Walk this Plank, Talk this Plank

Predator Press

[LOBO]

Two days ago, I totaled my first car.

See, here in Illinois it's like 70 degrees, and for January that's pretty damn freakishly weird.

But last September you were telling me I was a fool ejecting hair spray into the sky for hours on end. Remember? And you scoffed mercilessly as I planted those palm trees in a nice line up the driveway.

Well who's eating coconuts now, bitch?

So yeah. Eight inches of snow melted, and then it rained. It was explained to me later that the ground is still somewhat frozen, so the water really doesn't have anyplace to go. Water, it turns out, is a lot like teenagers: if it doesn't have anything to do, it looks for trouble. It comes home late. It makes excuses for not doing chores.

It wants to borrow the car.

So there I am just driving around this cool new lake that used to be a Super Kmart and something glinty caught my eye. -And not just any shiny object, mind you: this thing glittered and glowed like nothing I had ever seen before. My heart raced. What is this magnificent Thing? I asked myself. Maybe it's a fabulous gem. Or perhaps some lost Holy relic! I simply must have it.

It called and cooed to me in a sing-song melody:

"LOBO come get me,
and I'll make all your dreams come true.
Your friends will be so jealous!
Have I told you what a handsome bastard you are?"
Helplessly beguiled, I drove closer and faster ... only to find this magnificent and enchanting object to be four inches of exposed decorative chrome edging on the top of a completely submerged Aerosmith tour bus.

And as the water inched up waist deep in my own car, I realized the truth: my Japanese piece of crap was riddled with boyancy issues never once mentioned in Consumer Reports, and I had been wooed to my watery grave by siren song.


***
It was Steven Tyler himself who dove in and pulled me out, and after dragging me to the roof of the bus he tried to resuscitate me with CPR. Waking up with Steven Tyler kissing me was exactly as bad as I'd previously imagined it: while he had fresh, minty breath, I could not escape the mute horror of locking lips with perhaps billions of groupies and cheerleaders. I was almost certainly going to get a cold sore.

"Dude," says Brad Whitford. "Why did you do that? We were waving you off! We've been stranded here for three days."

It was then I decided to make my move. I immediately kicked Joe Perry in the neck, and then shoved Steven right into the waiting mouth of one of the circling alligators. Then diving past Brad, I gripped the exposed decorative chrome corner of the tour bus and unsuccessfully tried to wrest it free until we were rescued by the Coast Guard.


***
So here it is two days later, and everyone is mad at me. Me! After six used car lots LadyTerri is starting to fray at the edges a little too, and her anger redoubled when she got that weird cold sore. Without hesitation, she continues to barrage me with little nuggets of wisdom, like "What the fuck were you thinking?" and "How the hell did you get a Driver's License in the first place?"

I, conversely, have managed to stay upbeat. I will not be defeated by the simple total loss of a vehicle ... humans got along fine for dozens of years without cars, and this is no different!

Determined to go soak up some nice weather and sunshine, I put on my thong and rollerblades and decided to cruise around and do some exploration of the flooded and changing terrain. Maybe find some ice cream, you know? There's a bar about a mile away that always has a bunch of motorcycles in front of it, and all those guys taking time out of their busy schedules driving around and beating people up must mean that place has kickass ice cream. Maybe I'll regale 'em with the tale of how I just met Aerosmith!

I'll bring my boom box too: my copy of A Thousand Different Ways by Clay Aiken came in the mail two weeks ago, and I still haven't had a chance to check it out.

Doesn't ice cream sound good right now?