Magical Trip to Minnesota 1st Installment:
I've had an eventful couple of days. My wallet was stolen on Tuesday night, so of course my entire Wednesday was consumed by calling to replace every card in my wallet. Charming.
Naturally, this occurs the day before I'm planning to drive to Minnesota for a wedding. Travelling without any forms of ID or credit cards? Sounds great! Where do I sign up?
Meanwhile, back at the Tuba Ranch, exciting things were going on . . .
My vacuum cleaner literally exploded when I was cleaning up to leave. And I don't mean that the bag was too full - I mean with FIRE. Then my wireless router followed suite - only without an explosion or fire. By which I mean it just stopped working.
After finally getting my house clean, I went to IUCU to get some money out of the bank - we decided that the best way to do it would be to buy a VISA giftcard which works like a debit card. I took out 50 bucks to use for gas - which should have been plenty. (Note the use of foreshadowing)
Then driving . . . driving . . . and more driving. But stopping to practice every couple of hours in the reststops. Great if you want people to clap when you are done playing your orchestral excerpts. I don't know how many of you have ever driven across Illinois. I'll describe it perfectly in one statement: "206 miles of amazingly flat, boring cornfields"
I get to Peoria, IL and decide to get some gas since I'm down to a little under half a tank. Card is declined. Turns out, gas stations put a service charge on debit gift card fills at a station to "prevent fraud". They put a 30 dollar "service charge" on my 20 dollar purchase. Magical. How was I supposed to know that?!
Now, remember everyone - Jen does not have a cell phone. Now what? I still have 3 hours of driving and less than half a tank! I have a checkbook, but I can't find a place that will take a check without an ID - which of course, was stolen as well.
So no money, no phone, in the middle of Illinois. Special. I LOVE my magical ability to find situations like this.
So. . . I decide to drive to the next available reststop because those seem to be the only places left in the world with payphones. I have the idea to drive within an hour of home and have my dad meet me to buy me some gas. But first - getting ahold of them. . .
So, I decide to make a collect call. I try 3 times from the *11 number - and for some reason, it keeps saying that the party denied my request. Thinking that there must be something wrong with the number, I try to call with the Verison number that I see attached to the phone. This time, I hear who is picking up - my 12 year old brother, Tim. This is when I realized what was happening. I heard the voice say "to accept this call press one or say "YES" - to deny this call please just hang up." I can almost hear the sweat dripping down Tim's face as he is trying to figure out why this call keeps coming back and wondering what he is supposed to say. He hangs up.
But now, I have a plan.
I call again and Tim got a message that said. . .
"This is Verison with a collect call from 'TIM, FOR THE LOVE OF GOD, PRESS ONE!!' He pressed one.
So end of story - got ahold of my dad - he came and rescued me in Monmouth, IL. Fun times.