Adventures of a young lady

 It was mothers day and I was taking a trip home from college to surprise my mom.

Taking a toke from my pipe while I drove, I was careful not to drive at a dangerous speed. 65MPH was enough, and in a 1971 baby blue VW I was already starting to shake.  Lots of cars passed to my left as smoke billowed from the drivers side window, just cracked a little.

People waved as they passed.  This wasn't unusual because:

 a) VW's have that effect of people.

 and 

b) so does pot. Lots of car fans, lots of tokers...

I was used to it and smiled back, turned up Boston and kept driving north on the freeway on my 4 hour trip home from San Luis Obispo to Santa Cruz California.  The year was 1999 and I was 19.

While I was used to people waving, this time something struck me as weird as a woman passed, waved (quite franticly) and pointed at me scowling.  I chalked it up to the fact that she disapproved of my smoking habit and kept driving.

About 20 minutes down the rd. I pulled over to pee.  It was this whole thing because I was pretty stoned.  Peeing always trips me out when I get too stoned.  I'm like, am I really here?  Am I really doing this?  Or am I passed out on a couch thinking I'm doing this and actually just peeing on my friends couch?  How can I be sure? I pinched myself as I held onto the passenger door in full squat to the right of the highway as cars zoomed by to the left and from what I could tell, I was really right there.

I relaxed.  Settled in and let in flow.

"Everything ok here?" A voice called

Oh fuck! 

There was nothing I could do!  I was in mid stream, ass out. "I'm good" Was all I could say and assume that the man behind me would see me and realize this was not the time!

"Oh jeez!" He muttered. "I thought you might be broken down, I was just checking on you!"

"Nope, I'm good!"  I replied sort of crab-walking as best as I could to shield my shame. 

Damn it! We accidentally made eye contact

"Ok, good.  Bye." A Door slammed and he drove off.

I shook it off and felt grateful he was gone and that we would never meet again, got in my bug, started the engine and started to drive off when I smelt smoke. I looked behind me and sure enough, my engine was smoking. Badly!

Damn!

I walked a half a mile to the next  call box and they set a tow truck...so guess who showed up?

Yep!

The guy who had just past...he was a tow truck driver doing his rounds and saw me on the side of the road.  Needless to say it was a long ride in the passenger seat next to the driver who had ironically asked me for help not 15 minutes before.

When I got to the shop, the mechanic told me that I had been driving without any oil and the engine was toast.  My Dad drove 2 hours south to get me.  It was all very sobering, sitting in the office of the tow truck office now fully aware of myself in a profound new way.

My Dad arrived and drove me to our home in Santa Cruz.  It was a $1600 fix on a car we had virtually gotten for free, so he wasn't very happy. He also reminded me that he and my mom had plans that weekend and that I was too old to "surprise people with my presence" and that "at some point it becomes imposing" OUCH!

I went for a walk to decompress when we arrived home and unfortunately stumbled upon one of my high school teachers in the middle of a very adult act with an unknown lover in the hot tub of the complex where my parents lived (again, right after getting very stoned)