Stories for Money

Stories for Money

I rarely venture outside the bounds of my community, mainly because spending money on myself seems as abstract as a blue moon. I did spend some money about a year ago on a road trip. I had so much fun that the money I spent became a forgotten memory. However, near the end of any fantastical journey, there’s always a trigger that brings me back to reality. In a brilliant moment of word association, I say something ridiculous, so ridiculous it becomes an iconic saying. For example, the last road trip I went on was with my Dad and I was wearing a dress on the way home. I never wear dresses unless forced to, so I was not used to it. As I sat in the car day dreaming about nothing, I look down at my bare, pale legs and say to Dad,

“What if we had sleeves... for our legs.”

“You mean... pants.”

We lock eyes and burst out laughing as we round the corner to the first familiar landmark. All my trips seem to end with a stupendously idiotic remark, this one is no different.

We drove twelve hours to Milwaukee, Wisconsin. My Dad, his two friends Thing 1, Thing 2 and I have been planning this three-day trip for months. There was a TOOL concert, a band whose last record was released 13 years ago, and Milwaukee was as close as they were getting to Winnipeg. I was really torn about going because I would have to miss school and spend a large sum of money. My Dad convinced me, highlighting that this was one of our favourite bands and they might not ever tour again. It was quite possibly a once in a lifetime opportunity. So, I nauseously paid for the ticket and took out some American cash, this was the most expensive thing I have ever paid for. Although, this didn’t cross my mind when I had to get up at two in the morning and climb into the freezing cold car on our way to the boarder. We were all a little anxious because three slobby grown men and a 17-year-old girl might look a little sketchy crossing the border at 3am. When we pulled up to the border security guard, we handed him our passports and he carefully inspected everyone except mine. He asked everyone else where they work and where they were from, but he didn’t even ask me my name. I didn’t want to cause a scene, so I just sat quietly in the back while in my head I was screaming, “Hello! I could be getting kidnapped right now and you're not even bothering to look at me!”

As we drove, our hunger started rising with the sun. It was around lunchtime when we pulled into a small town to grab a bite. Thing 1 took one look at a greasy looking taco shack and claimed it was our lunch venue. Now this is where I realized I was in a small car with three piles of mutilated intestinal problems and we were going to eat at a shabby, independent taco shed. I quickly sat up and said in a calm and collected voice, “Absolutely not. We are going to turn right at this stop sign and go to that Wendy’s.” Thing 1 complained about wanting to get absolutely pathetic on this trip, but his choice was overruled when Dad screamed he was going wherever his princess wanted. After grabbing some food, we got back in the car to begin the last six hours of the drive.

When we passed form Minnesota to Wisconsin, we turned on a radio station and I noticed that their radio entertainment is not nearly as censored as ours. We had stumbled across a Christian radio station that was talking about the supposed link between witchcraft and homosexuality. The fact that this was being said on the radio shocked all of us, but it wasn’t until the guest speaker said, “Faggot Witch camp” that our jaws hit the floor. We just sat there, staring at each other in disbelief. There is no way he said that on a public radio station, but then he said it again, over and over to the point of exhaustion and bewilderment. The remaining hours of the drive of the drive were filled with teachings of extreme ideals and laughable seriousness. The station finally started droning into static when we pulled up to our hotel, probably because we were in the sketchiest neighbourhood in all of Milwaukee.

Upon walking into the hotel, the concierge asks for our identification. We hand them over as he enters in our arrival on the computer. As he is handing back our ID’s he asks, “Yall 21?” I said yes then he hands over our room key. Now I didn’t realize he would just take my word for it because for one thing he has my ID, he could glance down and find out my age immediately. Another thing is I do not look 21, I wasn’t even allowed into a 14A movie because the cashier didn’t believe I was older than 12. So, to be thought of as almost five years older than my actual age was astonishing. Later, Thing 1 and Thing 2 wanted to go to the liquor store, so they went downstairs and asked the man at the desk where the nearest one was. He lifted his eyes lazily and inquired,

“Y’all got smart phones?”

“Yeah.”

“Well then y’all use’em.”

After sharing recent anecdotes, I realized people were quite rude here and didn’t seem to know when they crossed a line. When my Dad went out to “rip a dart” someone else needed to borrow his lighter. He didn’t ask if he could use the lighter, he just blurted, “Yo show your lighter”, used it, then walked away. My favourite occurrence was overhearing a conversation between the concierge and another guest. It starts with the concierge saying,

“What’s y’all wrong wit y’all room?”

“De...dey people in it”

“Ight then imma put you folks on the fourth floor.”

The conversation seemed so casual as if this happened often, after several little incidents like this, I really appreciated living in Canada.

Going down to the lobby became an expedition after that. Once, Thing 1 had to wrap a stranger’s hand up because it was mutilated after his friend was attacked by a cat and landed on his hand. Thing 2 witnessed a domestic dispute and Dad spoke to a 50-year-old man with a prostitute in the elevator while listening to what sounded like a murder on the second floor. Despite all that, the only things keeping me for sleeping was the noise coming from the mini fridge that sounded like a nest of flies and an episode of Family Guy on T.V. I was never allowed to watch Family Guy when I was younger and when I was old enough, we no longer had cable. Watching this episode felt like a forbidden treasure that I was finally able to experience since my Mom wasn’t around. I found it hilarious and will definitely be watching more of it when I get the chance.

The next day was the day of the concert. The consensus was to go out for breakfast because everyone believed the continental breakfast was going to be as questionable as the rest of the hotel. I however, held on to some glimmer of hope that the breakfast would be decent at least. Turns out it wasn’t bad at all but none of us were aware that pants were optional at the continental as we averted our gazes from two women walking around the pastries pant less. Following breakfast, we went to the mall where I bought the complete works of Shakespeare for $7 and both Dad and I got a free cookie. My Dad is my best friend, we enjoy many of the same things and neither of us are particularly difficult to deal with. Thing 1 and Thing 2 have different ideas which usually involve alcohol or other intoxicants. They had even less fun when I told them I had unplugged the infuriating mini fridge late last night and forgot to plug it back in, so their beer was probably warm, I secretly laughed about it. After the mall we went to a record store because my Dad and I are huge nerds and have been splitting the cost of a record once a month ever since I got a job. Siphoning through the store we found a plethora of records we couldn’t find anywhere else for way cheaper than we ever imagined. After 10 minutes I had a stack of records that were weighing on my financial anxiety. We each bought 4 records and promised that if we had any cash left over at the end of the trip we would come back here. Going back to the hotel my excitement started to build, the doors to the concert opened at six and I couldn’t wait. When 6 o’clock rolled around I started putting my shoes and jacket on with Dad when Thing 1 asks what we’re doing,

“Getting ready to go, what’s it looks like we’re doing.”

“It’s only six.”

“Yeah I know but we like to go down and check out the arena and see how nice it is since we’ve never been there before. Check out the merch, buy some drinks and get to our seats.”

“We’re not leaving till at least 6:30 and even then, I’m not telling anyone I went to a concert that early.”

Are you kidding me? We bought these tickets months ago, drove 1 275 kilometers to be here tonight and you want to wait, because it’s not cool to leave this early. I looked at my Dad who seemed annoyed but didn’t want to make a big deal out of it, so I sat on my bed and glared at Thing 1 for 20 minutes. Who cares if you go early, we’re in a different country, no one would know. At 6:20 I became fed up and decided we were going to leave right then and there despite Thing 1’s protests. Dad was itching to go, and Thing 2 was just going along with what everyone else was doing so I couldn’t care less about Thing 1’s arrogance. I raced down the hotel and into the shuttle where this very drunk guy was trying to act all cool to get on the drivers’ good side. He was smoking in the van but had to put it out because an old lady with an oxygen tank crawled in. He wasn’t being particularly malicious, but he was calling her foul names which I’m sure she didn’t appreciate. When asked if he was a TOOL virgin he screamed,

“Oh yeah! My cherry is getting POPPED tonight!”

The old lady seemed relieved to finally get out of the shuttle and away from the psycho. She retreated at a brisk walk and the psycho started freaking out claiming she was lying to them saying the “Usain Bolt clone” didn’t need the oxygen tank and she was just fine. I urged Dad to get away from this man and so we entered the arena. Once inside we soaked in the pre-show buzz and fervently discussed the varying levels of “amazingness” at the merch table. Once we had bought our shirts and put them on over our existing clothes, we bought drinks and walked a lap of the arena. When we finished our lap, we decided to grab a slice of pizza. That’s when I looked down at my watch and saw that the opening act started in six minutes. Dad and I sped down the hall to reach the pizza place in time. While waiting in line I could hear the music playing through the heavy curtains and silently cursed Thing 1 for putting us in this situation. When we finally got to our seats, we had missed two songs from the opener, but I decided to forget about it and properly enjoy the rest of the show.

I had been to many concerts before, and every time the band spoke to the audience, I felt like I as communicating with kings. They were so beautiful, and their music held so much power over me. When Maynard James Keenan, the lead singer of TOOL spoke to the audience, I felt like I was talking to a God. I could feel my face pale, I wasn’t expecting to feel this way, I didn’t understand how much I had worshiped him until he spoke to me. I was so enamored in his reverberating tone when he was introducing on of his songs. He said,

“Who here is younger than 30?”

*raucous applause*

“When we wrote this song, you weren’t even sperm.”

I was so ecstatic that he acknowledged me and said I wasn’t even sperm that I didn’t notice how odd that sounded until the next day. Everyone says that I have no heart, no feelings, no sympathy. This may be true, but I now know for a fact that when this man dies, my sorrow will resonate through dimensions.

When the music ended, we walked out in a euphoric daze. I don’t remember the ride back to the hotel and I don’t remember getting ready for bed and falling asleep. I vaguely remember smelling fresh pizza around 2am and rolling over to scarf a piece down. I don’t think I even used my hands or opened my eyes when I ate it, I just rolled back over when I finished and drifted asleep to the sound of Frank Marshall’s “Arachnophobia”.

The rest of the trip was a blur. In the morning when we were leaving, I walked by the bag of garbage that had been sitting in our hallway for three days but had migrated slightly to the right. I passed by the broom that had mysteriously appeared the first night and hadn’t moved an inch. I noticed some dreadlocks on the ground when I was packing my things into the car. I spent the last of my cash on one more record and prepared myself for the long ride home. Driving in the dark singing loudly and shamelessly so I could stay awake in order to keep my Dad awake I came to a life altering epiphany. Everyone who talks about how much money they have because of their vigorous saving, those people have no stories. They have done nothing in order to hoard their money that’s just sitting in their bank accounts waiting to give you a fabulous experience. I am glad I spent my money because now I have an amazing story to share with everyone. We drive over a hill and in my blissful dreaming I said my trademark stupid comment that marks the end of all my road trips.

“Wow look! All of the cars on the left have white lights and all of the cars on the right have red lights!”

Tessa Lawrence