Roadtrip, pt1

It wasn't until I was on the plane heading back home again, somewhere over the Pacific, that I realised what he had said. The answer had been there all along, and the thought of that sugarpumped hobo being spot on made me want to parachute out of the plane and swim back, just to change it all and prove him wrong. But, I am getting way ahead of myself, or at least of the story.


What happened all happened during a roadtrip, and as roadtrips sometimes do, this one started with picking up a rental car in San Francisco. Before seeing the car, the only plan I had had was to make it to Las Vegas in one piece, car and myself unharmed. When the huge red Dodge they'd given me appeared, that plan quickly got reduced getting out of the garage without scratching the hell out of it. My sportbag nearly disappeared when I tossed it in the trunk, as did my head behind the steering wheel when I sat down on
the drivers seat. 'I could fit a small Croatian village in here, you know', I said to the mechanical GPS woman, who was repeatedly telling me to "Go to the designated route". She had no response. Then again, she had probably never been to Croatia.

A deep breath later I was on the streets. The steep hills I had walked up and down the day before were staring down at me as I navigated the mighty ship out of the garage doorway and made a right to go towards the Golden Gate bridge and up north.

The first block passed by, and I started to feel more at ease. Just before making a right turn at the end of it, I checked the rearview mirror and noticed a man standing on the sidewalk outside the car rental office, bag by his feet and staring intently at me, his hand just lowering as if he'd just given up trying to stop me. I stepped on the brakes. I knew I had forgotten something, but this was bad. The man picked the bag up ever so slowly and started walking toward me. Bad, bad. I reversed up and he opened the door and leaned down, looking at me with a look of disbelief before speaking. 'Really? You didn't notice anything was missing? Any small detail like.. YOUR TRAVELLING COMPANION, FOR INSTANCE?'