once

I bought a big blue chevy van off craigslist in Omaha with my last 500$ (actually, I only had 400, I had to beg the rest) and spent a week reupholstering the inside and making it my own: new fitted sheet on the bed, curtains, side panels, it was beautiful. It was October and I was due back on Sunshine Farm in Chelan, WA by the 11th for the wedding/social event of the season. During the course of driving those 1600 miles I blew a tire in South Dakota, I think it was South Dakota, it's always fucking South Dakota, that state goes on forever...and it was cold and night so I just slept in the van and the next morning in the frost I was trying to put the spare on and I didn't have any parts and I was really really tired and ready to go home. A man driving a delivery truck stopped and helped me, he had the parts. I wouldn't have been able to do anything without him, actually, because the spare was practically welded to the rack and I didn't have a jack or anything. He drove me to a nearby town so we could get a big enough wrench and we changed the tire and he recommended that I follow him to the next town because he delivers tires and could get me a deal on a new one. So I did and then they had to call around and try and find a cheap tire and I waited and waited and it snowed and snowed and then they put it on and by the time I was ready to go, the man had gone, but he had already paid for it all, it was nearly 100 dollars. His name was Rex, which coincidentally is my totem animal. A T. Rex.
So back on the road and smoking cigarettes and getting 12 mpg if I'm lucky, just charging it all to my credit card, and listening to my mp3 player with headphones tied to the earflaps of my winter hat as I wind around these mountain passes and there was so much goddamn construction and it was night again and I was terrified driving a van that big while other cars screamed around me. The first time I'd driven mountain passes since the accident, I'm sure. Yeah, because to get to the Seattle airport to get TO Omaha I had had to hitch hike, but it was day and there was no snow.
About 2 hours into Washington, it was very late at night and there was no way I was stopping, this was the 10th and I was so excited to get there and sleep and see Ben and Judy and Juliette. I was on the phone with Amanda and she was sad because her dad died and I was telling her that there was no reason for her to apologize to me, I was happy to talk to her and then my phone cut out, so I was calling her back and not paying attention to the speed limit in the small town I was going through. Was it Wymore? No...some farm kind of name in Douglas county? It was very small and I accelerated back to highway speed before I should have and was pulled over and then it turned out that my license was suspended for some tickets I never paid back in the spring. I got a ticket mailed to me after the accident because I admitted in the emergency room that I hadn't been wearing a seatbelt. Which was bullshit because I asked a dozen times if I was going to be ticketed and said that I wasn't going to tell them anything, but it was very stressful and they had said I wasn't going to get in trouble, they just needed an account of what happened. Regardless, I never paid it because I no longer had a car (not because of the accident) and I didn't care when I got the letter saying my license was suspended. Plus I was broke and taking care of my boyfriend with 2 broken arms and neither of us had any transportation and the ticket was in Wenatchee, we were staying in Chelan and I still was working full time at the school and they wouldn't help me at all on the phone. So the cop who pulled me over in October said that he had to take me to the station, 30 minutes away, so that I couldn't drive anymore on a suspended license. I was 3 hours from home at this point and he drove me in the opposite direction and I didn't bring my coat or anything but cigarettes and a copy of the Plague Dogs by Richard Adams. The whole way there I alternated between crying and moaning and then trying to engage this fucker in a conversation about whether or not the laws always align perfectly with his personal ethics, and what a person is to do when they don't. At the station I was pissed. I was supposed to sleep there because it was, like, 20 degrees out and windy. I was so pissed that I couldn't do it, so I went out and tried to hitch a ride back to my van, where at least I had a bed and my food and my phone charger. It was 1:30 in the morning and so cold that I had to walk back to the station a couple times to warm back up, because no one was stopping to pick me up. Finally, around 3 or 4 a newspaper delivery guy stopped and said he would give me a ride after his route, which sounded fine to me. This guy was hilarious, I've never met a zanier dude. He was ranting about government conspiracies- training the troops in Iraq for combat against civilians, to loose them on us eventually, and how he had seen bigfoot on his delivery, etc. He was swerving all over the road, but it was these dirt backroads, we just seemed to be winding farther and farther away, I had no idea which direction we were facing and we came up on the plateau and the moon was setting and it was so huge and red, I'd never seen it like that before. Then he almost hit a coyote because we were smoking a bowl and he never had his hands on the wheel, he was waving them around or grabbing my arm or shining this flashlight on his map or something. Eventually we got to the town that my car was supposed to be right outside of and the dude was CONVINCED that he was running out of gas and he was pissed. He thought there was a gas station in this town and he couldn't find it and kept driving in circles and finally said that he had just barely enough to make it back to the bigger town he had picked me up in, the one with the station, and he had to do that or be stranded. Since he said we were in the town where my car was I told him to just leave me and I could walk to it. It was so dark and cold and I couldn't find it anywhere. I was terrified. This was probably the moment in my life that I most thought I was really in trouble. It was just so cold and there weren't any cars and nothing was open. I saw headlights finally and flagged them down and tried to tell them the deal and this couple was not hearing it. They definitely thought I was not legit. I swear to God the woman in the passenger seat was a man. But they didn't care where my van was or how cold I was, they kept trying to pull away and I was practically trying to climb in the window. They finally just took me the opposite direction I wanted to go, into the center of the town, where some little diner was opening early. Real early, like 4:45 or something they let me in. I guess hunting season was starting. I was so tired and sick at this point I didn't know what to do. I got a coffee and just sat there like a sad sack of shit for maybe 3 hours until some guy asked if I was waiting on a ride. There wasn't anyone coming for me and my phone wasn't working and none of my friends had cars anyways. He gave me a ride to my van. Now the cops from the night before had sworn up and down that they would arrest me and impound the van if I tried to drive it away, but I didn't know what to do. First I slept. For a few hours, but then I woke up and I still didn't have a working phone or anyone coming to get me so I didn't have anything to do BUT drive on home. I was scared, but no one pulled me over and it was fine. I got home just in time to have a glass of wine at the reception. I was tired. Later Ben and I drove up some mountain to a scenic spot and I was just so exhausted, plus the wine and pot and no food that I just started puking everywhere and thought I was going to die or pass out or something. He had to drive us home and he was scared and we had Judy and Juliette in the car and I puked in a bucket.