Dirt, Trees and Desert Stuff

by Bonachichi

I've just returned from spending a couple days camping with my oldest and dearest friend. After witnessing my recent meltdown in Copenhagen, you all know that I like to know where I am as well as "when" I am. Before going further, I would like to point out that my Copenhagen meltdown occurred whilst using all that modern technology had to offer, air taxis as well as some twisted connection to the Dutch Army, which I didn't even know was an actual thing. So why would I go to the middle of a desert, the location of which is still a mystery to me, with no internet, no phones and no daily showers, on purpose? I don't know. But I'm glad I did.

I knew I was in good hands. Everyone was an expert camper and they had lots of nifty toys to eat up the desert terrain, sandblast your teeth, and permanently tattoo desert dust in your arsecrack in one fell swoop. My girlfriend is married to a man who can do anything. Her kids, all girls age 13, 18 and 20 make me look like the village idiot of the off-road world. I had to be told that whilst sitting around the bonfire one night, my shoes were afire. I thought my feet were just toasty warm. No clue whatsoever that I was on fire.

My girlfriend's youngest daughter is a beautiful young woman named Corey. Corey isn't just beautiful. There is nothing that girl can't do better than any boy. I felt perfectly safe going for an off-road ride with her in her Uncle Clancy's contraption. It has a name, I just don't know what it is. This 13 year-old wonder had to show me how to strap myself into the harness. There was a roll-cage, which is always handy to have, an "oh-shit" bar as well as an "oh-shit" strap. Oh shit, what would I need those for?

Corey it turns out, is quite skilled in Gymkhana, which you Yanks call Drifting. If you've never done it before, it's unsettling because it feels as if you're hydro-planing. A good Gymkhana driver can handle the temporary loss of control and set the vehicle back on track. Corey managed to convince me within the first minute of our jaunt that she could handle Drifting. 

So there we were, racing cross the desert, laughing and having a blast. What are those branches doing right in front of the windshield? "Oh God! Don't tell Clancy I ran over a tree!" "Ran", "over" and "tree" are three words I never thought I'd hear in the same sentence. Ever. I was about to hear them two more times, during which we somehow managed to acquire a hood ornament that strongly resembled a big stick.

Then, Something happened. I'm not sure what, because I was busy "Oh-Shitting" myself. I heard Corey ask me if I was okay. Looking towards the sound of her voice, I looked to my left and "up". There she was, hanging sideways from her straps, just above me. I was laying comfortably on my right side, inside the car. Don't see that every day now, do you? We unstrapped ourselves and climbed out. 

We tried rolling the car back over, but it was too heavy for the two of us. Then we saw an RV coming down the dirt path. I ran out to the middle of the path and did a fairy dance, just in case the driver of the RV didn't think we were strange enough, in the middle of the desert with a car resting on its' side. He helped us roll the car back over; We had the insane thought that, "Maybe Clancy won't notice", so we came up with a half-baked alibi that didn't involve lying, but also didn't involve telling Clancy, "Sorry, Mate. We rolled your car."

Corey removed the recently-installed hood ornament, and we drove back to the campsite. The first thing Clancy did was ask, "What'd you do, roll the car?" Okay, so if you roll a car, someone's probably going to notice. I'm sure Corey and I will be spending some time as Clancy's personal slaves to make his toy pretty again, but it will be worth it. That was hands down, the most fun I had over the entire weekend. 

We've not heard the last of Corey, I'm sure. She will be the next Jolene Van Vugt. A beautiful daredevil, able to do things most boys just can't handle. I fell in love with Corey that afternoon. That 13 year-old woman handled herself better than most men I know with the possible exception of maybe Clancy and her dad. One thing's for sure; The word "failure" just doesn't exist for her.