XLVI.

Posted by Jeff Craven on January 20th, 2009 filed in Humor, Life

So my friend James wakes me up at 3 pm with a question worthy of a quest:

“Dude, want to go to Arby’s?”

At the time, it didn’t seem like a bad idea. In retrospect, it still doesn’t seem like a bad idea. Arby’s is pretty awesome: chicken sandwiches, beef and bacon sandwiches topped with cheddar cheese, curly fries. I hadn’t eaten yet, and it sounded fucking delicious, so why not?

Why not indeed. The next four hours would teach me exactly why not.

I had agreed to go with James without having looked outside. I hadn’t actually checked the weather in a couple days. There was no need, really. I hadn’t been out of the house, and the whole of my time was mostly spent playing my 360. (Mirror’s Edge and techno really do go great together, FYI. If you ever get a chance, try it. It’s basically the new black.)

So, I part the window blinds delicately, in much the same way I would part a sexy woman’s labia, to find that it was snowing. Quite hard. I shut the blinds to think of the last time I saw more than three inches on the ground in my town. Two, maybe three years ago?

“James, it’s fucking snowing outside.” A pause on the other line.

“Yeah, yeah. I know. But the roads won’t be that bad. I mean, it’s like three in the afternoon, come on.” My mind, still in its post-REM state, could not think of a sufficient reason to object. James is a good driver, and I trust him more than I trust myself on the road. My reflexes are second to his. If anyone could make it to Arby’s, it would be him, so why not?

James informs me as I step into his ‘04 Focus that he saw about a half dozen accidents on the way over, and witnessed one himself. “People are fucking stupid when it comes to driving in snow,” he says, “I’m at least 50 feet away from the next car ahead of me while other people are just bumper to bumper.” As we pull out of my development onto the main road, James spins his tires so it throws the car forward out of the snow and onto the road.

Why not indeed.

He’s right, though. I can’t imagine anything that tests a driver more than snow. Not only do most people not know how to react to their brakes locking up, but they don’t know how to stop themselves from hydroplaning. They also don’t know how to react to other people swerving on the road, assuming that everyone around them is going to be a constant while they’re the variable. Wrong, bitches: on the road, everyone’s a variable, all the time.

I should bring up now to stir up controversy that most of the accidents we saw along the way were the result of women drivers. Sorry, ladies, that’s not sexism, just hard facts based on observation. If you want to prove that you’re not abysmal drivers, start by not having accidents.

James decides to take 202, since that’s how he knows to get to this Arby’s. Having no idea where the restaurant is, I agree and take his iPod Shuffle into my hands. One of the perks of his co-op, besides having entire days where he and his team did nothing but sit on their asses, was getting an iPod Shuffle for free. It’s not the most expensive or even the most intuitive version of the iPod, but its 1 GB capacity holds enough music for our 20 minute ride. So, the auxiliary cable switched on, and techno music blared from the speakers.

James and I enjoy techno a great deal. Neither one of us really go out to clubs (I especially don’t) but we enjoy club music because of what it is at its core: music you can enjoy. Easy listening. Perfect driving music.

This music would be repeated several times throughout the trip. Our first realization that our trip wasn’t going to be as smooth as we thought was when we hit 202, a major highway/byway in Southeastern PA.

It wasn’t plowed. Not in the least. The only way we even knew we were on the right side of the road, let alone in the right lane, was by seeing the tracks left by the cars before us. So, like kids who jump in the footsteps of their parents in the snow so as to not disturb the sanctity of a fresh snowfall, we jumped in the footsteps of trucks, SUVs, and struggling cars as we made our way southward on 202.

It’s still snowing pretty hard. Traffic is jammed, and I’m starting to doubt our quest. I make a joke about Harold and Kumar Go to White Castle, and how maybe our trip to Arby’s could end up just as ridiculous, but then I realize how retarded hang gliders are and shake that thought away. We pass an SUV that missed its left turn and is lying sideways in a ditch, with several trees on the roadside acting as a makeshift hammock for the fallen vehicle. Maybe there’s hope yet.

One thing you won’t find on the road in a lot of places are horses. Like, actual horses used for transportation to get from here to there. Horses are about as common as bicycles here: you don’t see them very often, but when you do, it’s not surprising. We pass a sign that tells us to watch out for people on horseback. I imagine how awesome it would be to ride a horse to Arby’s and James comments on how hilarious it is that mass transit can be crippled like this with just a half foot of snow. He has to catch a train later tonight and has no idea if the station is even open with this weather. While it may seem absurd that a train station would just up and shut down, a simple Google search for “SEPTA” and “transit problems” will highlight his concern.

James gets a call on his cell phone. It’s his mom. Something you need to know about Asian mothers, if you didn’t already know: they want to know exactly where their children are, at all times. Even if that means putting them in ridiculous danger by having them answer their phones while driving on unplowed roads. “No, we’re still going to Arby’s. No, mom, I’ll make my train in time. The roads aren’t plowed because it’s Martin Luther King day. Yes, we’re almost there. Okay, bye.” James got no less than four calls from his mom the whole trip, and the conversation stayed like that verbatim. I pretended to fiddle with his Shuffle. Kamelot is pretty awesome, though not techno.

Then we get to the hill. The hill. What some car illiterate people might not know about a Ford Focus from its description alone is that it is not a winter car. Hell, it’s not even a rain car. James had put on summer tires that were apparently “well-equipped” for dry roads but absolutely sucked for anything else. The car is also a manual, which means James has to have his foot on the clutch at all times while shifting gears to try to get his shit up the hill. James keeps it at a steady three thousand RPM, both of us not knowing if we are going to suddenly slip down and crash into the BMW behind us, who also had a similar problem. Great sports car, terrible for anything but sunny skies.

It takes us a whole fucking lot, but we’re inching up slowly as the engine strains prodigiously at the wheels turning up nothing but snow and slush. We’re gaining no traction. Trees go by, albeit very slowly. I laugh at the absurdity of a ten thousand dollar car rolling down a hill and taking out the cars below like bowling pins. After twenty minutes and a check engine light, ABS light and brake light, we’re up past the hill while the BMW, either in a moment of fear or caution, is still at the bottom of the hill, holding up traffic for at least a mile. God speed, BMW. God speed. James muses aloud about whether the trip was a bad idea or not. I muse aloud whether Arby’s is even open because of the snow.

“Dude, I would be fucking pissed. Don’t even joke like that.”

Why not indeed.

James makes a few wrong turns, but we end up on the right road to Arby’s. By now, it’s about 5 pm. We left my house around 3:30 pm. A twenty minute trip took about five times longer than it should have. It’s now rush hour, and we’re getting some of the traffic coming home from Philadelphia and King of Prussia. Suddenly, I have a genius thought.

“Shouldn’t we be listening to the traffic reports instead of your Shuffle?”

“Oh, yeah, yeah. Here, let me change it.” He takes his eyes off the road and starts pressing buttons, which only seem to change the quality of the music coming from the speakers, not the inputs themselves. Loud, vocal, bass, stereo. Is he even paying attention to the road?

“No, no. That’s okay. I can figure it out,” I say, shushing his hand away and finding the right button. The sweet sounds of KYW, the local AM radio station, crackles in the car. Growing up on KYW, there is not a more soothing sound in the entire world. The traffic report comes on:

I95totheWaltWhitmanbridgeisjammedI95northtotheBetsyRossisn’tmoving309southisalso

jammedbothlanes202southofwhitpaintownshipisblockedoffnexttrafficupdateinlessthan

tenminutesthisisKYWnewsradiotrafficreport.

Not very helpful, I already knew everything was jammed. At least they aren’t closing roads anywhere we’re going, but I was hoping for more of a reason for why everything isn’t plowed. It didn’t start snowing until after I went to sleep around 5 am, so PennDOT had plenty of time to litter the road with salt. It’s one of life’s mysteries, I suppose.

We finally get to the Arby’s around 5:15 pm and there’s a single car in the parking lot that looks like it hasn’t been used in hours. Our quest is at an end. The taste of a Bacon Beef and Cheddar sandwich is absolutely godly after all that driving.

James casually mentions to the cashier that we drove an hour and a half to get to the restaurant and she doesn’t seem phased in the least. Could it be that this is a common mecca for hungry men? Maybe Arby’s is just that damn good.

The ride back was similarly-plagued with bumper to bumper traffic, but by then a lot of the snow had been melted from rush hour traffic. I had a moment where I wanted James to ride down a steep hill on a nearby road with his car to see if the momentum would be enough to push him to the other side. He declined, not wanting his car to end up in a clearing somewhere off the road. Pussy.

In any case, we got our sandwiches and we don’t regret a single minute of it. The next time you ask yourselves why, think instead: why not? Why not indeed?

That, my friends, is a worthy quest.