The Midnight Ride…

I’m alive and well. But barely.

This is going to be another lengthy road trip recap, so if you don’t feel like reading it all, here’s the story in a nutshell:

Travelled to Penn State in an RV, drank on the way, hit up the bars on Friday night, tailgated all day Saturday, pooped in port-o-potties, watched the football game at random girls’ apartment, no hooking up but got a Facebook request, hit up bars again Saturday night, met up with more random girls on the sidewalk at 2am, walked around campus and hung out with them till 5am, still no action even though they said they loved my wit and the “Did you know Amish has a blog?” line was dropped and they said they would read it (hi ladies!), drove home Sunday, finally showered.

For the full details, read on….

Shortly after work on Friday, 6 of my friends and I met up near Newark and took off in a 27-foot RV for State College, PA (a city that forever immortalizes the lack of originality in its founders).

We were 7 guys on a good old American road trip, and so we felt that our RV needed a good old American name. Though suggestions like “Liberty” were made, it was Briggs, AKA Mr. America, who came up with a name that reflected both Americanism and RVism.

Paul Revere.

(Get it? Paul Revere.)

It was only a matter of minutes before the first beer was cracked. And since Sachin was on the trip, it was only a few more minutes after that before the laughter began.

Sometimes we laughed with him:

[While driving through the pseudo-mountains of New Jersey]
“Hey Turner, what’s our altitude?”

[While playing a game of circle of death, and Categories was drawn]
Briggs: “Types of shots….4 horsemen”
Bonacci: “SoCo & Lime”
Sachin: “Flu…”

And other times we laughed AT him:

[Again, during circle of death]
Sachin: “Ooh, you drew a 7, that’s Never Have I Ever!”
Briggs: “Dude, there’s no chicks here.”
Gerard: “Yeah man, if you, like, wanna, like, know something, just, like, ask.”
Briggs: “Hey Sachin, can I borrow your glitter lotion when you’re done with it?”

As the drive to Penn State progressed, so did our drinking. Sachin performed some magic tricks. I dealt some rounds of blackjack. We played an intense game of 4-man war (toward the end, we started doing 10-down-and-flip, which led to some crazy card count swings for the last two players). I also invented a new drinking game called Higher-or-Lower (Note: there’s a good chance this game has also been invented by other people, but for now I’m taking credit.) It goes a little something like this…

I (the dealer) place a card face up on the table. The player calls his prediction for the next card, Higher or Lower. I flip the next card. If the player is wrong, his turn is over and he must drink. If he is right, he calls Higher or Lower on the new card, and so on. If he is able to guess correctly on three consecutive cards, I (the dealer) drink. If the player pushes (the next card is neither higher nor lower), he drinks.

Though it seems like a simple game, the other guys in the RV proved to be no match for my dealing skills and ended up drinking waaay more than I did, to my amusement.

We rolled into State College shortly after midnight and parked the RV in the lot where we would be tailgating the next day. While trekking to the bar during peak partying hours, we crossed paths with dozens of students, many of which were eerily polite.

“Welcome to Penn State. We hope you enjoy your stay.”
“Good luck tomorrow guys.”
“Can I wipe your ass for you?”

Occasionally, however, we ran into some more aggressive trash-talkers. No physical altercations took place, but many Penn State fans started singing a more vulgar version of Hail To The Victors (also sung by fans of any other Big Ten School when Michigan is in town). The first time they sang it was funny, after the second time we sarcastically responded “Wow, that’s original,” and by the end of the night we were saying “Does Penn State even have a fight song?”

Also, just about every Penn State fan felt the need to chime in with the words Ann Arbor is a whore All of the bookstore windows even had shirts with that saying displayed in the windows .

Turner (I think) came up with a great response, which we someday hope to put on a t-shirt. “Ann Arbor is a classy broad.”

The rest of the night was pretty uneventful, save for a few rounds of shots and a brutal mile and a half walk back to the RV in freezing temperatures. Turner and I decided to take a detour on the way home and go hunting for, um, Penn State souvenirs. After finding some for ourselves near the stadium, we sprinted back to the RV and called it a night.

(By call it a night, I mean I spent the entire night getting terrible sleep, since I got shafted out of a true sleeping spot in the RV that night, and instead bounced around between the front passenger seat, the rear armchair, and the floor. It was worth it, though, to see Turner and Sachin cuddle together on a sleeping surface entirely too small for the two of them).

The next morning, a few of the guys headed out early to get breakfast and use the dorm bathrooms. The rest of us stayed sleeping until the others got back around noon. Turner came back with a sign he made for the game which said “JoePa doesn’t have a going problem, he has a growing problem.” (Click here if you don’t get it.) Turner himself was ashamed at how lame his sign was, and threw it into a corner of the RV.

Beers were cracked once again, and the rest of the day proceeded like any other football tailgate. Drinking, tossing footballs around, grilling food. We hadn’t anticipated the severity of the weather, so we made several trips back to our RV to add layers, all of us ending up wearing everything we had brought with us to stay warm (anywhere from 4-6 layers, no joke). Turner and Bonacci even filled out fake credit card applications so they could get free fleece blankets from Bank of America.

I’d like to interrupt the story and point out that despite the fact that this was a college football road trip, and the general dress code for such events includes things like hoodies or windbreakers, Sachin’s cold-weather garment of choice was a blazer. A brown, corduroy blazer with elbow patches and leather buttons. We called him The Professor all weekend.

Back to the story. At one point, we actually ended up at a tailgate for the entire Indian community at Penn State. Ironically, Sachin and I had nothing to do with this (we were actually there because one of the guys went to high school with Turner). Not to say Sachin and I didn’t enjoy it.

While wandering around the tailgate fields, a group of guys started taunting us by repeatedly shouting “WHERE’S YOUR COACH?!” at the top of their lungs. We’re still not 100% sure what that is supposed to mean. Is that an insult? Were they talking shit? Anyone have a clue? In any case, later in the day Briggs climbed on top of the RV and decided to start shouting the same words, scaring the living daylights out of anyone in a 50 foot radius.

We had a strict rule of not going #2 in our RV, so when duty called, we were forced to locate another dumping location. Since we were in the middle of a big open field, our only options were Port-o-potties. Of course, with my luck, the moment I decided to stand in line for the crapper was the same moment a girl friend of mine from New York (who I had been looking for all day) happened to be walking by.

“Hey Amish, there you are! What’s going on?!”
“Not much, just waiting in line to use the bathroom.”
“Don’t you have an RV?”
“Yeah but its over there and I’m here, so…anyway, what are you doing?”
“Oh, we’re going to head over to our friend’s RV to use their bathroom. Its that one right over there [points to RV 20 feet away]. Do you want to come use it too?”
“Uhhh…no that’s OK”
“Seriously, I don’t think they’ll mind.”
“No really, I’ll just wait here for the….Port…-O…-Potty.”
“Wait, why aren’t you going in your own RV?”
“Yeah, um….I….uh…can’t…find..it.”
“Sure you don’t want to come use our friend’s?
“Yeah, I…I’ll catch up to you later.”

God was that awkward.

Close to game time, some random Penn State girls asked if they could use our bathroom, and we invited them in to hang out in the RV. This proved to be a great move on our part, because after leaving the RV for the game, four of us (Sachin, Briggs, Gerard, and I) couldn’t find cheap enough tickets. Since we wouldn’t be seeing the game live, we called up the girls (yes, we had somehow we managed to get their numbers) and asked if we could come over to watch it on TV at their place. Except we didn’t really ask. We just told them we were coming.

We got lost on route to their place, so we asked some other girls for help. They were heading in the same direction, and offered to lead us most of the way there. I don’t really remember any of the conversation, but apparently Sachin became good friends with them, because he got a text message last night from one of the girls saying “I hope you got home okay and found something fun to do saturday! Fun to meet you and your wild friends and I loved your corduroy jacket!”

I loved your corduroy jacket! I wish I was making this up.

Anyway, we showed up at the other girls’ place. The look on their friends’ faces as they saw four Michigan fans walk in was priceless. The next few hours were spent watching a couple of their male friends go hilariously apeshit as their team fell apart- it was almost more fun to watch their reaction to the game than to watch the game itself.

At one point during the game, we felt a little sorry for them so I said “You know what? I’m going to root for your team on this play.” And when the play started, I did just that. That just so happened to be the play that got Penn State their only touchdown. Oops.

Anyway, 4 hours, 3 Dominos pizzas, 17 points, and a bunch of beers later, we left their place. I wish I could say we did more with those girls other than take up space on their couch, but unfortunately we didn’t. However, that was the first time I’ve gotten a Facebook request from someone only four hours after meeting them. (Score!)

After the game, the four of us went straight to the bars, where hostility from Penn State fans the night before had been replaced with dejectedness or indifference. Some of the fans were surprisingly cordial, admitting that they weren’t all too disappointed with their loss, though some expressed resentment that we took out slaughtered not 1, but 2, of their quarterbacks.

A little bit later, Sachin and Briggs went home to call it a night, and Turner and Bonacci showed up to continue partying (they had been at the game so it took them a while to get back out). Our new group of four closed out another bar, and then took to the streets, where we met yet another trio of girls. (Seriously, my friends have talent.)

This group of girls was my favorite, and I’m not just saying that because they now know about this blog and are probably reading this.

[What's up ladies?]

We ended up spending the next 3 hours with Alaina, Liz, and…and…good lord, what is her name??? Man, I feel terrible. All I can remember is the nickname Gerard gave her (and repeated over and over again) for her feisty attitude.

“You’re crazy. You’re like a little Whippersnapper.”
“Hey whippersnapper, what are you doing?”
“Where are you staying, Whippersnapper?”

[Update: I remembered Facebook told me her name. Hi Natalie!]

I can’t remember all of what else happened during that 3 hours. I do remember that Bonacci tried spitting some HIGHLY UNUSUAL game on one of the girls.

“So how much do you think I weigh?”
“I don’t know, like 190?”
“Nope. 220.”
“No way. I don’t believe it.”
“I’m serious. Put your hand up my shirt.”
“What?!”
“Feel my chest. Its a 46B”
“No!”

In his defense, his chest is huge. Still, I don’t know what’s weirder, the fact that he asked her to do that, that fact that he sized up his own chest, or the fact that these girls continued to hang out with us for a couple more hours after experiencing that.

We did make a pit stop at Pita Pit, which gave Turner and Gerard another solid hour of conversation material, as they shared their stories from working there during college.

And yes, at some point that night, I managed to bust out some witty comments.

Girls: “I like this guy. He’s hilarious. And so witty.”
Gerard: “What the fuck?”
Turner: “Well if you like that, you should check out his blog.”
Girls: “You have a blog? He has a blog?”
Turner: “Yeah and it’s hilarious.”
Girls: “OMG, come here, you. Lets go have a foursome.”

All right, fine, that last part didn’t happen. They did say they’d come check out the blog, but I wasn’t sure that they’d remember how to spell my name.

[As I wrote this, however, I received a Facebook request from one of them. Score!]

We parted ways with them around 5am, and headed back to our trailer to crash for the night. The next morning, we got our stuff together (wasn’t too hard since we were already wearing everything), and left State College for New York, getting home around 7pm.

And then I took my first shower of the weekend.