Mystery Hitchhiking

[written on 30th April, 2010]

Most of yesterday was quite uneventful.

I wasted the greater part of the day vegetating in front of the new tiny, computer I bought. It's a netbook, which means it's so small that I can almost fit it in my over-exaggerated pocket. I felt compelled to buy an electronic device with internet capabilities here in the United States because of the insane lack of internet cafes. Oh, there is an abundance of cafes which have internet access - wireless internet access - but you need to have your own mobile device to use it. Actually, the only cyber cafe I did find was in New York - above a dingy delicatessen -which was charging $10 per hour. At that point I figured I would save more money buy buying a computer. My delightful little Asus Eee PC 1005PE netbook only cost $325.11. Yes, God bless America.

So, yesterday. Evening threatening the afternoon. We had agreed to go out for pizza but decided to cook a roast lamb instead. Never having done so before we thought it would take several hours and that we would need something to eat in the meantime. However in the midst of massaging the mound of muscle with oil and sprinkling it with herbs and spices like pixie dust on a pumpkin, we found clarification on my new netbook that the process of satiation may commence in merely 90 minutes after oven induction. $325.11 well spent.

It was now around 18.30h and my friend and host and friendly host, Menelaos - the Greek king of the house - suggested we "go out and do something" while we wait to exercise our incisors. Neither of us had a purpose nor an idea of what to do so we simple got into his car and started to drive.

I picked up his GPS device and said, "Let's randomly key-in a destination and see where it takes us. " I typed in my name... Arabia Lane, Arapahoe Pass, Aralia Drive and a short list of other Ara-themed destinations. We chose the one which sounded like "Ara the ho" and started to follow orders.

A mere two minutes into our adventure we pulled into a gas station and stocked up with gas. Now Menelaos' car isn't particularly fuel efficient and a barrel of oil isn't as cheap as it used to be - maybe we should have driven towards Arabia Lane where oil is surely cheaper - and the sexy, GPS voice educated us about the 18 mile one-way journey.

I proposed, "Let's do it a different way. Let's leave the car near here and hitch-hike to a random destination. We'll go wherever the driver takes us." Smile, grins and crystal twinkles of eyes were exchanged and two minutes later we were by the road-side.

Thumbs out, we smiled with our mouths and eyes to entice drivers to take us to their mystery destinations. One girl saw us and smiled, but kept on going. A minute later she she returned and picked us up. We explained our proposed adventure and asked the girl, Ariel, to take us as far as she wished and to leave us wherever she wished. We drove for 10 minutes before she abruptly pulled into a park, "I've always wanted to come here," she said. We all got out and walked the trail. It was a lovely evening and we were having great conversation and lots of fun.

It started to get dark. We walked Ariel back to her car and returned to the roadside - an hour and fifteen minutes had elapsed on the lamb roast timer. It was now dark and we were two equally dark - and bearded - men soliciting passage on a stretch of road where a car could not stop safely even if they weren't scared of stereotypes.

We walked, and then ran, towards a better roadside - we had a roast in the over; running was justified. We stopped by a gas station and resumed thumbed solicitation. Nearly 2 hours had passed. Our experimental lamb was about to be a sacrificial lamb; sacrificed in err of adventure. And nobody even showed signs of stopping until finally a knight with a horse of four wheels, Sir Brad, pulled over to offer us safe passage. I ran to the car jumping with joy and clicking my heels together in delight.

We explained the story and invited him to dinner - on the presumption that he would actually want to eat the ill-fated lamb after its prolonged hibernation. But the moment that we opened the oven an aroma of perfectly cooked meat hypnotized our salivary glands with a tangible finger of entice. Forget fine slicing. We butchered the sacrifice into pieces and savaged every last sinew. It was perfection.

We bonded over dinner. We invited him to our barbecue on Sunday, he invited us to his barbecue on Saturday.

We made two new friends today. People that were always around us but never quite with us. There are many good people in the universe. Have faith in them and you will draw them to you.