Cargo Hoo

tomolive:

giantevilhead:

What do you think Robert Smith’s hair looks like when he gets up in the morning?

I wonder…do his friends call him Bob?

I know him, and they do.

MY TL;DR CHICAGO BLIZZARD OF '99 STORY

kellydeal:

I had a weekend shift at the crappy “alternative rock” radio station I worked for that was literally a windowless 4-room, broken-down shack out in the middle of nowhere just south of Chicago.

That place was filthy, with cobwebs, no running hot water, and you’d be sure never to drink a lot of coffee on your shift because the bathroom was rank. But coffee didn’t matter much anyway because no way were you ever going to use the water there for ANYTHING.

But whatever, I was getting paid, like, $7 bucks an hour to play music like, that WhiteChocolateSpaceEgg album and that Harvey Danger song (oh, YOU KNOW THE ONE) every hour on the hour and make lame jokes about the weather.

I got to my shift in the morning OK, because the car I had at the time had 4-wheel drive, but by the time 4:00pm had rolled around I was completely snowed in. The shack was off a gravel road out in the middle of nowhere, and the shitty management had no snow removal service lined-up. I didn’t know this, of course, until the next guy called to say he wasn’t going to make it in for his shift and then I had to find a phone number of the station manger (who was totally put off that I was bugging him) to tell him I was trapped in his shitty run-down shack.

The manager was like, “Oh yeah, just call a snow plowing service and have them dig you out. Have ‘em send me an invoice. If you can’t get out, just stay the night and try again in the morning.”

No way in hell was I staying in that shit place for the night, so like a trapped, young, dumb idiot, I started dialing because clearly no one was going to help.
And of course, in the middle of a blizzard, every snow plow in the area was already out working for the city, state or companies that had their shit together enough to remove snow for their employees.

Until, after dozens of calls (OUT OF THE YELLOW PAGES MIND YOU) I finally got a hold of this one, very nice older local lady who had a family run snow plow company.

I told her who I was, where I was calling from and she was all, “Oh! My sons are out plowing right now but they LOVE your radio station! I am so sorry, but they are completely busy for the next few hours!”

I was so angry and frustrated. She could tell. She apologized for my shitty managers leaving me in such a situation and offered a solution, “Well, Derek’s still here. We aren’t too far away, HE COULD PICK YOU UP ON HIS SNOW MOBILE AND BRING YOU BACK HERE SO YOU COULD STAY UNTIL MORNING UNTIL WE COULD GET YOU BACK TO YOUR CAR.”

Nicest offer ever, but not being prepared for a 15 mile snow mobile ride through a blizzard, I told her I’d keep trying elsewhere, she said she’d call back if she could get her other son Zach to help out after he pulled a Jeep out of a snow drift off I-55.

So, I kept playing that fucking Eagle Eyed Cherry song and that Fastball “The Way” song and OH MY GOD THOSE SONGS WILL BE IN MY HEAD FOREVER, until: Zach showed up at the door a few hours later.

In a full on ski mask that totally scared the shit out me. 

But it turned out, Zach had already plowed the entire quarter-mile gravel drive to the station and the entire parking lot while I was inside the shack waiting for hours, making fruitless calls and freaking out.

Turned out Zach was also completely hott once that ski mask was off but he was probably 16 or something, you never know when they’re all Midwest-corn-fed-and-scrubbed so I put on the “emergency” automation system and got the hell out of there while I could. But I gave him all the money in the world I had at the time, $20, because I had no idea when my shit manager would ever pay the nicest family ever.

It took me 4 hours to drive what should have been 20 miles home. On the way I saw a stranded car with its blinkers on, and foot prints leading away from the car. About a quarter mile after that I saw the owner of the car, a guy in gym shoes and a flimsy jacket trying to walk 8 miles to the next exit. I stopped in the middle of the road and offered him a ride. Killed by Stranger V. Good Karma and all.

Dude said he was from Georgia and had never seen snow like that before. I hadn’t in a long time either. It was a quiet ride. I dropped him off at the gas station at the next exit and eventually made it home myself. I checked in on the radio, the “emergency” system was off and since the drive was plowed, apparently they’d suckered another one of us jokers to come in.

I got home yes, I always wondered what would’ve happened if I had taken that snow mobile ride and become the Heiress to the Derek & Zach Snow Removal Co. Local 767.

And to this day, one thing is for certain, THAT FUCKING HARVEY DANGER SONG IS GODDAMN CATCHY BUT IT STILL GRINDS MY TEETH UNTIL THEY BLEED.


THE FUCKING END.

Wikipedia tells the story here, not as fun though.

(Loved. This.)