David's Blog

Crazy Day

I am at the end of one of the longest days of my life. I am thinking that the day is actually a day and two fifths, because it spans much more than 24 hours.

This is a fairly long story so don't start until you have a few spare minutes to keep reading.

I'd have to say that 'the day' started Saturday night after getting home from working my 7:30AM to 9:30PM border war schedule. Instead of going straight home I went to Wal-Mart, because I knew that I'd have about two hours until Dahnell would be back at the HQ and be ready to head out to Memphis, Tennessee. I also felt that I wouldn't have much time to do my Sunday Wal-Mart food and supply run on Sunday.

After I got back from Wal-Mart the adrenaline was pumping, because I had a lot to do and only an hour-plus to do it all in. Luckily, Dahnell ran a little late and I managed to unpack my rental car, turn it in, unpack my grocieries and pack them into their places, pack my day bag for the trip to Memphis, call in my stats to Mike Yandre, finish my weekly, get my remittances completely ready to submit to Southwestern, and prepare all my checks for the night depository. I had everything packed and ready to go before Dahnell was ready, and when he came home he found me working busily on my paper work, which pleased him.

Dahnell was also happy that I was doing my paperwork, because it meant that he could do his on the trip to Huntsville. He let me drive his car to Huntsville, despite the recent Jeep accident, because that is how they do things here at Southwestern. (I was actually wanting to write a seperate entry about this, but... well... you'll see.) I was doing 100MPH down this extremely empty, straight highway and made it to Huntsville HQ in 50 minutes. Thank goodness, we needed to sleep badly.

Yep, that's right. Instead of going to a hotel and sleeping "Mexican-style" for all of four hours like last time, we got to spend the night at the Huntsville HQ -- mainly because Marie wasn't there, so there was a spare room with a king size bed available.
(Aside: Marie had left Friday morning to go see some Navy people about the Nuclear Engineering position that she will likely take in the Fall of 2005 as a commissioned officer in the Navy. She had to drive from Atlanta to Huntsville Friday morning and then catch a plane to "I don't remember where.")

So, that night was pretty cool, because I got to see their awesome HQ, and I got to finally take a shower -- complete with hot water and water pressure! The showers at our HQ have been offline all week. They are working again now. Praise God!) I also got to talk with Andrew Gordan and Galileo "Gali" Solis for a while. I ended up sleeping in the same bed with Andrew and we woke up four hours later...

Yeah, so we went to sleep around 1:30 after arriving at the HQ at 12:50. We then woke up at 4:45AM and got on the road again ASAP. Yandre drove the other four of us to Memphis, and most of them went to sleep or at least tried. I tried too, but couldn't with the music and stuff, so I read this cool book that Yandre had in his car about Christian masculinity. (I'll get the title on here later, hopefully.) Anyway, Mike got tired eventually and we pulled over at a gas station. He wanted me to drive. I wasn't sure at first, but this is Southwestern. It is time to get me to regain my confidence in driving.

So, I drove as carefully as possible down the highway to Memphis. We made it to Memphis and we were making wrong turns right and left. We finally got off the Interstate though, and we were on the right road, but I immediately noticed that we were headed in the wrong direction. I was told that I should turn around right away. (We were in a hurry to get Mike and Dahnell to their student manager's meeting.) So, I got into the left turning lane at the next intersection, put on my turn signal and waited for the traffic signal. It turned green, and I took a left. Then two cars hit the passenger side of the car one after the other.

It is suprising that they both managed to hit the same spot on the car -- Mike Yandre's door (He was sitting in the back seat; passenger's side.)

Here's more detail as to what happened. I errantly took that left turn. Both cars jumped off the line at the green light. A 76 or 77 year-old woman in a white car hit us first. That stopped her car because we were in a heavily loaded Toyota 4Runner that is like a tank. We kept moving and then a Hispanic guy in an older model Toyota Supra hit the same part of the car.

No one was hurt!

Now, the events at the site of the traffic accident are many and could easily fill another entry. I may even write another entry for them, but I am going to skip to the part where N-Rod (Nick Rodriguez) comes and picks us up and Mike's car is towed, because there is so much more to this day.

OK, so Nick picks us up and we go to the meeting. We walk in very late -- at the tail-end of recognitions. We watched a presentation about the hiring environment for the 2003-2004 year, and then listened to a guest speaker. After that we had one more recognition -- Lunch of Champions -- and then we were dismissed for lunch. I didn't have a ride and knew that five more of us didn't either, so I decided to ask the District Sales Manager, Brian Ross, for one. I figured it was a ballsy move that would pay off, if for no other reason than to reward my boldness. So, Yandre and I rode with B. Ross to Neely's, which is this Nationally renowned Bar-B-Q restaurant in Memphis. SW had reserved us a huge room, and set up an all-you-can-eat catering-style buffet of this awesome Bar-B-Q -- all for $10 after tip and everything (no cost if you won lunch of champions.)

After lunch we all waddled over to this skating rink that was next door. Everyone did personal conferences and a lot of us rented skates and skated. I made telephone calls instead of skating though, because of the accident that was entirely my fault. There was no pie-ing today though. This may have had something to do with the fact that our org (finally) lost combined with the fact that our org leader's car was just in a serious accident and is now seriously messed up. It may have been that they had no pies around though. Who knows? They didn't tell me, and I even asked, of course.

After all that was done people started heading out -- except for the five of us in the car accident. We didn't have a way to head out. Yandre was working on that though and called every rental car company in town. Finally he had gotten a list of prices and availability and such and got Danny Wilkins to drive him and Yo over to the rental place.

This is where the next big frustration comes into the picture. Mike didn't have major credit card. So, he called me and asked if I did. I did so they came and picked me up. They were in a hurry and yelled at me to get in the car and we rushed back to National Rental car. I left my wallet on my bag after I had checked it to make sure I had the appropriate card. So, we drove another 20 minutes back to the skating rink and got my wallet. Then we drove back to the rental place. When we got there we found out that my credit card wouldn't work for me because it was in my mother's name. Even though I managed to rent a car with it twice already. However, the lady tells us that Budget Car Rental will take debit cards, which is what Mike Yandre had initially tried to use. Frustration!

OK, so we circle around the Memphis airport again -- twice. We did it twice, because Danny saw the spikes at the entrance to the Budget facility and refused to believe it was the entrance. At the second time around I had to get out of the car and ask someone to come tell him he could drive through. So, I do that and we go in and talk to this guy at Budget. He tries his best to help us out, but still Mike and I don't have the right combination to unlock a rental car. I have a major credit card, but it's not in my name, and I have a card with a social security number. Mike has a debit card in his name, but he has no SSN printed on any of his picture IDs. This is all OK, but Mike and I aren't 25 so, they can't help us after all. So, we go to some other rental place. Similar, but different problems. Finally, someone tells us that a passport would work and one of us realizes that Gali has a passport because he is from Panama.

They then drop me back off at the skating rink (where I manage to nap for a while, and I don't even take naps -- I'm just that tired!) and they pick up Gali to go get a one-way car rental. I am napping for a while until Dahnell notices and decides to wake me up. He always does stuff like this. I think he doesn't like me to get sleep or something. He wakes me up to ask if I am done with any and all possible work. I answer yes to most things until he thinks up something for me to do to work ahead and suggests I do that. I didn't want to, but I couldn't go back to sleep at that point so I do eventually anyway.

As we're working Andrew mentions to me that the manager and his wife/gf are grilling out in the back of the skate park and offered to give us hamburgers for free. So, we get cheeseburgers over at the snack counter and he lets us have 20oz bottles of the beverage of our choice. I choose Sprite: Berry Clear and my night is made.

Finally, Gali and Yandre come back in a rental car -- a Ford Taurus. They grab some food and we pack and leave. As all that is happening someone at the skating rink lets me borrow his Sprint picture phone and I call my Dad again. This time I get him, and I break the news to him. He was much less pleased. He had just gotten in to Indianapolis (I think) and had some travel issues too and was not happy with his thought that my insurance company might drop me now.

We then all pile into the Taurus, which is incredibly uncomfortable for the three of us in the back. That makes sleeping very difficult, but we eventually pull it off from time to time. With Yandre and Gali driving us back to Huntsville.

Wait, one more problem. We get sorta lost again, and again it is somewhat my fault and somewhat Yandre's fault. He left his Atlas in the 4Runner, so we relied on my memory. This caused us to make a loop around Memphis on I-240. Finally we got off at the right place and the rest of my memory worked well enough to get us to Huntsville.

It was well after 2AM at that point and Dahnell and I still had to drive back to Scottsboro. At first Dahnell was wanting to do it back to back, despite my thought that we should stay the night at Yandre's HQ and just do it in the morning. Dahnell is pretty stubborn though, and even after Yandre and I strongly suggested we stay the night Dahnell persisted. Finally, he found himself a way to back down though. He heard Blake would be home so he thought it would be cool to stay the night for a chance to see Blake in person. That didn't happen, but I did get some more rest.

We planned to wake up at 5AM, and Yandre and Dahnell told me not to worry about anything and to just go to sleep -- they'd wake me up. That was a laugh. Marie ends up bouncing into my room fresh out of the shower with just her towel on at 6AM sharp. "Wake up guys!" Somehow I managed to launch out of bed with tons of energy and Marie bolts to her room.

That was kinda fun, because I ended up having the chance to run into the living room / HQ office and waking up Yandre and Dahnell. I enjoyed turning the tables on them like that, but I doubt they noticed and I sure didn't rub it in any!

Next, Yandre and I sit down and exchange a bit of information and finally talk about the insurance situation while Dahnell is getting ready. We finish that. I tell him and Marie goodbye and meet Dahnell out in his car. We then drive for over an hour to Scottsboro (I got some more sleep then! woohoo!) and got to our HQ a little after 7AM. More rushing! We were a flurry of activity trying to take showers (Thanks, God! They were working again.) We also had tons of stuff to do, and by 7:44AM I was renting the car again from the lady across the street and demoing her to get my first knock in.

Now, I am still at the HQ. I was making calls to the insurance company, Mike Yandre, Southwestern, Joy, and the city of Memphis (about my ticket -- they didn't put the cost of the find on the ticket nor did they enter the ticket into the compauter. Another plus -- they put Georgia down as my licensing state.) Now I am doing laundry, still making calls, and waiting on call-backs. Soon, I'm going to have to get back out into the book field though. Again, with minimal sleep. Oh well, this week will most certainly be my best week of the summer. There's a pony out there waiting for me somewhere. I'm sure of it.

I still haven't gotten ahold of Joy. Hopefully reading this is not the first time she hears about all of this. If so -- I'm sorry! I tried to reach you a lot!

The funniest thing about all this is that I am now positive that I want to come back and do Southwestern next summer. I have definately had a great number of life experiences in an environment that was very positive and practically loving. Everyone is incredibly forgiving of everything except for laziness and apathy, and they are all out here supporting me and everyone else. So, even though I am not going to be coming home with as much of a profit as I would have liked at the end of this summer I will still be coming home with a lot more confidence about being able to handle the world and the things that it throws at us all. Finally, I will be coming home with a lot more faith, trust and reliance on God.

Posted by David at July 12, 2004 10:16 AM