ian’s reminder to get the oil leak fixed, Flip’s friendly notification of our leak, and repeated sightings of this enemy of oil all rapped through our minds. It was time we tracked Hoe-Nay in for repairs. After a denial at one shop by some asshole attendant in La Jolla, a red headed teenager named Patrick who was heavy into the rave scene stepped forward to our aide. We followed his bumping 1990s white Volvo wagon into a Jiffy Lube.
Stepping out of his car he asked us, “you guys got any weed?” Our response of “no” didn’t seem to bother him. He turned to Giggles for question number two. “How about a razor?” This guy had objectives! As Giggles showed his discomfort with the idea, Patrick reached his hand over and rubbed the scruff on the face of poor Giggles, saying “guess not”. During his shock I found mine in my backpack and passed it over to him. “Gotta get the facial hairs I missed this morning before I go into work”. He smiled as he hacked away at the dry skin, and said, ”so you guys just bought this thing and are touring around in it?” We nodded, and saw his eyes get bigger. “Wow, I wish I could do that! My parents would kill me!”
“You can”, I replied with confidence. “You just have to believe in it and allow yourself the space to do it”. Patrick left with an interesting new mindset as we thanked him for his kindness.
John, the manager of the Jiffy Lube, greeted us with a bright SoCal smile. “We’ve got an oil leak coming from the oil filter area, and just need her fixed so we can get on our way for a cross country road trip”. John was engaged and showed real enthusiasm. We had instantly made a friend, and trust was established within me in those first few minutes. I’ve never met a mechanic that was so talkative, interested, and nice...
We watched in amazement as he started her up and proceeded the tedious task up an incline to get her into the port. I watched on nervously as he pulled Hoe-Nay in with only six inches between the walls of the shop and the RV on each side, and perhaps a 1.5 inches from the top and the ceiling of the building.
We waited while they worked, and I thought back to the night before; part of the story that still hasn’t been told.
It was dark, and we were lost, looking for our friend Christopher Von Clever(an old friend from college).
We thought we were back on track when we drove right past a parked cop car with only the running lights on. I nervously swallowed. “He didn’t see us. He didn’t see us. He was busy doing paper work. He didn’t see us” I was implementing Anthony Robbins’ “power of focus”. I would make this nonexistent problem disappear in no time. “He didn’t see us. He didn’t see us. He was busy doing paper work. He didn’t see us,” I kept saying to Giggles. “Don’t worry about it bro. We are good” replied Giggles. I kept driving, but as I looked up I saw the airport. “Clever doesn’t live near the airport???” I thought to myself in disbelief.
About three minutes later we reached a red light. I tried to focus on the scratchy music coming from the one blown speaker to my right, and the other half way working speaker with a loose wire to my left. Unfortunately the sound was on the undecipherable side of things and I had no choice but to look in the rear view mirror. With the dark night and the immensity of Hoe-Nay, only a partial silhouette of a vehicle behind us could be made out. I feared the worse. The light turned green and we pulled forward.
I tried to follow this one particular loop to the left. Clicking the blinker down, I noticed it wasn’t blinking! It was only solid green. So I clicked the lever up and down myself to create the action of a functioning blinker in case it was a cop. What a joke!
Ten seconds into the loop I hit the curb and sent Hoe-Nay shaking like a ship in a tempest. Then I saw red and blue lights piercing through the night. All the overhead bins were crashing open and closed loud as hammers to iron. Hoe-Nay was telling us that she was just as nervous as we were.
“Ah, fuck” I said. “Coppers are behind us”. We pulled over as I became super anxious...
Cop #1 of San Diego’s finest approached my side. “What are you guys doing?
“Crashing curbs and wrecking havoc across the country!” I thought to myself. “Well we just left my friends house and she had pointed out that our front light was out. So we are heading to fix that” I said in my most professional, respectful, and responsible tone possible.
“Where are you heading?”
“We are in route to our friends house, but first to get the light fixed” The story sounded horrible already, and completely made up. We looked like liars, and kind of were. Confusion kissed him about the front headlight.
“More than that is not working” he told us with a dose of mean that police have perfected. “You’re running lights are out as well as your blinkers”. Great, he didn’t even know about the front light! Spectacular job team! Way to give him another item to ding us on!
“Is this vehicle registered to you?” A question I was hoping to avoid since it wasn’t, and the explanation wasn’t so easy.
“No, it is registered to my friend Ian Denchasey”
“Why do you have it then?” he sternly said. How was I ever to be able to prove this? It was late at night. What if they didn’t answer their cell phones?
“He is my friend and let me borrow it. I can call him on his cell phone if you would like me to?” I had to fire from all pistons to thwart the evil doer copper from winning.
He ignored my plea. “Can I see the license and registration please?”
I nervously fumbled through all the papers within reach to try to find them. I can’t stand coppers, they evoke anxiety in me even when I don’t have anything to be worried about. His flashlight didn’t help me calm down one bit, as he made sure to penetrate my eyes and then hover the light around my hands to reveal that they were sparkling with finger nail polish! I searched through the same papers over and over. I didn’t know where anything was. All I could find were burning man tickets. That surely wouldn’t do! I frantically tried to hide them! I kept sifting, and eventually found the insurance. He told me to keep looking for the registration as he walked away. I took a deep breath in the absence of his intimidation devices and searched on. In a few more minutes I was relieved to find the registration.
Cop #1 had now returned, but on the other side of the RV. “The insurance card you handed me is expired. Can you step out of the vehicle please?” Expired insurance? This was not looking good. I glanced down before exiting the vehicle, to see that things were looking even worse. I was wearing none other than a long white cotton skirt full of flowers in various colors. I took a gulp in and realized there was nothing I could do at this point. If I went in the back of the RV to change, then the bad guys would think something was up, i.e. me trying to hide drugs, get a sub machine gun oozie, or duct tape a squealing abducted woman. I couldn’t chance that! So I decided to just jump into the lion’s den and hope for the best.
I literally hopped out of the RV and faced the officer. He sized me up immediately, head to barefoot sparkling painted toe nail. With a judgmental look of disapproval and a drill sergeant like tone he said, “Why are you wearing a dress?”
Ok, so how do I answer this one? Was there any way out? Could I say something witty and funny that wouldn’t aggravate him? I couldn’t think of anything. In a seconds time I said, “Why not.” My response was full of confidence with a sprinkle of defiance. He shook his head in shock and further disapproval. Score one for the good guys!
Unsatisfied with me, my appearance, my friends, my reasoning, and my life in general, he moved on to a series of other probing questions that will most likely bore you. He then proceeded to write me a ticket for (a) no running lights, (b) blinkers not working, (c) head light being out, and (d) no proof of insurance. My heart sank as I read the $1,200 fine. He then relieved us by saying they were all fix it tickets. I instantly moved my hands in and out of my chest with my elbows bent in a victory fashion, of which he was further agitated.
He then did what cops do, kept talking and playing God. We remained attentive to all he had to say to us after that. We had to appease him and act like we cared. When he was finished, he presented a look of accomplishment, feeling really great from teaching us valuable lessons of life. He had done his job of law enforcement and we were now better citizens after our encounter with him. It was all bull shit, but we played along with the game just as best as we could.
We were then free to go. “Thank you guys for your help” I said, which translates to “Thank you guys for wasting an hour of our time, for your judgements, for giving us multiple tickets, and for exhausting taxpayer dollars.” They smiled and wished us a good night. How nice of them I thought to myself as I put the ticket with all our mistakes in with the burning man tickets.
Giggles and I exchanged laughs over their silly misunderstanding nature. We then started her up, pulled forward, and focused on calming down in stride with the disappearance of the red and blues.
The whole replay of that situation came to a halting end when some mechanic guy came up to me. He had a list of things that needed to be serviced. “The engine is full of sludgy oil, which is really bad. What we can do for you today is flush your engine so that it will run better for your trip.” “Do you think that is necessary for us to be completely safe?” I asked. “Definitely. I highly recommend it for a cross country trip. You also are overdue to replace the rear differential, the blah blah blah, and the blah blah blah”. These guys are always like this, and I usually never trust any of them, but John was so friendly... So when you are ignorant when it comes to automobiles, what do you do? You drop you pants, bend over, and take what they have to give to you!
$400+ later, and at least an hour, we drove out of there. Oh, oh, but wait. John was so nice that he gave us a 10% discount! There tricks work every time. John pulled Hoe-Nay out of the port and hit the curb as he put her in park. He left the RV resting on the curb, hopped out, smiled, and handed us the keys. As we drove away I felt a nauseous. But on a positive note, I had more confidence with Hoe-Nay because she was now “safe” for the travels. She even felt like she was running smoother. I at least had to play it out like this in my head or I might have actually leaned over and thrown up on Giggles.
We were only on the road for five minutes before we made a stop to pick up stuffed monkeys at “Toys R Us”. As we walked back out to the RV we did the natural thing of looking at the pavement under the engine to see if she was still leaking. We were shocked! No way! There was green fluid and oil dripping into a puddle. A fucking puddle??? What the fuh?
We immediately called our new friend John with Jiffy Lube and he assured us it was ok, and to ignore it. “Should I check it in about an hour just to make sure since we are on our way to Arizona?” “No, don’t worry about it. It’s just overflow. You guys are good” he responded to me. Still playing the ignorant card, we listened to him. What else were we do to? He was the manager of an oil shop, and we were but simple travelers wanting to believe that all was well.
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