Part 2: Weirder, still.
Here's part two of brutal cliff hanger I left you last week. It was the worst, I’m so sorry.
Here’s part two of brutal cliff hanger I left you last week. It was the worst, I’m so sorry. I’m now nervous I’ve hyped it up too much, like when I made Rob watch What About Bob? Because, and I quote, “It’s the best movie made in the history of all movies ever.” He disagreed. LIKE A HUMORLESS MORON.
Sigh. I’m doing my best.
If you missed part one, catch up here.
Still on a smash dash high, we decided to stop near my house to a little bar and grab a drink before we all had to get home to our responsibilities. As we got out of the car, an old Corolla peeled up behind us and slammed on the brakes. I’ve been watching a lot of news lately, so I deduced this would be one of those murderings I’ve been hearing so much about.
“You dropped something,” the woman said to Kim and Melissa, who had just gotten out of Amber’s Honda Odyssey.
My stomach dropped, I knew something was up. “Just ignore them, let’s go,” I said from the sidewalk.
“What?” Melissa said, looking at the ground.
“Look, there,” the woman said again. “You dropped something.” Amber glanced up at me and our eyes locked. My heart sank. Based on my avid social media/Twitter scrolling, I knew these losers were either doing some dangerous/stupid/humiliating TikTok prank or we ‘bout to get abducted. My eyes flicked to an object flying out of the Corolla. It was a black ball, but tied up with fingers, like maybe a glove filled with something. It landed on Kim’s foot and right as I tried to get a good look at the couple in the car, they peeled off, squealing and leaving tire marks on the asphalt.
“What is that?” I shouted from the sidewalk.
“I don’t know, it hit my foot.” Kim said, adjusting her feet, but still too confused to move.
“Is it sperm?” I offered. At the time it felt like a plausible explanation. Pranksters like disgusting things and what’s more disgusting and egregious than a bag of sperm? Seems like a pretty good prank if you ask me. But in retrospect, the ball thing was way too big and if someone filled that with sperm, we’d need to get the FBI involved.
“Well get away from it!” Amber shouted. “It might explode!”
Kim and Melissa moved away with pep, but not with a “pin’s been pulled!” kind of urgency.
The girls gathered near me on the sidewalk, while Amber, still confused, but also convinced it might actually be an explosive, wouldn’t leave the opposite side of the car. We loitered, all of us wondering, What do we do now?
“We shouldn’t just go inside, leaving the car here,” I said. The girls agreed and as we made our way back to the mini-van, the sound of a crappy Corolla getting pushed to its limit filled the air, then a loud screech as it came to an abrupt stop. They were back, about 20 yards away, idling, watching us. A truck pulled into the parking lot, spooking the Corolla. They flipped it in reverse, gunning it through the expansive parking lot, disappearing onto a main street.
“Yeah, we definitely can’t go into this bar, let’s just go to another one,” Amber said. We all quickly agreed, now flitting about with a frenetic energy, like The Three Stooges when they got lost in a forest and slipped into a hot panic. We jumped over the potentially explosive ball of sperm and hopped into Amber’s Odyssey. She started the minivan, but couldn’t back out because the Corolla was now directly behind us. They idled for about five beats, then peeled off again, tires smoking. My first thought was, What kind of nerd keeps gunning a garbage car like it’s a Cobra Mustang? While simultaneously thinking we might be in peril. We all froze, looked around, and saw it again, about fifty yards away, watching us.
“They’re gonna shoot us!” Melissa wailed.
While I was a touch on edge that I might, in fact, get murdered, I felt the odds were higher that these were teenagers, bored, possibly high or drunk— and pranking us. My mind flashed to when I was a teenager, driving around with my friend Brett in his Honda Civic on a Saturday night. Brett, a devout mormon and pretty good kid, was also a prankey, jokey, little troll. “Let’s follow this car and see how long it takes for them to notice,” he said while I pulled a few swigs off the straw of my 44 oz Diet Pepsi. “Yeah, okay, whatever,” I said.
We picked a random car and followed them. I don’t think the car noticed for a long while, until they took a few turns into a neighborhood. It was obvious they were testing us to see if they were, in fact, being followed. We giggled at the thrill of it all, but part of me felt like we were in way over our heads on this one. We followed the car, slowly, as it took us to a construction site. The car hopped a curb, driving around a blockade, and Brett, giggling with delight in his low baritone voice, followed them. The car abruptly stopped, flipped around hard, then faced us— the brights blinding our eyes.
“Oh crap,” Brett said, also realizing, we were way over our heads on this one. The car gunned it, barreling towards us.
“Go, go, go, go, go, go, go!” I screamed, raising my Diet Pepsi in the air in terror.
“I’m going!” he yelled back, spinning the car around, hopping the curb, sparks flying off his bumper as it hit cement. We screeched our tires onto a main road, hiding within the busy traffic surrounding us, checking our mirrors to see if the car was still chasing us. It wasn’t. Our chests rose and fell, our hearts beating hard like bass drums. Brett let out a nervous laugh, both of us breathless, terrified, relieved. Humiliated.
I turned to Amber. “Chase ‘em.”
“In my mini-van?” she asked.
“Yeah, gun it right at them,” I said. I thought I’d need to do a bit more persuading, maybe give her the background story I just recalled. Nope. Amber hit the gas and our heads flew back. She went right for the Corolla, who spun around and raced through the expansive, open parking lot. Suddenly, red brake lights flashed bright and the Corolla stopped sharp. Amber swerved to the passenger side of their car. And in that brief second, I thought: “So uh, what are we supposed to do now? Get out? Scold them? … Fight? I just turned 41 and way too old for this!”
“They’re gonna shoot us!” Melissa screamed from the back seat. She’d been really going for the worst case scenarios during this entire escapade. The Corolla sped off again and Amber gunned it in hot pursuit. The Corolla fled the empty parking lot and peeled off so hard, they hopped the curb, sparks flying off their bumper as it hit cement.
“Should I keep following them?” Amber asked.
“Nope, that’ll do,” I said, calm. Smug. “Those nerds just got punked by middle aged moms in a minivan.”
“Hell yeah they did!” Amber shouted, hand up for a high five. I think the girls in the back let out some “hoot, hoots!” but my adrenaline was pumping so loud, I couldn’t hear it clearly. We relished our victory onward towards another bar. In the words of Geto Boys, Damn it feels good to be a gangsta.
“Gonna tell Rob about the wild night we just had?” Amber asked, pulling up to another bar.
“Uh, no. He’d kill me if he knew we chased a car that was menacing us.”
“We could have died!” Melissa shouted from the back.
I got out of the car and took in a deep breath of crisp fall air. I was 41 and fully alive.
But also sleepy, as it was a weeknight and nearing 11 PM.
“Man, that was weird,” Amber said. “I’m gonna need two Shirley Temples to help this adrenaline come down.”
“You’re not gonna drink?” I asked.
“Are you kidding? It’s late on a weeknight and I gotta drive home safe back to my kids!”
I nodded. We are forty something moms, after-all.
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Miss anything?
Wanna walk with me? In last Sunday’s Digest, I released the third episode of my latest walking playlist. Are we walking together or what? Listen to episode three now.
Don’t forget the Spotify soundtrack I made for us for us while we walk, and I change it up each week. Use it to workout, strength train, or do the dishes. It’s our world, we can do what we want! I like to mix old school with new school. Just roll with it. Listen to our jams here.
“Where’s Rob?” Our question of the week asks a question I get often. Read it here.
Have we met? I’m Anna Lind Thomas, a humor writer out of Omaha, Nebraska. I’m listed as one of USA Today’s top ten funniest women writers, and author of the best selling book We’ll Laugh About This (Someday) and my latest - I’m Not Ready for This. Once you read them, text me (number’s in the back and I respond!). Don’t forget to say hi on Facebook and Instagram.