driving down the road
its amber light in the dash
yes - it can happenAzteca and his friends are in Orlando for the weekend. I don't live THAT far from Orlando and he's always driving from his mom's house in Deltona to see me so I decide I'm going to go and play with him for a weekend. Conveniently enough I had the weekend off from my job so everything worked out well. I hate to drive long distances, and from the sound of Azteca on the phone, I might need some backup -- with that, I invited Chamaquito to join me for a weekend in Orlando. He was more than up for the challenge and came to my house from the South. After we dicked around in the house for a few hours killing time, we finally decide that it's time to begin our voyage. With a snack and two cans of
Full Throttle we left the house for the Rover.
Equipped with our necessities (food, drink and reggaeton) we got on the turnpike. Bear in mind that part of the allure of the Rover is the better gas milage over my Z28 Camaro and the fact the my radio is currently broken. Jam'n and snacking, Chamaquito and I chat about things such as life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Averaging 90 mph down the road, night falls and our voyage becomes exciting. Driving at nite is always more exciting because you never know where Florida Highway Patrol is lurking and now the chances of getting caught for speeding have increased dramatically... that and I only see colors and large shapes.
I was under the impression that I had enough gas for the trip. The Rover had a little over a half tank of gas -- how much could it possibly take to get there? More than I thought. As we're speeding down Florida's Turnpike the dash becomes illuminated by the gas light. I mention to Chamaquito that we need to stop and get gas.

He has a realization... there's no place to get off on the turnpike to get gas because the exits are like millions of miles away from each other. I chuckle and we continue to search frantically for a place to get off the turnpike to refuel. Unfortunately we keep driving into the darkness with no sign of life on either side. To conserve fuel I engaged the cruise control and set it for 70 mph. It was then that we saw the sign... "
Service Plaza 9 Miles" I reset the trip odometer and begin our mission to make it to the gas station. We're doing well. 1.5 miles... 2.7 miles... 3.6 miles... 4 miles... The the Rover started to slow down. 70... 65... 50... 35... 10... roll. We're now slowly rolling, with whatever momentum we had gained by speeding down the road, across a narrow bridge over some random body of water. By staying off of the rumble strip along the side of the turnpike, we managed to land the Rover onto a stretch of grass along side the road.
I looked at Chamaquito and he looked at me... we kissed, and it was sweet. We still had no gas, but it was sweet. I guess you can't have everything. What I did have tho was roadside assistance as part of my
AMEX Platinum card holder benefits. As I'm talking to the AMEX representative, I see a familiar sight in my rear view mirror... Yes, it's the flashing of the
blue and
white trooper lights that usually require me to stop and pull over... this time I've beaten him to the punch. He comes up and asks me if everything is OK. I explain to him that I ran out of gas, and he then asks me to wait patiently inside my vehicle while he checks to see if the
Road Warriors are still out.

So as I wait, I asked Chamaquito if he knew what that was. He didn't. In the mean time, AMEX and I had arranged road side assistance to bring me two gallons of gas. Pretty good, since the service plaza is like five miles away.
When the trooper returned, he let me know that the Road Warriors were still out and that he had them dispatched to my location to bring me gas... free of charge. I sat and I was amazed. I have never heard of such a glorious service in my life. He returned to his car and he left us on the road. He instructed us that they should be there within twenty minutes. Chamaquito and I, inside the Rover listening to
Wisin y Yandel, waited patiently.
Meanwhile, during this whole ordeal, I had spoken to Azteca and he offered to come and bring gas to us in the event we did fail to make it to the plaza. I couldn't bring myself to have him drive all the way to our location just to bring us gas and then return. It was just really and inconvenience on his part. Maybe if I didn't have my Platinum card and the trooper hadn't sent the guy to bring us gas then I might consider it, but there were already people there whose only job is to help me when I need it.
As we laid in the Rover waiting, we saw the flashing of
yellow and
orange lights in the distance. It was our Road Warrior. When he arrived I explained to him that I needed gas, and with a quickness he returned from his truck with a
red container filled with gasoline. In my head a scene from Foxy Brown flashed thru my mind. You know the scene, where the Crackers have her tied to the bed in the small shack and she manages to free herself. Well she breaks free and throws gas all over one of the Crackers and he cries out in desperation, "This is gasoline!!" To which Foxy replies, "You know it motha fucka!" before tossing a match his way.
Sorry for my short Blaxploitation Cinema moment, I don't know what got into me. Back to the story...
So the Road Warrior guy empties his container into my fuel tank and Chamaquito and I head to the Service Plaza. We pull up to the pump and then I see the most distracting thing... regular gas costs $3.15 per gallon!!

For a brief moment I was taken aback, but as gas is a necessity, reluctantly re-fueled paying the toll for gassing up on the turnpike. I hope the Jew bastard who owns the station sleeps well at night knowing he's raping poor, unsuspecting travelers. Where is federal regulation when you need it? But alas, another blog.
Pulling away from the gas station, I call Azteca and let him know that we're on the road again and in good shape. He gives me the remainder of the directions I need to rendezvous with his company. Closer than we thought, Chamaquito and I get off of the turnpike and head onto the I-4 heading towards International Drive, the major strip in Orlando where the hotels are located. I call Azteca to let him know, and he instructs me to look for the building with "Sheraton" written on it. I remind him colors and shapes, and he revises his previous instruction, now I'm to look for a building with a giant globe on top. I saw it right away and headed for the entrance. Azteca was outside waiting for us upon our arrival. We gathered our things, locked the door and headed inside.
Who knew what was to become of us, one thing was for sure, with me and Azteca, it was bound to be entertaining.