Cloverfield Snack Bar

What an interesting weekend I had. Sheesh where to begin? I guess the beginning is as good a place as any.

Friday night Gordon (the stepdad) texted me and told me he was going to go to the junk yard to find a sideview mirror for Nicole's (the sister) car. He wanted to know if I wanted to go to and try to find one for my car. My driver side mirror has been dangling since Mother's day when I backed into a pole whilst stopping to buy a watermelon. I agreed and he said he would pick me up from my house at 9AM sharp. I instantly regretted it because I wanted to sleep in. But I sucked it up and woke up at 8:40. I peed, brushed my teeth, and washed my hair. I figured I would go out in the heat, sweat a little, get home, and shower then relax for the rest of the day. Nope not the case.

We went to the junk yard and he told me that Nicholas (the nephew) was having his first peewee football game (actually a scrimmage) that day in Allen TX, which is about 45 mins from lovely Oak Cliff. I'm thinking sheesh I don't wanna drive all the way over there but I really wanna go.

This was the first time I had ever been to a junk yard, so I was at the same time excited and a little scared. I wasn't really sure what to expect, other than a bunch of.... well... junk. We arrive at the first place and walk in and tell the guy behind the counter what we were looking for. A sideview mirror for a 2001 Chevy Mailbu and the same for a 1995 Mazda MX6. Right away he says he won't have the one for the Mazda because they don't carry foreign cars. (Is "we don't carry that" the proper terminology for a junk yard? Sort of like them saying, "No we don't have that trash in stock. You have to go to another trash can.") The guy behind the counter calls out to some other guy who's sitting behind us on a old lounge chair from the 70s. We'll call him Jack cuz I forgot his name.

"Hey Jack! Go get these guys a mirror for a 2000 Malibu." Gordon and I sort of stand there not really sure if we were supposed to follow him or wait there. He motions us to follow, so we do. Gordon is making small talk and I'm soaking in the atomsphere. My first thought is that this was what Wall E must have felt like. There were cars everywhere in various forms of disarray. It was what I expected it to look like, yet somehow I was still slightly taken aback from the sheer magnitude of the...well...junk.

Meanwhile, Jack has walked up to some sort of really old Cadillac (I'm not good with cars) and gets in. Again, Gordon and I are just standing there, not really sure if he's planning on finding the part and bringing it to us or if we actually have to ride with him in the car. He opens the door, looks at us, then says with just a twinge of sarcasm and frustration, "Well get in!"

Shocked by his tone and bluntness, we climb into the car. I shift over the various car maintainence tools and sit down on the dusty brown seat. Jack puts the car in reverse and then turns around and starts driving down the bumpy road to view the aisles and aisles of merchandise. After maybe a minute and a half, he realizes his tire is extremely low and makes his way back to the front to fill it up. For the third time now, Gordon and I are not sure what to do. Do we get out and watch? Try to help? Sit in the car awkwardly while he puts air in his tire? We chose the third option.

The second trip to the merchandise was much more eventful that was when I ran into cars like this.

That's when I decided that this junk yard had to be where the Cloverfield monster came when he had the munchies.

Jack and Gordon were in the front talking up a storm about various cars and the parts that we're looking for. I'm looking out the window. Suddenly the radio is turned up full blast and we're searching for a side view mirror to the tune of a Eagles sounding rock song. It was a very Tarantino moment.

Jack turned the radio down and started telling Gordon some sort of story that I wasnt really listening to. I started listening though, when he started talking about how he used to do lots of coke. Let me see if I can paraphrase. I'll replace his more colorful words with the word cookie.

"So I was out playin basketball and the ball hit me in my cookie nose and cookie broke it. I had to go to the cookie emergency room and they had to wrap up my cookie nose. then they told me I had to have cookie surgery to fix my nose and I told them well I'm always doin all this coke and then that dr tells me I need to stop doin that for a few days so he can get the cookie surgery done. I tell him fine but I'm thinkin I'm doin way too much cookie coke to just stop for a few cookie days. So I just didn't never have the cookie surgery."

To make a long story short, we found the mirror we needed for my sister's car but never found the one for mine, even after visiting two more Cloverfield Snack Bars.

Now on to the rest of the day. Gordon made a comment at some point that I was going to have fun when we got back to their house and I was finally going to be able to jump on the lawnmower and cut the grass, which I did.

After turning a nice golden brown on the mower, Ernie and Javier (The brother and The quasi-roommate) and Aron (The quasi-roommate's brother) showed up at The mom's house and we all jumped in The Liberty (The car, not the mom) and made The Long Journey to The nephew's football game. Final score, 8-6 in overtime. The nephew's team lost. I also apparently got slightly burned on the face and developed a lovely farmer brown tan.

Fast forward to Sunday afternoon and you'll see that I've already picked up Dallas, my sister's 14 year old malteese. Mix that with my 10month old chihuahua shih tzu and you've got a night filled with polar opposite interaction. I'll have Dallas until tomorrow when Monica will come pick her up. Right now they are both in my room. Mocha is without a doubt making a huge mess while Dallas is most likely sitting in a corner looking at her with lazy judgemental eyes.