Starring:
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Prologue: Drafting a Declaration of Independence, or: Why This Trip Had to Happen
There comes a point in the time of every man�s life where he needs nothing more than to get the hell out of the house. There can be many reasons for this � too many listless days, parents always getting on your case, a sense of drifting stasis, too much time spent in internet chat rooms. For us it was all of these reasons, and probably more. Ask somebody what they did over winter break, and 4 times out of 5 they will say �nothing really�. This would have been the same answer for all of us, had we not come upon an idea so bad that it was great: road trip! To New York! From Kansas City! Why not? No reason! Great!
That�s about how the conversation went when we decided on a course of action. We were bored, we had the will, the time and a little extra cash to pull it off. Plus, there were people on the east coast we wanted to visit. So, on January 5th, unlike every other �trip� we�ve ever planned out but never actually taken, we prepared to depart.
Let me take a moment to introduce the �we� here: four of us would be going, all good friends. The mastermind behind the trip was my brother Victor, the man with so much energy that we were surprised he hadn�t just taken off for New York by himself weeks earlier. One Mr. Jon Akers also had a hand in planning this, getting us maps and storing lots of valuable info in his brand new palm pilot (yuppie). Also along for the ride was our pal Bob, who had pretty much nothing to do with the trip planning at all. But that�s because Bob just don�t give a fuck, so we hadn�t expected much out of him anyway. Last but (hopefully) not least was I, your humble scribe for the detail of this misadventure. A motley crew if ever I have seen one, but (75%) dependable when you got down to it.
As I said, on January 5th we prepared to depart. We didn�t actually leave that day � even though we�d planned to � because, thanks to the weather channel, my parents suddenly turned into raving paranoid lunatics and wouldn�t let us leave because the roads were said to be a little slick. I guess I could see that driving to Columbia, Missouri would be a bad idea that night, but my dad wouldn�t even let me drive to Bob�s house 5 minutes away. Sometimes my parents forget that I�m a college student � no, make that often they forget � and that I�m somewhat more intelligent and responsible than a 12-year-old. But, you know, maybe parents are supposed to be like that sometimes. But the need to get out of the house was still there, goddammit, so when Bob and Jon finally got to our house (my folks wouldn�t let me endanger my life, but they were perfectly fine with my friends doing so, which I thought was funny), we decided if we couldn�t drive anywhere, we were just going to have to walk.
Yeah, it was cold, and yeah, the roads were slippery. But we walked all over Prairie Village that night, raising hell, waking up our friends� parents, turning on peoples� Christmas lights, sledding down roads on our tennis shoes. And as we were screwing around, we realized that this was just what we needed: an escape from our homes, from our parents, from Kansas City. It was like the 13 original colonies breaking away from England�s iron fist; it wouldn�t be a cake walk, but we knew we could do it.
Well, alright. A one-week trip to New York really has nothing to do with the revolutionary war, except that we did feel liberated. True, maybe only for a week or so, but it was better than nothing. Plus, what else were we gonna do? Play more Smash Brothers? An enticing thought, but no, this trip had to happen. After a few hours we returned to my house and, showing remarkable foresight and planning, forewent the sleep we were going to need and stayed up watching comedy central and eating burritos until the wee hours of the morning.
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