Two Lost To a Wedding, Part II of The Wedding Zone

pstrong pbThe traveling to and from my brother's wedding takes its toll/bbr / /p/strong/p pDIV align="left" TABLE cellpadding="5"TR VALIGN="TOP"TD/td/trTR VALIGN="TOP"TD/td/trTR VALIGN="TOP"TDTR VALIGN="TOP"TD pby Joseph Bolden/p pMy mother and I were ready for the eight-hour drive to Las Vegas. The "Gilligan’s Island" theme song was playing in my head, unfortunately I didn’t heed the context of travel in the famous refrain, "A 3-hour tour…"./p pDresses, suits, belts, and vests were ready and packed. The night before, the portable icebox filled with water hadn’t leaked one drop of water—a good sign that food and especially water would be the least of our problems on this combination road trip/gambling junket. We’d packed some cold cuts, wheat bread, mayonnaise, non-dairy-product cheese, plus knives, forks, spoons, and fruits for snacks, instead of candy or other non-essential foods. We’d be riding through the Mojave Dessert and the best liquid to have cold or warm is plain old water. It could mean life or death without it./p pMother and I were suppose to be up, washed, cleaned, and dressed and out by 2am. We woke up at 3 maybe 4am. That was our first of many errors in judgement. But we had a map… if both of us knew how to read it properly everything would’ve have turned out fine. Unfortunately the two people in the car were looking at landmarks instead of the map. Two hours later we were still in Fairfield circling like demented homing pigeons./p pI thought it was a straight route to Nevada. I was to learn the hard way that there are twists, turns, and on and of ramps that make or break connections between highways. We kept going North and nothing was familiar. I did not like that sinking feeling that we had missed something./p pMy mom, her eyes steady, has a crooked smile and says, "Oh shit. We’re lost." We both had our crooked smiles on, knowing from sad experience that this was going to be one long drive on the endless asphalt highway./p pbPlease send donations to Poor Magazine C/0 Ask Joe at 255 9th St. Street, San Francisco, CA. 94103 USA/b/p p For Joe only my snail mail:PO Box 1230 #645br / Market St. San Francisco, CA 94102br / Email: askjoe@poormagazine.org/p p/p/td/tr/td/tr/table/div/p