Writing Stats:Sunday, August 17, 2003@03:39 a.m.

I begin this weeks essay with a disclaimer: For at least a couple of weeks while I get over the pain and realization that principals across the state feel that I’m not cut out for teaching I’m taking on guest writers. These are people who have felt the pain and torment that is the modern dating field just as much as I have, and who actually approached me to ask if I’d be willing to let them “sub” for me when I needed it. This isn’t starting this week, and this may not start next week but after writing seven brand new articles in seven weeks, I’m beginning to run out of original material, and need to let “The Gang” have a breather and collect some fresh stories.

Now that that’s out of the way, lets spend an issue updating you on what’s occurred thanks to my weekly insights on the web. Remember Labels? That article that focused entirely on Jed and Kara and the fact that they were fighting intensely about what to call each other in public?

Jed, as you may remember, runs a car chopping business, or so we thought. By night he dons tights a cape and mask and fights crime…or so we thought. Well, Kara and Jed were enjoying a nice quiet evening together when the bat phone went off once more and suddenly the words “Want to go to Boston?” escaped his lips.

“Sure. When?” Kara asked.

“Right now!”

Luckily its summer and Kara had nothing to do…nothing that is, except pack up her apartment as she was moving to Cadillac in less than two weeks at this point in time. Kara was delegated the responsibility of being “Snack Girl” and was sent out to get the goods, which included on my suggestion pretzels, caffeine and caffeinated pretzels. God Bless America by the way, the only nation under the sun to work Caffeine into the water, so even when we’re trying to be healthy we’re not. You rock Uncle Sam! Lets re-elect Bush and nuke the world. Yay!

Kara returns to apartment H7 ready to jump in the car and drive nonstop through to Boston for god only knew what. She knew however that time with Jed was sometimes hard to come by and was uncertain about what the future held once she moved three hours away. Time was of the essence, and Kara was ready to go. She swung open her apartment door only to find…

…two people she had never seen before sitting on her sofa with duffel bags at their feet.

“What the hell?” She thought. She stepped into the apartment and flipped on the lights only to be greeted by Fraser and his wife, two of Jed’s friends from Grand Rapids who just so happened to be coming along for the ride. They were the actual reasoning behind the ride, as Fraser had bought a car over the internet that Jed was going to fix up right and proper. Jed pulled up a few minutes later with a truck and trailer combo designed to tow the damn thing back to good old Michigan. They all squeezed in and were on their way.

They made it through Michigan electing to take the Canada route straight through to New York, and it was here in New York that they encountered their first problem. Suddenly bright red and blue lights were flashing from behind them and they pulled over to the side of the road. Jed’s license was one point away from revocation, and the cop easily had five things he could have written him up for, but Jed pleaded and got off with a warning…and a ticket for not having lights on the trailer. They continued along their way making it to Boston unscathed from there.

Boston was where the problems picked up anew. They reached the owner of the car’s house and were greeted by a most unsettling sight sitting in the driveway. The car Fraser had bought over the internet…only flooded with rain, littered with branches, and stockpiled full of graffiti made from key scratches. Fraser was furious, Jed was cranky and Kara was confused. They finally took the car, after having to make some serious on the spot repairs just to get the damn thing onto the trailer, loaded it up and were on their way.

Not ten minutes into the return trip home they encountered their next problem. The car dragging behind them was making odd noises and was all over the lane. They pulled over and discovered the front axle was bent, causing the erratic behavior and had to take the car off the trailer and pull it the opposite way. They merged back in with traffic, started on their merry way when they heard a loud pop from behind them.

“What the fuck?” Everyone screamed in unison, as Jed pulled the truck back over again, to learn that they had just blown a tire. Kara and Fraser’s wife stayed in the car while Jed and Fraser went out grabbed the spare, jacked the car up, changed the tire and got back into the car convinced that nothing else could go wrong.

And for quite some time, nothing did, until *POP*

“What the fuck?” Everyone screamed in unison again, as Jed pulled the truck back over again, to learn that they had just blown the other tire. Again, Kara and Fraser’s wife stayed in the car, while Jed and Fraser went out and grabbed the spare, this time the one from the van, jacked the car up, changed the tire, and got back into the car convinced that nothing ELSE could go wrong.

While crossing borders from one nameless state they wanted to forget into another, red and blue lights were suddenly flashing in their rear view mirrors again. They pulled over to the side of the road and were issued another citation for having no lights on their trailer. Jed was cranky. Fraser was cranky, Fraser’s wife was cranky. Kara was cranky but not really showing it. As much as the trip had sucked thus far, she was still holding onto the fact that she was happy to be there with Jed.

It’s approximately one in the morning when they’re in New York again and hear a loud *POP*

“What the fuck?” Everyone screamed in unison. You know the drill, Jed, pulling over, the spare tire had exploded, however at this point, they were out of tires, in the middle of New York State at one in the morning going “Okay, now what?”

The gang went hunting for tires, eventually finding a car dealership with someone working late inside. The store was closed, the money was locked tightly away in the safe, but after begging and pleading with the guy for close to an hour he finally breaks down sells them a tire, and they fix their third flat tire of the evening.

And again, our intrepid voyagers are on their way, thankful that they were more than halfway home at this point, traveling slowly with a junked up car of DEATH in tow behind them. They had reached their shit quota. Nothing else could possibly go wrong.

Blue and Red lights in their mirror once again. The same cop who had pulled them over their first trip through New York was working the late shift once more. This time however, rather than being nice he screamed “THIS IS RIDICULOUS! I’m waiting for you at the toll booth, and if there aren’t lights on that fucking trailer by the time you make it there you’re all going to take a little trip with me, understood?”

Meijers and Meijers like stores are a wonderful thing when you’re being threatened by the cops, and lights were now on their trailer. They made it back to Michigan, and finally to Kalamazoo without incident.

Well, maybe one.

Remember how I started this shorter than weeks past article saying it was an update on a previous article entitled “Labels”? Here’s why.

Kara was passed out in the passenger seat next to Jed, when Jed’s phone went off. It startled her awake but she pretended to be asleep…and it was a good thing that she did.

“Hey, Carla!” Jed said into his phone. Carla was Jed’s “girl” friend, just as Kara is mine. “Yeah we’re almost home. Yeah. Fun trip. Yes I am being sarcastic. The trip sucked but something good came out of it.” At this point he turned to look over at Kara who was still very much pretending to be asleep. “I’ll have to talk to you about it later. Yeah it involves her. Alright, talk to you later. Bye.”

Kalamazoo City Limit. I saw it on the way back from a trip to Memphis Tennessee this past summer, an 11 hour drive from HELL when you went down to interview for a job that didn’t exist by the time you got there. I was only on the road for 11 hours. These guys were entering their 48th when they saw it, and to them, the sign looked just as sweet.

Jed dropped Fraser, Fraser’s wife, and the lemon they had driven through hell to buy off at Fraser’s house. He then proceeded to take Kara back home to Kalamazoo. He pulled the car into her driveway and turned to look at her.

“Hey.”

“uhhh…hey?” Kara replied, slightly uncertain about what he was saying, what he was doing.

“How are you?”

“Fine?” She asked, a question more than a statement because still…confused.

“So…you still want to be my girlfriend?”

And now for Kara’s Ally McBeal style moment. She appeared on a game show set, staring around at flashing lights that read “You’re a Winner!”

Host: Tell her what she’s one Bob!

Announcer: A new Boyfriend! That’s right, straight out of a second grade romance, you’ve won the boy wonder himself, “Super Jed!”

“What made you change your mind?” Kara asked, stepping out of the fantasy to stare back into his eyes.

“Well…this wasn’t exactly the greatest trip.”

That was an understatement. The Apollo 13 mission went more smoothly than this one had. Still, Kara said nothing, she simply smiled.

“Yeah, and?”

“Well,” he continued “you never once spoke up and said you were having a bad time, even though you probably could have at any point in the evening. Every time I turned to look at you, you looked back at me with a smile on your face. I don’t know why I wasn’t exactly ready before, but I think I’m ready now. This trip showed me that.”

Kara didn’t answer verbally, she answered with a long passionate kiss. We’ll close the curtain there and pick up this tale another time.

Since labels do mean something to people in a relationship, here’s a scenario where perseverance not annoyance pays off. If the person you’re dating doesn’t want the label right off the bat, just because you’re feeling more strongly about a relationship than he/she is, that doesn’t mean you need to scrap the whole thing. It means you’re feeling more strongly about the relationship, and that you should probably let things run it’s course. If it’s meant to be, it’s meant to be.

See you next week!