“She Who Must Not be Named” and I spent the past weekend in cult country. The whole thing began a few months ago when she signed up for yoga classes down in the village. The classes were conducted by a former colleague of mine who in her younger years was a world-class athlete (I’m not kidding – this lady really has competed all over the world and has won her fair share of titles). At the time I didn’t think much about it, but should have.
One of “SWMNBN’s” personal characteristics is a tendency to get very, very enthusiastic about a new enterprise, and yoga was one of these enthusiasms. Soon we had mats and large plastic balls and other such things cluttering up the living room and more was on the way. Our travel schedule was altered to allow her to spend an extra day each week in the mountains so she could attend more yoga and fitness classes. Not much of an imposition there – I love Autumn in the mountains. Winter, however, may be a different story, especially if the driving gets a bit hairy.
Well, a few weeks ago she asked if I would like to go to a “spa.” I was dubious, but “She” was insistent and enthusiastic, and so I said “OK” and before I knew it I was sitting in a car full of women heading toward the Berkshires.
It was a beautiful drive through the mountains – the Poconos, Catskills, and finally the Berkshires, with a short side trip to drop off one of the passengers who wanted to spend the weekend with her family in her home-town. That’s where things started to go awry.
Naturally, we got lost but several cell-phone calls got us to where we wanted to go, at least for a while, then we were back on the interstate with one fewer passenger. Suddenly our driver noticed that we were about to run out of gas. The warning indicator said only fourteen miles left till the tank was empty. Our driver, who despite getting lost repeatedly claimed to know the area said not to worry, there was gas not far ahead. There wasn’t.
I watched the indicator as it dropped to twelve, to ten, then simply showed *****. Our driver sped up, trying to reduce the time until we could get gas. I tried to explain that this would only increase fuel consumption, but by this time the women were in full social-damage repair mode, uttering an endless stream of apologies, self-deprecations and reassurances. They weren’t particularly interested in anything a male might have to say.
We tried the GPS attachment, but it directed us to a town we had passed twenty-eight miles before. No help there, and a constant annoyance as it kept uttering useless directions and the driver couldn’t figure out how to turn it off [she was driving her husband’s car, and was unfamiliar with the controls].
Finally we reached a toll plaza and got directions to a place where, we were assured, we could get gas. We found the exit, marked with a gas sign, but then found ourselves faced with a little country road and no indication of whether to turn right or left. At this point the driver finally decided to consult me, the only male in the car, and I picked “right” because there was a sign indicating that a town was only two miles ahead. The sign lied.
We drove for about four miles down a country road, fortunately the gas gauge had also lied and we were still moving. I had begun to flash on old horror flicks that began, “they ran out of gas on an old country road…” when we found a woman along the side of the road from whom we could ask directions. She told us that there was indeed a gas station a couple of miles ahead, and that she would drive down in a few minutes to check on us.
I know what you’re thinking…, or at least I was: “This is the second act of the horror film – the station the mysterious stranger directed us to will be run by a cannibal clan”, but it wasn’t. We filled up our tank and were soon again on our way to the spa. As we turned back onto the interstate I glimpsed a CITGO sign just a few hundred yards up the road. If we had turned left instead of right…. It was probably for the best, though. The CITGO station was most likely run by a clan of mutant cannibals.
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