Well it was the 4th of July weekend this past weekend. I didn’t really have anything planned. I was just thinking of spending it here down in L.A. on my own. It’ll be my first 4th down here, but it wasn’t the case.

I planned on staying down here because there is a superstition that I couldn’t visit any relatives until after 100 days of my father’s passing. But my cousins in Fresno were insistent that I go visit them over the weekend. I asked my mom and she was okay.

Overall, I enjoyed my weekend. I’ll get into specifics later. First I want to talk about my trip home.

It went well for the first hour and a half or so. Just sped along the long lonely stretch of highway, singing, thinking, and talking. Not much to worry about. Then traffic. I was past Bakersfield, about 10 miles from the Grapevine (which puts me about 100 miles from home) and there was traffic.

It was rough, bumper to bumper. No one was going anywhere. I got off the highway (99) and took this small farm road for about a mile to Texaco. Pulled in and it was a party. Cars were parked and camped out there to wait out the traffic. Little do they know that it was going to be a long long wait. I went in to shake my stick, do my business and I was gone.

I went back on the 99 again. There I am inching along with my windows down, sunroof open, and the faint aroma of manure in the air. Cars are pulled over on the side of the road for bathroom breaks and for camping out. It was hell.

I’m thinking to myself, as I am searching for a decent radio station, that it must be the holiday traffic. The highway is congested because of the merging of I-5 with 99. 45 minutes later I reached the point where 99 turns into I-5. There was still traffic. It didn’t let up. I kept going, trudging along inch by inch. Cars pulling over or playing the always bad game of switching lanes back and forth to catch the fast one. It never works. You’ll end up going at the same pace as everyone else. As I’m trudging along, my miniscule pea size bladder is filling up ounce by ounce as each second passes.

There were no rest stops or gas stations along the way anymore. I was stuck in the middle of the interstate with no room to merge. I had to find a bottle. Luckily for me I had a large bottle of water in the car, but it was full of water. Didn’t want to waste it. Reaching around in the back with my hands, I found it, the empty 16 oz. of Kirkland Signature bottle. I was relieved.

I knew that there is a rest stop at the top of the Grapevine, so I took my chances. An hour and ten minutes into the traffic jam, I reached the base of the Grapevine and is ready to climb the hill.

I scaled the hill. Inch by inch my little coupe climbed along with my fellow companions. With each inch, my bladder grows bigger and bigger. Pretty soon the pressure was unbearable, but I still held on. There were many battles being fought tonight my friends. Many. My car battling the traffic, battling the mammoth hill before me. I am battling the searing pressure in my groin, Yoshime battlles the pink robots. Many battles my friends.

As I ascended Kilamanjaro with my trusty car, which I just recently washed after almost of year, I see on the side of the road, dead cars. Cars who lost the battle. They are just sitting there, hood up, smoking. Unable to move. Their owners got it worse. They would have to scale K2 on foot to the summit to get water and walk back down. How I do not envy them and at the same time I’m telling my self that in five minutes I would have to pee in the bottle.

Twenty minutes and 50 dead cars later, I am halfway up Everest. My mind is playing tricks with me now. I look up at the dark sky and see these unexplainable unidentified lights all lined up in a row moving slowly across the night sky. In the back of my head I was thinking, great we are being invaded by aliens. That explains the traffic jam. Aliens, flying saucers making their descent and make contact. I’ll finally get a chance to meet aliens but I’ll have soiled shorts when I see them. It can only happen to me. By this time, I’m shaking, trying not to let a drop go. If it does, the dam gates will open and all is lost.

It is here that I realize how Slim Pickens must have felt in Kubrick’s classic Dr. Strangelove. Slim Pickens with that nuclear bomb between his legs, falling to the earth and going off. I am in that predicament. I have a nuclear bomb between my legs and it is about to explode folks. It would have been a diasater of epic proportions. Many lives will be lost. But unlike Slim boy, I wasn’t enjoying my trip.

Finally 2 hours after the traffic jam has started, I’ve reached 3/4 up the face of Everest and I see the cause of my pain. There were about 8 fire trucks parked at the side of the road. A large group of firefighters, each carrying their trusty axe, walk down the hill to their trucks. As I look up into the weird lights above, I realize that they were the lights on the firefighter’s hats. They were battling a wild fire. There were many battles tonight folks, many.

The cause of the traffic jam is man’s stupid curiosity to slow down and look at what is happening. It is like a car wreck. You cannot not look. You just have to, and it almost cost many lives. I can’t believe man’s stupidity to have to stop and see what is going on. Come on people, get a life, go drive on. A man has to pee here folks. It’s a life or death matter. The traffic picked up speed and I’m cursing aloud at mankind in general for their general stupidity.

10 minutes later, the pressure has been relieved, the bomb has been defused at the rest stop.

The rest of the trip was uneventful at best, how the trip should have been. I was driving along in nascar speed and fashion. Nothing was before me but the eerie red glowing orbs in front of me. 40 minutes later I was home. A typical 3 to 3.5 hour trip lasted 5 hours. What a night.