And That Has Made All the Difference

You ever have one of those days when nothing seems to go right?

If you haven't, then you should know that everybody in your life hates you.

If you have, then maybe you can relate to my day spent driving out of Utah.

It is Halloween, and I can't think of a worse place to spend Halloween than in Utah. So the plan is to get to Page, Arizona by evening.

I start driving in the morning. Having listened to every CD I own 372.5 times by now, I spend most of the trip listening to the radio.

If you ever want to scare the crap out of yourself, scan the am radio dial while passing through a particularly rural part of America. I once tuned to a conservative Christian show where the hosts were discussing the evils of rock music and how said rock music was destroying the moral fabric of our society.

Silly, but nothing I hadn't heard before; until I listened more and realized that the evil rock music they were referencing wasn't Marilyn Manson, or Metallica, or even Elvis Presley...they were worried about Christian rock. Something about the fast tempos and aggressive beats being the work of the Devil disguised as praise for God.

So when the talk on rural Utah radio revolves around the ills of the newly released film Zack and Miri Make a Porno (or Zack and Miri depending on your location), I am hardly surprised. I am caught off guard, however, when I discover that the state of Utah has effectively banned Zack and Miri from its theatres. In appreciation of the moment, I decide that my first act upon entering Arizona will be to see this movie.

Only when I pull into the scenic small town of Page late in the evening, I discover that the only theatre in town plays just one film, and that film happens to be High School Musical 3 (or The Cast of High School Musical 3 Makes a Porno depending on your location). As much as I love musicals aimed at tweens, I decide to bite the bullet and drive a couple more hours to get to the larger town of Flagstaff.

I pull into Flagstaff at eight PM and immediately purchase a ticket for the next showing of Zack and Miri, which is at ten. I then go to the nearby Walmart to scope out my resting place for the night only to find out that the Flagstaff Walmart expressly forbids overnight parking. The nearest Walmart that allows for parking is twenty-five miles away in Cottonwood.

This means that when I get out of the movie theatre at midnight after an entire day spent driving, I must drive even more to get to a place where I know I can sleep in peace.

Two issues complicate this even further:

+ The road to Cottonwood goes through a dark, twisting canyon road that is barely wide enough for my van, making the 25 mile drive last over an hour.

+ The Walmart I found on google maps does not seem to exist.

My GPS system does not recognize Cottonwood, Arizona as a viable destination and google maps leads me to a residential street. Let me tell you, there's nothing better than being completely lost in an unfamiliar place at two in the morning.

After regrouping in Sedona and doing some intense investigative work involving fingerprinting, extensive DNA analysis, and the store locator on Walmart.com, I discover that the nearest store is still about twenty miles away.

It is at this point that I decide that I am the unluckiest, most mistreated, miserable human being on the planet. It is already dark outside, and my sense of self-pity is so thick that it starts fogging up the windows.

So when I see what looks to be the vague shape of a human being on the side of the road as I drive by, part of me assumes I am imagining things. The other part of me, however, decides to make sure. I turn around at the nearest exit and retrace my route.

It turns out that there is indeed a person standing by the freeway in the middle of nowhere. Her name is Shana. She is petite, looks to be in her mid-thirties, and is wearing dark clothes. Frankly, it is remarkable that I was able to spot her in the first place, because I can barely see her now despite actively searching for her.

Shana is a mother of two. All of her time is spent caring for her kids or working. In fact, her next shift starts in about five hours. Tonight was supposed to be that rare special night when she got to go out and have fun. These days, it takes a holiday for Shana to get a night for herself.

Except this night was anything but fun for Shana. After a few hours going to Halloween parties with her boyfriend, Shana realized that he was too drunk to be driving. When she told her boyfriend that he was not fit to be behind the wheel, an argument broke out.

Before Shana knew what was happening, she was unceremoniously dumped on the side of the road. When I find her, the road is pitch black and she is over ten miles from the nearest town and nearly twenty miles from the trailer she calls home.

As it turns out, if I hadn't bought a movie ticket too early, driven through a dark canyon road late at night, and gotten lost several times on my way to the Cottonwood Walmart, I wouldn't have been there to give Shana a much needed safe ride back to her kids.

You ever have one of those days where nothing seems to go right?

Sometimes, those are the best days of all.