Urine Trouble on I-80

The miles flew behind my messy car and full heart as I drove back from Ames on Sunday night. Being the sappy engaged woman that I am, I swallowed the butterflies in my French press as I drove, daydreaming about the upcoming life that I had just tasted that weekend. Shamelessly, sappily, sentimentally. Full, happy, and utterly nauseating.

A foreshadowing alarm of impending doom should be going off in the minds of my faithful readers who know this feeling could only possibly precede something terrifying or miserable or fatal. It did for me, but I muffled the internal siren with my giggles and sang with the radio, my cares about money and my car brakes acting up flew away to probably puke at my love gushing.

I kept driving and kept smiling, though I remembered I would need to take Ludwig (my car) into the shop this week because his brakes were grinding. A small obstacle in my life of love and happiness. I sang loudly with the radio. WHAT IS WRONG WITH ME AND WHY DON'T I CARE.

Well, Ludwig cared. Ludwig couldn't take it anymore. Ludwig isn't about that Pinteresty gushy happy life. 

Ludwig was pissed and about to release his fury on my parade of love.

Almost within the same coffee sip, I heard him start to make a grinding noise. It should shock you that my overreacting, immediately-assume-something-is-morbidly-wrong self took awhile to even think there was a problem because I was on cloud 45,035,982,345.

He kept going and I applied the breaks. The noise changed. My thoughts:

Huh that's not a sound I've ever heard before.

...

...Kinda sounds like the sound I imagine I'd hear if I had a flat tire.

.....

OH _&%*^%&*@

I pull over and instinctively begin to weep like a woman given three weeks to live. Semis zoom past me. I call my fiance. Like the chivalrous man he is, he didn't want to call AAA and send some random man to me at midnight. That's a recipe for a Lifetime movie. He would come to me. He would drive an hour and come to me. Oh, my heart.

Unfortunately, nothing in this world is free. Even chivalry has a hard, painful price I had no idea we'd have to pay. I waited in the car and Jon stayed on the phone with me the whole way, like the gem he is.

I'm still bawling.

"What are you most worried about?" he asks.

"That some semi or drunk person is going to slam into me and you'll have to pick up my arms and brain and intestines out of the ditch."

"Okay, I know. That's understandable but..."

"AND THAT SOME DEMENTED AND BLOODTHIRSTY MAN WILL COME OUT OF THIS FIELD NEXT TO ME AND BANG ON MY WINDOWS"

"Whitney that is an irrational fear rooted completely in all the Lifetime movies you watch."

"They're based on true stories!!!!!"

Jon is not a fan of my Lifetime movies and I'm convinced this will be the biggest obstacle of our marriage.

An hour later Jon arrives.

"Jon what do I do if I have to go to the bathroom?" Clearly an important question for someone trying to change a tire after midnight before he goes to work the next day. He points to the ditch next to the road. Being the lady that I am (HAHAHA), I find an old blanket in my car I had never taken out from Jon's birthday picnic back in June. Praising God for my irresponsibility, I wrapped myself in the blanket and squatted, mentally crossing "Pee in a ditch" off my bucket list of obviously glamorous life goals.

Jon asked me to move my car so he could get better leverage on the tire. I turned the key. Nothing. I remember this scene in slow motion as I flatly declared wth wide eyes, "The battery's dead," and he stared back in horror and replied, "I don't have jumper cables." 

And the heaviness of what this night could turn into falls blacker than the coffee coursing through my veins. THIS IS WHAT I GET FOR BEING HAPPY. 

We call AAA.

"Lug nuts are too tight," says AAA man, "I need a bigger bar. I'll be back in an hour."

Anger welled up inside my soul toward Ludwig as I stood in the interstate's blackness.

 I stared at the mid-sized sedan.  "IS THAT ALL?! DO YOUR WORST YOU CYNICAL HAPPINESS-RUINING BEAST. DO YOUR WORST AND I PROMISE YOU I WILL HAVE THE LAST LAUGH."

Sitting with Jon in his car, fading back and forth between reality and my subconscious, my body waging a bloody war between my coffee's caffeine and my body's exhaustion. My head pounded as their battle drum. I realize there is no way I can drive home that night. I will become that horrible news tragedy and the money we've already paid on the venue will go toward a nice funeral for me. I voice my concerns to Jon and prayed he wouldn't respo....

"Well then we'll have to sleep in the car at the next rest stop."

I groaned a groan that I have never heard from my own voice box. And then I remember my promise to Ludwig to have the last laugh, and I actually begin to laugh manically. 

I WILL WIN THIS.  I WILL WIN THIS AND YOU WILL LOSE AND I WILL HAVE THE LAST...

ohpleaseGodIdon'twanttosleeponthesideoftheroadpleasemakeanotherwaypleasepleasepleasepleasesendanangelorjustcomebackrightnow

My head goes through alternative options but all it comes up with is:

1. Sleep at rest stop.

2. Die

3. 

Jesus didn't come back that night, as you probably figured out.

The AAA man did, though. I watched him and my hott fiance work hard and get the tire changed and my battery jumped. 

Jon and I drove to the nearest rest stop, and another fresh resolve settled over me. I laughed to make good on my promise. I laughed because I would be okay. I laughed loud enough for Ludwig to hear me above my grinding breaks and bumpy spare-tire ride. 

Clearly I'm not going to sleep in my own car by myself; that's just asking for a robbery or a rape or a murder. Turns out that my fear didn't stem from Lifetime for once and Jon felt the same way. And no way am I spending one more unnecessary second with that two-timing Hyundai Sonata than I had to, so Jon's car it was.  We cleaned out his backseat, thankful we had two blankets, thanking God that Jon has a middle seat that folds down, and scowling at Ludwig the whole time. Jon laid in the backseat, and we both tossed for a good five minutes before realizing we'd never be comfortable and just hoped the numbness would set in soon.

I let the realization settle in that this was our first night together. "You know, I didn't think my expectations for our first night together were too unrealistic: a room, a bed, that we would be married, I didn't think those things were too much to ask for. And here we are," I said flatly, not sure whether that was funny or depressing. But I chose to laugh, proud of myself that Ludwig was behind in the laugh department. The last pockets of warm air from Jon's heater slowly dissipated and I pulled my blanket up to my face and I felt a wet spot. 

And I realized.

"MY PEE JON. 

MY PEE IS IN MY FACE JON. 

IT'S IN MY FACE ON MY BLANKET."

"What??"

I was sure of it. It's not like aim was my top priority as I squatted in the ditch. The laughs left. There was nothing but the cold, smelly, terrible reality. There were no other blankets and no point in complaining, yet no motivation to laugh. I never thought I'd reach such a point in my life. Sleeping in my own urine. I switched the blanket around so the stain was at my feet. Fortunately the seat was so uncomfortble that my backpain distracted me from all the depressing realities of that moment, including but not limited to:

Reality #1: I hadn't showered in 48 hours

Reality #2: I was sleeping closer to a steering wheel than I had ever imagined I could be.

Reality #3: Someone could break into our car and kill us.

Reality #4: it's 3:00 am.

Reality #5: THIS is Jon and my first night together.

Reality #6: Pee has touched my face tonight. Pee.

The thoughts slowly subsided as I dreamt sweet dreams of setting Ludwig ablaze in vengeful fury.

My eyes opened at 7 am and my face couldn't move because of the cold. I looked over and Jon's head popped out of the blankets. In a moment of instinct (and I promise not desire--we were both at utterly repulsive points of our hygienic lives) I jumped over the seat and on top of him for warmth. Jon began to sing "Old Man River" to me, about as romantic as our night had been. We drove to a nearby cafe for breakfast and slowly processed through our five stages of grief and began to laugh. 

We were able to laugh. Take that, Ludwig. TAKE THAT AND SUCK IT.

After breakfast, Jon and I hugged and I was thankful for my extra 12 hours with this wonderful, funny, carefree man that never complained once that night. Thankful that I had beat Ludwig with laughter, what I now deemed the most effective weapon.

I pulled onto the interstate with yet another smile on my face. Seasoned, yes. Smelly, yes. But still a smile and a giggle in my heart. And then I heard Ludwig start to grunt and groan and realized going the speed limit of 70 mph on a spare was not allowed. Ludwig didn't calm down until I reached 50. 50 mph on the interstate, when all I wanted was my bed or a back massage or heaven, I heard Ludwig grunt and groan each time I reached above 50 mph. 

His grunts were not out of strain or warning or grinding, like before. No, this was different. I listened closely and realized Ludwig was actually laughing. He was laughing at my pitiful self, driving slower than my dead great Nana Payne, as semis and turtles passed me. 

I tried to think of lessons I learned that night, but nothing came to mind. Nothing except that sometimes you have to sleep in your own pee and in those moments, all you can do is turn that blanket around and focus on your searing back pain from the hump in the middle seat.

That's my life lesson from Sunday night.

And that's how Last Laugh Ludwig got his nickname.