Dallas.

Land of Jerry Jones, the Cowboys and the “shag”.

Also, it’s the land of some of my college friends and a misadventure of our own a year ago. If you know anyone from the Monkey Wrench Gang, then you know the possibilities are endless with misadventures, fooley-wang and other forms of coonery, niggadom, etcetera could occur. So, what happens when you combine one rented Chevy Imapla, four men, a long road trip, and new additions to the fried menu of Snickers & Butter & Big Tex?

You get MWC 2, Dallas 0.

First off all, the original Dallas trip featured some terrible haircuts, the Texas/Oklahoma football game, common fan courtesy, ashes being dumped on babies and a girl getting smacked in the face by the X-Treme ride.

This year, Mr. Fantastic, Swag 4.0 & myself added B. Maxwell to the mix, just to see what spice would occur (and the fact he wanted to go, even if Kapn’ decided against it and went to the football game on campus). From the jump, it was going to be eventual thanks to the drive just picking up some of our members. For example, this year instead of opting to drive anybody’s personal vehicle (I drove last year); we rented a cherry red Chevy Impala. On the way to pick up B. Maxwell, a car shredded a tire right in front of the Impala. A sign if anything.

After I was picked up last, we decided to stop for breakfast. One trip to Whataburger and then another to McDonalds and then we should have been on our way right? Wrong. First of all, don’t ever try to descend on a McDonalds when they’re offering pancakes for $1. Second of all, just because a GPS system tells you that the shortest distance is the best choice doesn’t mean that it is the best choice. Now, imagine a demon at the controls of a GPS System and aiming for you to spend money regardless. Yes, our GPS system told us to get on the Toll Road to get to Dallas.

We said no. “She” kept telling us to go back to the Toll Road. After awhile, we had to drown her out with hip-hop and rock music just to get back on I-45 and go straight shot towards Dallas.

Here’s an interesting tidbit while we’re backtracking and reminiscing. The great thing about road trips are the stories you get to share which ends up leading to very interesting actions later on during the trip. Case in point, B. Maxwell letting us know of his worst experience at an amusement park when he was the ripe age of five. Imagine running around a giant theme park like Six Flags and then wind up being lost from your church group. Then imagine that same picture, painted with the little boy missing his shirt and shoes, just running around on hot ground like coals.

Now, if you were five, “stranger danger” played a key role in who you trusted and who you didn’t trust. If you’re lost, you can’t really even trust yourself, especially at five. At five, fuck I’d run around, act an ass and try to stay far away from my parents as possible. However, my head always kept me within distance (and I mean that literally and not poetically).

Essentially, B. Maxwell wound up finding the trust in a white man to help him get back to his church group – which had those “deer in headlights” gasps on their faces when they saw his arrival. The sad part of the story is not B. Max getting lost at five; it’s the action that happened when he got home. Yes, his mother let a belt and his ass become best friends for five minutes.

I guess not getting lost was the lesson to be learned in that whipping.

As we continued on, B kept flipping pages in his Oregon Trail book which is part humorous, part disgusting and partially racist/bigoted. We heard Lavell Crawford make jokes about being a black kid in the woods and being approached by a bear, we also heard about Lavell and a crackhead’s best friend (and no, it isn’t that pawn shop) and we also heard Metallica & Nonpoint urge us to speed.

When you’re in a rented car that isn’t yours technically and you can freely push 115 to wheeze by cars who are being difficult drivers – you are living.

The problem is when someone is being an asshole driver and constantly blocks driving maneuvering. For example, the veer move as I like to call it is when you weave between lanes, eating up cars like one of those old Burnout or Need for Speed games just to gain some traction on the road. When it comes to a certain type of female driver – the shit is IMPOSSIBLE to pull off. Especially when that driver decides to hop in the lane you’re trying to move into. Silly bitch…

Speaking of silly, any 18-wheeler that decides to drive should come with six cases of spare tires because after watching a tire blow out and chunk tires into on-coming traffic, there is nothing great to be seen at all. To think it was the SECOND blowout of the day – we sensed a trend. And Ian sensed his powers to somehow make strange shit happen with his mind.

Put it like this, we have the power to speak things to life (see Kapn’s car).

While heading in the right direction and trying to move around that blowout, the tire that shredded off of the 18-wheeler had begun clunking all over the road, piecing together a string of events that would wind up with a piece hitting the windshield. Luckily it didn’t break thank God but it was a little scary. So needless to say, we had to stop at the gas station to clean off the windshield.

The monkey wrench in all this? Human nature and dealing with sickness. Since Swag was driving and naturally had a cough, he had to spit. So, he had the bright idea of rolling down the window and laughing a wad of phlegm onto the ground. Now spit and wind doesn’t mix and when he let loose, instead of the spit falling on the ground and keep it moving, the wind allowed the spit to spray the entire left passenger side window – where B. Maxwell was sitting. So imagine a giant splat hitting your window and you look up and notice some phlegm hanging on for DEAR LIFE.

I guess the squeegee was going to be used for more than just one obstacle life had thrown at us that day. That and the weird notion that Powerade has come up with a Strawberry Lemonade flavor that is nasty as hell (what kind of guy works out and then drinks that? Does he wear his belt outside of his pants?)

After more driving (and speeding), we pull into Dallas blasting Houston music. Looking directly into the heart of Dallas, we feared stepping foot on Malcolm X Boulevard and Martin Luther King Drive in South Dallas and if you don’t catch the irony in that statement, brush up on Black History.

You want to know you’re definitely in Dallas? When you see a 1970 looking car propped up on 26’ tires with blades for rims. I always have made this joke that Dallas is behind and lives in 1987 when it comes to fashion and judging by that car, they were still living in that frame.

While attempting to park, we tried to keep pushing past all of the old men who were “parking attendants”. Needless to say, I doubt I’d be wanting to park somewhere okayed by a man who didn’t look like he finished middle school and the best year of his life was 5^th grade. No disrespect since he has a job but I wished he had done something a little better – like make that 7^th grade dance.

Now imagine 10 of those types of men I listed above. Oh yes, that would be just the start getting into Dallas. The State Fair is a whole different monster.

Coming Soon: Kanye memes, Moonwalker, Slides & Basketball