rockin' in a church van

what it's really like, part 1 (or 4000):

tourcos travel via plane a lot, but they also travel in a shitty van that has broken down several times and sits abandoned in a parking lot a lot of months out of the year. this time, when we left, the van driver's seat didn't move forward or backward. meghan strained to reach the pedals and drove us for about a half hour until an unidentified object flew off the van, then about 14 minutes later, the weather stripping came dislodged from the driver window. it whipped the van for another hour or so until we all tucked it back in.

on sunday, when we headed back to chicago, we hit the last leg of 55. with skyline in sight and my family waiting downtown on their visit, our front passenger side tire exploded cartoonishly, leaving shreds of rubber and tire carnage in a trail of tears behind us. meghan drove off the road very steadily and well, but then we sat helpless as the fast lane of cars whizzed by only inches away. we knew we had a spare, but no flares and no room to change it.

one hour and twenty minutes later, after going through chuck's (music director's) pictures on his mac and going after lehrer for just about everything, a random tow truck stopped to help us for 35 bucks, beating both triple a and the cops.

rockstars.