After we got back to the house, we parked the bike and got back into his truck, because we needed to make a Walmart run. Granted, I might be low maintenance, but I still need some "help." It was the first time I've ever had to drag a guy through the makeup aisle...I felt so bad. He took it pretty well though, and I tried to be quick, grabbing some mascara, powder foundation, concealer, and blush. (Not too bad, right?) He even bought it, because he felt bad about losing my bag (and the cashier said I should just be quiet, when I tried to argue). The rest of my stay went pretty well, more uneventful at least, and I was able to pretty much get everything I needed when I got back to Denver. The only thing I still need to get is some new glasses.
Ok, so after that whole debacle, I wasn't really sure if there would ever be a "second" trip. I mean, as far as I could tell we both had fun, but I turned out to be a lot more of a handful than he probably ever dreamed of. Time would tell.
I had a wedding to attend the next weekend, and then it was straight back to work. My last day of work turned out to be pretty long, and as I sat down in our crew lounge to turn in my liquor money, my phone rings (to the snappy tune of "When the Saints Come Marching In"), it's C. I talk to him as I walk to the bus that takes the employees back to the parking lot. We decide that if a flight is open later that night (it's 7:30 p.m.), I should jump on it. I make 2 calls to the airlines, find a flight, get off the bus, and walk straight to the one that's going back to the terminal.
The flight is wide open, which is super news to me, and I get my boarding pass right away. We board the plane and are waiting for pushback, when the Captain comes on the PA system.
"Ladies and Gentlemen, welcome aboard our flight to Phoenix tonight. We're all ready to go up here, but it looks like they found a hole in the cargo door, so maintenance is on their way over to check it out and see if it's something they can fix. We apologize for the inconvenience and will keep you updated when we find out any additional information."
Finally, an hour later, they have fixed the hole (it really wasn't too big of deal, the hole was in the cargo bay itself not the door), and we are on our way. C. picks me up, and back to his house we go. The next 2 days are pretty uneventful, since he has to work during the day. I spend most of it working online trying to plan an upcoming bachelorette party for an old roomie.
So everything has went fine, and we're on our way back to the airport. Traffic is chugging along pretty slow, but we're catching the tail end of rush hour, so we don't think much about it. We watch a car in front of us jam on their brakes as they make some stupid merge into another lane. C. comments that if you end up jamming on your brakes in traffic this slow, you're not paying near enough attention. Not two seconds later, as C. is slowing down for the car in front of us, when BUMP! I look over at C.
"They didn't just hit us, did they?"
"Um, yah. They did." C. climbs out to inspect the damage.
He's back in a couple minutes. His pickup is perfectly fine, and the car behind us only has a couple scratches, so everyone is fine with just leaving.
"We were so close," I say as C. gets back in.
Puzzled, he says, "What do you mean?"
"It has been two days, and besides the whole hole in the cargo thing, everything has went pretty well. We're on our way to the airport, and you get rear-ended."
C. laughs. "Joni, you are probably the least annoying girl I've ever known...but you are dangerous."
My plane (somehow) makes it back to Denver unscathed. As I'm making the quick drive back to the house, cops and ambulances, with their sirens screaming, are flying down the street. I don't live in the best of neighborhoods (it's pretty good most of the time though), so it did cross my mind that they might be headed in that direction. As I get closer to home, I see no more lights and stop hearing the sirens, so I figure they must have headed elsewhere. Until I wind my way through the cul-de-sac and am stopped just short of my turn by 4 cop cars, blocking the street. Unfortunately, there had been a shooting a couple houses over from ours (yikes!). Unfortunately, it was already after midnight, and they weren't letting people back into the neighborhood for several hours. I had to be to work early, so I ended up getting a hotel room...
C. officially thinks I'm bad luck.
Although apparently worth the risk...I'll probably go back sometime in November. :)
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