You just never know
March 16, 2013
Finals week of my senior year of college was particularly brutal. My two roommates moved out before me. Being the last person in the apartment most of the deep cleaning fell to me.
Between studying and exit interviews and moving and cleaning, I barely slept for five days.
Our lease was up the same day as my last exam, so I had to have myself entirely moved out and the apartment cleaned and my car loaded before I went to take my test.
The day before I had to leave, I crammed my 1986 Nissan Pulsar as full as the tiny tin can car could hold and headed off across town towards my rented storage unit.
About halfway through town, I noticed a car of laughing college boys following me.
I sped up, tearing around a corner onto a particularly obscure side street, boxes and errant shoes sliding back and forth in my back seat.
I took another corner without slowing down. The boys kept on coming. By now they were gesturing wildly out the windows.
They weren’t laughing anymore. They looked angry.
My heart raced. What did they want with me?
I remembered a fire station a few blocks ahead. I stepped on it through a yellow light and headed towards safety.
I was in the parking lot of the station before I noticed that they weren’t behind me anymore. They must have gotten held up by the red light.
I took a few moments to catch my breath and let my heart rate return to normal before heading to my storage space.
On my way home I stopped at a drive-thru for lunch. When I went to retrieve my wallet, I couldn’t find it anywhere. I had to admit to the annoyed teller that I couldn’t pay for my food.
Could this day get any worse?
When I got home there was a message from my mom on my answering machine (this was a few years before everyone had a cell phone). She was wondering if I’d lost my wallet.
I called her back and asked how she knew I’d lost my wallet when I’d only discovered it myself ten minutes earlier.
“Some boys just called me and said they watched it fall off the top of your car. They said they tried to flag you down, but you were driving like a crazy woman and they gave up. Are you okay?”
Twenty minutes later I pulled up in front of a fraternity house where the same group of guys was now seated on the front steps waiting for me.
“Here’s your wallet,” said the one I recognized as the driver. He tossed it at me with irritation.
“We stopped traffic on the Russell Street Bridge to pick up all your stuff after we couldn’t get you to pull over. Some of it got ruined, but we collected all the pieces we could find.”
I took out my only $10 bill and tried to give it to them.
“We don’t want your money,” they said.
As I headed back to my car, I heard one of them mumble, “Crazy chick.” Crazy, indeed.
This article first appeared in the Lewistown News-Argus and the Sidney (Mont.) Herald on March 16, 2013.