STORY TIME: CRAZY PADDLE MAN!
when i was about 17, and a few months from graduating high school, my tight circle of friends (who i’m still friends with today) and i found ourselves all free on a friday night— pete’s parents were gone for the weekend & as teenagers are to do, they might have snagged some shitty beer from their dads coolers— lucky for me, I never liked drinking in the first place. Anyways, these goons decided they were hungry and wanted Mcdonalds around 11 o clock— the driving curfew was 1230 & the golden arches were just five minutes down the road. discussion is lively in the room on how to venture out on this quest— envision the floor of the NYSE but instead of humans, they’re seagulls that all came to the same conclusion. the words echoed throughout the room.
“Well, I’ve had a beer so I can’t drive.”
And in that moment of echo, all of their heads simultaneously turned up to look at me— I was like a washed up tuna ready to be devoured. They pointed at me as if they were accusing me of a crime.
“You don’t drink!”
And so, I took down everybody’s order, enlisted the help of four of the most sober toddlers and set off to McDonalds in my mom’s 2008 7-passenger minivan. We’re chugging down the road— Two men in the rear, one in the middle, and the other in the passenger seat— I looked in the rear view, and knew I assembled a worthy team. We pull into Mcdonalds, but the dining room is closed. This is a-okay. We pull into the drive through and we place the order for 24 hamburgers. The car is idling, the boys are sitting tight. Suddenly, I hear Jake in the way back ask Peter:
“What did you say?”
“I didn’t say anything.”
“Yes you did.”
“No, I didn’t”
We all suddenly hear the voice— “Just need some pennies!”
>Yikes.jpg
Jake turns around and LETS out a scream— Andrew calms him down, and then he lets out a “Jesus Christ!” once he realizes what’s going on. An old man who looked like he just went through the ringer is now yelling that he needs pennies, right beside the rear vent windows of the MINIVAN— dragging behind him is a 4 foot canoe paddle, roofing nails driven through both sides of it. I adjust the rear view mirror to asses the situation— I let out an “OH MAN!” as this simple trip to mcdonald’s slowly escalates into the premise for next years summer blockbuster. without second thought, i shift the car into drive & we squeal out of there, totally hamburgerless. Dave phones the police from the passenger seat as we’re all still questioning whether or not what happened was actually real. Grateful we were all there to have each others backs, we were also grateful we were all witnesses to this impossible sounding story— one we laugh about to this day.
It just so happened that Pete worked at the same MCDONALD'S— he had a 10 am shift that next morning. Our group chat promptly received pictures of the drive-thru windows, the outdoor menus & the LED signs smashed up beyond belief. Thank god we took off, because I’m not entirely sure how I was going to explain a destroyed minivan to my mother.
