Lampoons trip from hell.
So a few weeks back Dwayne calls me and asks if I would help him move his storage,from San Diego to alturus California. He asked how much I would charge him . I told him 100, because he is a friend and I needed to cover myself to do the trip. I told him it would be better to wait a couple of weeks because of an art show I planned was a week and a half away and I needed time to prepaid. Not to mention ash Wednesday is a,300 dollar day for me. I also told him I wanted no part in loading or unloading his,storage. He couldn't wait till after my stuff was done it all had to be right when he got his tax money. So I sacrificed a good day at work and didn't have time to really prepare for my art show. Regardless I still went and I said hey we should at least stop and see something cool along the way like Yosemite or the redwoods. He said that would be cool.
We where supposed yo leave on Tuesday morning but I get to his,storage and he hasn't even got the truck packed right. All day long we have to unpack and,repack things into the uhaul. The whole time arguing about politics religion and anything else that you could think of. One of the major problems is that he didn't have the truck packed right. He said I used to work at uhaul I know how to pack a truck you put the furniture in first and then everything else.. I said that has nothing to do with how you have it packed wrong, you put the furniture first, then everything else from the back working your way forward, not from the back a couple of layers then a line of stuff from the back to the front leaving a small gap to move things to the back... I'd have to draw what it looked like for you to get what I am saying. Lets just say though that if it was a game of tetris the way things were stacked it would have been game over. about half way into the day i went to burger king and got some burgers and some food for the kids, because I had not eat yet and I bought the kids food too because it didn't seem like they had eaten either.
So this shit takes all day of the first day of the trip. then come to find out he left a few things downtown so we had to drive in rush hour traffic to go get those things. Then his kids run off to play while he is packing the other things. So we have to go search for them in the canyon. Finally at around 7:30 at night we start the trip and drive till about 2:45 in the morning just outside of ridge-crest ca. His idea was that we sleep a couple of hours in the cars and then continue on. I can't sleep in the car and can't get my phone to charge so i suggest we get a room. (I still have to organize my art show and coordinate with rady's while this trip is going.) I also don't do well driving without sleep. Either way we weren't supposed to be wasting energy on packing his Uhaul and we definitely weren't supposed to start the trip Tuesday night. We wake up the next day, and start getting ready to go, stop and grab breakfast at a fast food joint and then start our trip. about 20 minutes into the trip we stop at the lava flow from 100,000k years ago... and Dwayne goes off to use the restroom, leaves his keys in the uhaul and his kids somehow get into it, and then leave it, lock it and lock the keys in the Uhaul. So for two hours we attempt to break into the truck without success. Finally I get on the phone with my insurance company to see if they can locate a lock smith because everyone we called wouldn't come. They did. two hours later we are unlocked. Durring the wait we had yet another argument where Dwayne was telling me about how much this storage was costing him to keep, and how many things happened because of it. The amount of money he was saying he spent didn't make any since to me, because most of the stuff was old cloths that probably didn't fit the kids any more. Old furniture that a lot of had issues with, and boxes and boxes of stuff, like he had a box full of just regular old rocks in it, nothing special about the rocks, just rocks he had gathered with the kids over the years... He had an old toy box that was eat up by termites, but it still went into storage. lots of things like that. so when shit hit the fan and he was telling me that it cost him so much to keep all of this stuff I asked him, but it seems like it causes so much turmoil and suffering. why didn't you just let it go? He got furious and screamed this is my kids things.... And these things bring us happiness. I said that maybe the case but look at all the shit it has already caused, and we aren't even 8 hours from san diego two days later... Then somehow it got onto me being the devil and being evil and all sorts of other things like that. We argued so much that eventually the kids all try and step between us to calm us down.. It doesn't work. dwayne then says something to the effect to the kids, see this is what I go though when you guys pull this shit. Well we eventually get the truck unlocked by a lock smith and start on our way.
We drive about 3 hours and end up in bishop ca. We start up the sierras and we get caught in a blizzard, we don';t have chains for the uhaul, and I don't feel like 3 times driving in snow is enough skill for me to drive through a blizzard so we go back into bishop and Dwayne tells me if we want a room I have to use the 100 he paid me to drive him up there. So there goes the little money i had to cover my ass for the art show I had set up, but I am definitely not sleeping in a car in the snow. So we get a room and sleep for the night, but at 5 am, the kids are blasting the tv. So I get up and go smoke a bowl. shortly after Dwayne and I argue again. this time about religion and politics yet again. At one point he tells me to leave the room I paid for. Tries kicking me out. I was pretty much at that point ready to go get him kicked out of the room and get a greyhound back to san diego from bishop. Instead I walk across the street and buy us both a coffee. Go back and we argue again for another hour or two before we leave. I planned a route that bypassed the mountains and took an extra hour on the trip.
We drive along the route all day stopping here and there to stretch, get gas, take photos, and almost every stop we end up arguing 20 minutes to an hour. Every single argument stated with a current topic and then somehow Dwayne would bring up something that happened ages ago. Like he never let go of anything negative that has ever happened. We argued about everything. He couldn't even get a lot of the things he has mad at me about straight. Many of the things he held resentment about was from hearsay creating perspective that was inaccurate to the actual truth. So we drive and we drive and we drive and we make it to Reno . At Reno he tells me he could leave his jeep there and send me home on a bus, but he would prefer i drove it on up to his house 2 hours away. Turned out it was more like 4 hours. Which the last hour was driving 20 mph through a blizzard up the last stretch of the sierras. We get to his house and settle down. The next morning I wake up at 5 am and look at the greyhound to start planning my trip back home. Prior to this Dwayne had told me that the trip by bus is 12 hours. I assumed he had looked into this, because this was his trip. Nope he had not. Turns out it was a 20 hour trip no matter which station we took, and that doesn't include the 3 hour trip by the sage coach to either redding or reno. So when dwanye wakes up we argue all morning about how he didn't really plan things through. And how all he cared about was getting his kids stuff to his house and didn't consider anyone elses life or plans. I was pissed already 2 days behind and he wanted me to spend 22 hours on a bus. I said at this point I need a flight back. So he drove me to the sage coach which we barely made it to in time (only one was leaving that day) Then I road 3 hours to reno, spent the day there waiting for my 6:45 pm flight to salt lake, to rush off the plane and get to my transfer back to san diego.
You would think the trip ended there, but for the past couple of weeks Dwayne has been passive aggressively posting memes all along the subjects we discussed, and every conversation we had turned into an argument, didn't matter what it was. He continually accused me of doing things to hurt him, and to screw with him, he accused me of being a demon, of being Satan, of all kinds of things. Thing is I didn't go on the trip for myself and even the things I wanted to do on the trip where cut out because of the lack of actual organization and planning. I didn't need to go on the trip I didn't really want to go on the trip but I did to help a friend. I didn't go to be yelled at, i didn't go to be in stress for a week. I was perfectly happy at home and working towards an art show Which turns out I needed more time than I had because of going on that trip. Because I needed to buy flyers and pass them out, I needed to do more advertising, and I needed to find and make contact with my media contacts. I had to have a friend come over at the last minute to help me get all of my art ready for the show. Still dropped the ball on my show.
And yet every time we talk i am treated like an enemy. He brings up every little thing that has ever happened. Many of the things weren't even things i had personally done, but in his mind it doesn't matter because I must have influenced these things in some way... It doesn't even matter that I clearly can go over the things and explain what actually happened. No its all what he precieves in his head as the truth.
I don't hate him, I don't even have animosity towards him over this, but I was mentally and emotionally fucked for days after this trip. I know I would have been way less stressed if i didn't have m,y own deadlines I needed to keep. I also know if I had been eating 3 meals a day I would have been less snappy. but
I also know that you can't constantly bring up the past and be at peace. I know that holding onto things like that bring nothing but anguish. Thing is I have tons of things that have happened in my life because of dwayne, all of the things he was angry at me about and holding onto resentment he did just as many bad things to me over the years. I generally don't hold grudges against any one though. A lot of people have asked me, why bother? Why be friends with someone who is like that? Because he has also done a lot of good things for me, if it wasn't for him i wouldn't be living the life I am living. He talked me into leaving texas, he told me I would find opportunity here. He helped me when no one else would. He bought me my first pc, he loaned me money when I was down and out. So many good things that I can't forget. So yeah there has been a lot of hell with my friend dwayne, but I try and not let the past affect the now. Even now as I am writing this, I am not writing it because I am bitter, I am not writing it because I want to hurt dwayne, I am writing it because writting is my therapy. Oh and I guess the last argument we had he deleted me on facebook again...
So now it is written I can forget about it... YAY.
We where supposed yo leave on Tuesday morning but I get to his,storage and he hasn't even got the truck packed right. All day long we have to unpack and,repack things into the uhaul. The whole time arguing about politics religion and anything else that you could think of. One of the major problems is that he didn't have the truck packed right. He said I used to work at uhaul I know how to pack a truck you put the furniture in first and then everything else.. I said that has nothing to do with how you have it packed wrong, you put the furniture first, then everything else from the back working your way forward, not from the back a couple of layers then a line of stuff from the back to the front leaving a small gap to move things to the back... I'd have to draw what it looked like for you to get what I am saying. Lets just say though that if it was a game of tetris the way things were stacked it would have been game over. about half way into the day i went to burger king and got some burgers and some food for the kids, because I had not eat yet and I bought the kids food too because it didn't seem like they had eaten either.
So this shit takes all day of the first day of the trip. then come to find out he left a few things downtown so we had to drive in rush hour traffic to go get those things. Then his kids run off to play while he is packing the other things. So we have to go search for them in the canyon. Finally at around 7:30 at night we start the trip and drive till about 2:45 in the morning just outside of ridge-crest ca. His idea was that we sleep a couple of hours in the cars and then continue on. I can't sleep in the car and can't get my phone to charge so i suggest we get a room. (I still have to organize my art show and coordinate with rady's while this trip is going.) I also don't do well driving without sleep. Either way we weren't supposed to be wasting energy on packing his Uhaul and we definitely weren't supposed to start the trip Tuesday night. We wake up the next day, and start getting ready to go, stop and grab breakfast at a fast food joint and then start our trip. about 20 minutes into the trip we stop at the lava flow from 100,000k years ago... and Dwayne goes off to use the restroom, leaves his keys in the uhaul and his kids somehow get into it, and then leave it, lock it and lock the keys in the Uhaul. So for two hours we attempt to break into the truck without success. Finally I get on the phone with my insurance company to see if they can locate a lock smith because everyone we called wouldn't come. They did. two hours later we are unlocked. Durring the wait we had yet another argument where Dwayne was telling me about how much this storage was costing him to keep, and how many things happened because of it. The amount of money he was saying he spent didn't make any since to me, because most of the stuff was old cloths that probably didn't fit the kids any more. Old furniture that a lot of had issues with, and boxes and boxes of stuff, like he had a box full of just regular old rocks in it, nothing special about the rocks, just rocks he had gathered with the kids over the years... He had an old toy box that was eat up by termites, but it still went into storage. lots of things like that. so when shit hit the fan and he was telling me that it cost him so much to keep all of this stuff I asked him, but it seems like it causes so much turmoil and suffering. why didn't you just let it go? He got furious and screamed this is my kids things.... And these things bring us happiness. I said that maybe the case but look at all the shit it has already caused, and we aren't even 8 hours from san diego two days later... Then somehow it got onto me being the devil and being evil and all sorts of other things like that. We argued so much that eventually the kids all try and step between us to calm us down.. It doesn't work. dwayne then says something to the effect to the kids, see this is what I go though when you guys pull this shit. Well we eventually get the truck unlocked by a lock smith and start on our way.
We drive about 3 hours and end up in bishop ca. We start up the sierras and we get caught in a blizzard, we don';t have chains for the uhaul, and I don't feel like 3 times driving in snow is enough skill for me to drive through a blizzard so we go back into bishop and Dwayne tells me if we want a room I have to use the 100 he paid me to drive him up there. So there goes the little money i had to cover my ass for the art show I had set up, but I am definitely not sleeping in a car in the snow. So we get a room and sleep for the night, but at 5 am, the kids are blasting the tv. So I get up and go smoke a bowl. shortly after Dwayne and I argue again. this time about religion and politics yet again. At one point he tells me to leave the room I paid for. Tries kicking me out. I was pretty much at that point ready to go get him kicked out of the room and get a greyhound back to san diego from bishop. Instead I walk across the street and buy us both a coffee. Go back and we argue again for another hour or two before we leave. I planned a route that bypassed the mountains and took an extra hour on the trip.
We drive along the route all day stopping here and there to stretch, get gas, take photos, and almost every stop we end up arguing 20 minutes to an hour. Every single argument stated with a current topic and then somehow Dwayne would bring up something that happened ages ago. Like he never let go of anything negative that has ever happened. We argued about everything. He couldn't even get a lot of the things he has mad at me about straight. Many of the things he held resentment about was from hearsay creating perspective that was inaccurate to the actual truth. So we drive and we drive and we drive and we make it to Reno . At Reno he tells me he could leave his jeep there and send me home on a bus, but he would prefer i drove it on up to his house 2 hours away. Turned out it was more like 4 hours. Which the last hour was driving 20 mph through a blizzard up the last stretch of the sierras. We get to his house and settle down. The next morning I wake up at 5 am and look at the greyhound to start planning my trip back home. Prior to this Dwayne had told me that the trip by bus is 12 hours. I assumed he had looked into this, because this was his trip. Nope he had not. Turns out it was a 20 hour trip no matter which station we took, and that doesn't include the 3 hour trip by the sage coach to either redding or reno. So when dwanye wakes up we argue all morning about how he didn't really plan things through. And how all he cared about was getting his kids stuff to his house and didn't consider anyone elses life or plans. I was pissed already 2 days behind and he wanted me to spend 22 hours on a bus. I said at this point I need a flight back. So he drove me to the sage coach which we barely made it to in time (only one was leaving that day) Then I road 3 hours to reno, spent the day there waiting for my 6:45 pm flight to salt lake, to rush off the plane and get to my transfer back to san diego.
You would think the trip ended there, but for the past couple of weeks Dwayne has been passive aggressively posting memes all along the subjects we discussed, and every conversation we had turned into an argument, didn't matter what it was. He continually accused me of doing things to hurt him, and to screw with him, he accused me of being a demon, of being Satan, of all kinds of things. Thing is I didn't go on the trip for myself and even the things I wanted to do on the trip where cut out because of the lack of actual organization and planning. I didn't need to go on the trip I didn't really want to go on the trip but I did to help a friend. I didn't go to be yelled at, i didn't go to be in stress for a week. I was perfectly happy at home and working towards an art show Which turns out I needed more time than I had because of going on that trip. Because I needed to buy flyers and pass them out, I needed to do more advertising, and I needed to find and make contact with my media contacts. I had to have a friend come over at the last minute to help me get all of my art ready for the show. Still dropped the ball on my show.
And yet every time we talk i am treated like an enemy. He brings up every little thing that has ever happened. Many of the things weren't even things i had personally done, but in his mind it doesn't matter because I must have influenced these things in some way... It doesn't even matter that I clearly can go over the things and explain what actually happened. No its all what he precieves in his head as the truth.
I don't hate him, I don't even have animosity towards him over this, but I was mentally and emotionally fucked for days after this trip. I know I would have been way less stressed if i didn't have m,y own deadlines I needed to keep. I also know if I had been eating 3 meals a day I would have been less snappy. but
I also know that you can't constantly bring up the past and be at peace. I know that holding onto things like that bring nothing but anguish. Thing is I have tons of things that have happened in my life because of dwayne, all of the things he was angry at me about and holding onto resentment he did just as many bad things to me over the years. I generally don't hold grudges against any one though. A lot of people have asked me, why bother? Why be friends with someone who is like that? Because he has also done a lot of good things for me, if it wasn't for him i wouldn't be living the life I am living. He talked me into leaving texas, he told me I would find opportunity here. He helped me when no one else would. He bought me my first pc, he loaned me money when I was down and out. So many good things that I can't forget. So yeah there has been a lot of hell with my friend dwayne, but I try and not let the past affect the now. Even now as I am writing this, I am not writing it because I am bitter, I am not writing it because I want to hurt dwayne, I am writing it because writting is my therapy. Oh and I guess the last argument we had he deleted me on facebook again...
So now it is written I can forget about it... YAY.