22.5 hours in Wisconsin Rapids
What a restless weekend. No rest for the wicked, right?
Picking things up Friday after taking a half day off of work. As I drive home I smell burning oil. I recently did an oil change, so I assume I fucked something up. I get back home and pop the hood. There's a small pool of oil on the engine block next to the filter cap. I turn on the car and let it run. Oil begins to hemorrhage out of the filter cap. "fuck me," I say. I cracked the plastic oil filter cap when I was using the wrong tool to try and get it off. I go to the Saturn dealer to pick up a new one... a $14.95 mistake. It could have been worse. I could have stripped the threads on the oil pan drain. That would have been worse.
Fast forward to that evening, staying the night with friends in Madison. God I miss Madison. Everything about it is better than Peoria. Our friends are 30 years old and still have no direction in life. They don't have clean sheets on their guest bed. Some nasty band members slept here before us. I hope I haven't contracted any diseases or parasites.
The next day, Saturday, we are in Wis. Rapids for my sister's baby shower. Great, I get to remember my baby isn't going to be here in October like he/she was supposed to be. I get to recall seeing the bloody gestational sack in the toilet before it got flushed. I get to remember my wife crying in my arms, me standing in front of my bathroom mirror finally breaking down. I get to listen to all the ohhh's and ahhh's as my sister opens up another present. I get to feel awkward when people ask my wife and I when we plan on having kids. We had a plan. What did Steinbeck say? I get to feel bad that I can't talk to my family about this because we aren't operating on the same wave lengths. 22.5 hours was as long as I could stand. We left before my pregnant sister left, because there was no way I could handle my mom and other sister crying over her going back to Connecticut.
10 hours later I'm back in Peoria playing hockey. Last game of the season. I play hard, skating hard. The game gets physical. The last 5 minutes are crazy with break-aways, saves, and hits. We end up winning. We end on a high note even though we finished 6-13-1. It was a good way to end the weekend. It was my salvation.
Picking things up Friday after taking a half day off of work. As I drive home I smell burning oil. I recently did an oil change, so I assume I fucked something up. I get back home and pop the hood. There's a small pool of oil on the engine block next to the filter cap. I turn on the car and let it run. Oil begins to hemorrhage out of the filter cap. "fuck me," I say. I cracked the plastic oil filter cap when I was using the wrong tool to try and get it off. I go to the Saturn dealer to pick up a new one... a $14.95 mistake. It could have been worse. I could have stripped the threads on the oil pan drain. That would have been worse.
Fast forward to that evening, staying the night with friends in Madison. God I miss Madison. Everything about it is better than Peoria. Our friends are 30 years old and still have no direction in life. They don't have clean sheets on their guest bed. Some nasty band members slept here before us. I hope I haven't contracted any diseases or parasites.
The next day, Saturday, we are in Wis. Rapids for my sister's baby shower. Great, I get to remember my baby isn't going to be here in October like he/she was supposed to be. I get to recall seeing the bloody gestational sack in the toilet before it got flushed. I get to remember my wife crying in my arms, me standing in front of my bathroom mirror finally breaking down. I get to listen to all the ohhh's and ahhh's as my sister opens up another present. I get to feel awkward when people ask my wife and I when we plan on having kids. We had a plan. What did Steinbeck say? I get to feel bad that I can't talk to my family about this because we aren't operating on the same wave lengths. 22.5 hours was as long as I could stand. We left before my pregnant sister left, because there was no way I could handle my mom and other sister crying over her going back to Connecticut.
10 hours later I'm back in Peoria playing hockey. Last game of the season. I play hard, skating hard. The game gets physical. The last 5 minutes are crazy with break-aways, saves, and hits. We end up winning. We end on a high note even though we finished 6-13-1. It was a good way to end the weekend. It was my salvation.
posted by lawryde at
9:47 PM
1 Comments:
Your life is so interesting. I can't remember the last time I knowingly slept in a bed without clean sheets. Just keep trying for those kids--you know what Rodney Dangerfield said in "Back to School"--the "best part about kids is makin' em." Take care.
By
Chris, at 4:37 PM, April 11, 2005
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