Do you ever find yourself pulled over on the shoulder of the New Jersey Turnpike with a cracked windshield, tying the hood of a car down with shoelaces?

If not, you've never been me.

THE STORY:

So on Thursday Kevyn came to the V to help me move out. Hours before I had called my dad to see if he could do the job in case it rained, because I did not, under any circumstances, want a repeat of last year's disaster. This year, instead, became its own. However, driving home with my dad would mean missing The Office (which I did anyway) and Kevyn is more fun than Baffles. So Kevyn arrives after having gotten gas and changed his oil in Brooklyn. This is important because it leads to the first instance of hood problems. Kevyn drove from this Brooklyn gas station to the V with his hood not properly latched down. When I greeted him, he asked me if I had any string, and of course I did not. Something had happened to the hood latch so that when he tried to shut it, nothing happened. So we packed up my room and finally were ready to leave an hour after I should have been gone. Oops. During this time, Kevyn has found a shoe in his backseat and threaded the shoelace around the latch and the front of his car to hold the hood.
And we're off. We breeze through the Lincoln Tunnel, bypassing the busy 47th street entrance, opting instead for the secret one at 30th. As we get into New Jersey we're discussing the hood problem, and how we should pull over whenever we can to check that it is tied down well. Kevyn brings up the scene in Tommy Boy when the hood pops up. We both agree that we're not sure whether that's really possible. We pull over at the first rest stop: the string seems to be holding up well and my stuff is all safe in the back. Burger King isn't that appetizing so we decide to pull over at the next rest stop to eat and to find another string to add to the first.
And we're off, again. We pass IKEA and I'm thinking about how much fun that store is when there is a very loud bang and the entire windshield is obstructed by the hood that has just popped up. The windshield begins to crack. My breathing ceases entirely. We start freaking out because this just had to happen right near an on-ramp where people are zooming onto the highway and leaving us no room to pull over. All I can think about is the possibility that the windshield is going to explode on us and we will be stopped in a car in the middle of the Turnpike covered in lacerations and glass shards. Finally we pull over and Kevyn gets the hood back down. There is, of course, a humongous dent in it. Kevyn starts cursing and I suggest that we call someone. The police? AAA? He calls his dad. His dad is basically deaf. His dad is in Maryland. His dad is also drunk. His dad is no help. So Kevyn rips the shoelaces out of the shoes he's wearing and begins to lace up the front of the car again. All I can think about is how this would not have happened had I had my dad pick me up. But back to the problem at hand. Because I have all my worldly possessions in the back of his truck, I begin pulling the laces out of several pairs of my own shoes and hand them to Kevyn. He takes them and tells me to get in the car. The order is well intentioned--it's fucking freezing out--but I don't want to be sitting in the car with the cracked windshield.
Kevyn is satisfied with the job he has done, and we are off. Again. Warning lights on, we drive agonizingly slowly. I am now petrified of this drive. Finally we find the next rest stop. We pull over, park, and get out to get some much needed food. We order more Popeyes chicken and mashed potatoes than we can possibly eat. We realize that, in nearly three years, this may be our first Fast Food Date. We decide that that's enough. I call my mom. She offers to come get us if something happens again, and luckily it doesn't. The rest of the journey goes rather smoothly--I bought some small bungee cords in the gas station to secure our shoelace job. However, it's only once we're in the car and back on the highway that we realize we left all my worldly possessions in the open back of Kevyn's truck for nearly an hour. At this point, I could care less whether anyone took anything. I just want to be home.
I realize that my life may not contain tons of crazy adventures with foreign strangers, but it does seem to contain a lot of car accidents. I'm not sure I like this realization.
But we did spend most of the day yesterday making chess pieces out of clay. Oh life.