Thursday, June 2, 2011

Away with me Passenger! More Good Deeds await!

My Wife and I are super heroes.  Well, OK – maybe not SUPER heroes but definitely sidekick material. 

My wife and I planned a trip to Moline, IL.  If you have never been to Moline imagine a town, with trees and roads and people, but with no fun.  Honestly, the laughter of children dies at the city border.  In Moline there is the South Park Mall, and an IHOP. 

We arrived at the hotel on a Friday only to find the pool closed.  Why in the world would a pool be closed?  Cleaning?  VD?  I had to ask the night manager why the pool would be unavailable during my wife’s and mine trip to the outer quad cities.  Well citizens, it turns out that some genius of a Bride decided to hang her wedding dress up in her room which was 1 floor above the pool.  Did she hang it up in the closet?  No.  It appears since she had a very long wedding dress she hung it up above the floor on a water spout for the fire alarm system.  She hadn’t noticed she broke the seal and in doing so several minutes later after leaving the room, the entire fire suppression system sprayed water into their hotel room all over her unused wedding dress and collapsed part of the floor into the pool causing close to $50k in damage.

No Pool.

That left my wife and me the IHOP.  But we didn’t head there.  In an effort to enjoy the true nightlife of Moline my wife and I found out through the same night manager that explained the horrid pool episode that a Buffalo Wild Wings was close.  HUZZAH!

We hopped into the Cobra and took off to, well, South Park Mall.  The BW’s was right outside of it.

Now I need to explain our car.  Years ago my wife and I decided to buy a date car.  It would be our car.  We would offer rides in it for sure, and the kids could go in it once and a while, but it would not be our standard car.  It was reserved for us.  Through a coworker we came across a 97 Mustang Cobra triple black convertible.  The car looks like Batman, if Batman were a car.  In fact we got license plates that say IM BTMN.  Most people when they see the license plate say sarcastically (and believe me I know sarcasm) “Oh?  You’re Batman huh?”

 I have to inform them, no not me, it’s the car.

I digress.  So we head out to the car and to BW’s.  We were seated after what we were told was going to be a long wait in Moline of 15 minutes.  It WAS Friday night after all. 

Friday and we so excited. 

While we ordered, for some reason I believed at one point in my existence I had the Mango Habanero sauce.  I don’t know why I was so sure or what made me even think this was a good idea.  Mango Habanero on the BW’s Hot Chart, is just 2 steps down from the  Hottest Blazin sauce which I am sure is 2 steps down from actual Lava.

I had 3 of my wings, and the rest went into the trash.  But the problem was my mouth was still on fire.  It didn’t seem to care that the other wings were no longer an option for digestion.  Yankee Biz one time yelled at me that milk is needed to stop the burn, but I had none.  All I had was Ice Tea and Splenda, and that was not assisting.

We settled our tab and jumped back into IM BTMN in just enough time to watch Moline SHUTDOWN. 

Honestly.  The entire town just shutdown. 

My wife and I walked around the inside of the closed South Park Mall.  Inside the mall was ALL Cell World store and Hat World Store.




At night, I wondered if the two worlds fought for supremacy.

With none of the stores open we realized how lame this was so we went back to the Hotel which had no working pool.

Then it happened.  Like the Bat Signal – but in heartburn form – I turned to my trusty wife and said “Dude, seriously, we need to find like a Walgreens or something, I need Tums.”

And like a flash of Mango Habanero we were off and back in the cool car.  Using my wife’s GPS we found a Walgreens just 4 miles away.  The only problem was when we got there, the 24 hour Walgreens was not open 24 hours.

I decided to turn around in the parking lot of the NOT OPEN 24 hours Walgreens and that’s when we saw it.  A car – turn wide left and miss the road coming to a stop over the concrete curb and onto the grass.  Clearly he misjudged because he was drunk.

I finished my U-turn in the parking lot and the car, was gone.  I asked my wife.  “Did he pull away?  Or did he roll down the hill?”

My wife responded with ‘I Don’t Know”

  We sprang into action as I brought our car to where the Drunken Mobile had been and sure enough, about 6 feet below where the car had been we saw an overturned undercarriage. 
 We quickly raced around to the other side as I asked my wife to call 911.

She was on the phone and I was out of our car to see if there was anything that could be done to help this poor slob.

I came up on the car and I noticed at this point my overly analytical brain proved to be a hindrance.  The conversation went something like this in my head in less than 5 seconds.

 “I am going to run up and see if this guy needs help” “Your not a Doctor, your cousin is, but your not!  What the crap man” “What if he is hurt?” “What if he hurt his neck?  He can sue you if you drag him out of there and his neck is hurt”

So I tried the car door at least and it was locked, for a moment I thought about kicking in the glass, but I couldn’t see where the driver was at.  So – I shouted ‘Hey buddy, you OK?”

No Answer.  So I did what any other person would have done in my situation.

I took out my phone and snapped a couple pictures.



Yup – that was it.  Classic Heroism right there boys and girls.

Within 10 more seconds, because MOLINE has NOTHING going on, 8 police cars were on the scene.  The first officer gets out and shouts “ARE YOU ALRIGHT?” – At me.

I respond back that the poor fellow is still in his car and that I am quite fine, as most heroes would be.

But now the police are here, and I can watch the professionals in action.  The officer ran up to the door, tried it and said…”Hmm, it’s Locked” to another officer.  To which the other officer replied “Gonna kick in the glass?”  Which drew the response ‘No, Might hit him.”

So – He shouted ‘Hey buddy, you OK?”

Yup.  My work here was done.

The police were able to get the man inside to unlock his car doors and helped him out and to his feet to the nearest squad.

So – like all heroic exits I stealthily ran back to my car and was stopped by one of Moline’s finest.  They wanted my information because my wife and I had been a witness to the accident.

Then, realizing the original mission, I asked the Officer where a 24 hour, well, anything was.  He proceeded to direct me to Wal-Mart.  Tums Obtained!  Habanero Defeated!

At the end of the night, a good deed was done.  I had dubbed my wife her super hero name of “Passenger”.

I still kept my original name of “Lion-O Ninja Star”

It was a good night.

Until Next time Citizens!



Yoiks and AWAY!