Hitchhike

I got to tell my hitch hiking story over the weekend. It is my best story and so thought i would put it in this blog. It is quite long but does involve blow jobs and drug taking...

Two of my friends were walking the Appalachian trail and I was living in Savannah, Georgia at the time and so planned to join them for three weeks of their hike. The first week of walking was fun but the combination of scrambling over the annoying Pennsylvanian rocks and trying to keep up with their punishing walking pace left my right ankle a little worse for wear. Our plan was to head across to New York for a bit of sight seeing and relaxation once we reached Delaware Water Gap and so, rather than walk the remaining thirty miles and damaging my ankle further, I decided I would hitchhike there and spend a night in a hostel, while my friends would continue walking and meet me there the next day.

I had walked a different section of the trail before and had hitchhiked a few times. It is normally fairly easy to get a lift and everybody who had picked me up previously had been nice and friendly (although there was a wolf in one of the cars but that is another story). The first couple of hitches were pretty standard - a college kid picked me up first and then a couple of teenagers. Neither of them could take me very far though, so I still had most of the way to go by the time I reached Hwy. 209N.

That was where the fun began. I got out my sign with my destination written on it and stuck my thumb out. After about fifteen minutes, an old, beaten up builders van pulled up. The driver told me he was going to Delaware Water Gap and could take me there but he would have to make a couple of stops along the way. Stopping was no problem for me so I thanked him and climbed in. I noticed he was drinking beer and not wearing his seat belt but that is pretty standard in certain parts of America and so didn’t worry me. He introduced himself as Troy. He also had his three kids in the van, who were strapped in to a bench seat he had bolted to the floor in the back of the van. They were Katie, who was three, the enjoyably named Silus, who was two and little Troy Junior, who was still a baby.

After the introductions, I explained why I wanted to go to Delaware Water Gap and what I was doing walking the Appalachian Trail. He then took the opportunity to tell me “I can’t trust you because you’re a stranger but if you’re any trouble I’ve got these.” At this point he took his hands off the steering wheel and waved them in my face. He finished this already disturbing sentence off with “And I’ve got a gun under the seat.” Troy was clearly a people person and to put me further at ease he decided to tell me about almost getting in to a fight on the Appalachian Trail with some people hiking the trail. Hikers are generally not aggressive people so by now it was pretty obvious he was a bit odd. He was taking me where I wanted to go though and how bad could it be?

A couple of miles up the road we made the first of the stops. It was a building supply place where he was returning some unused supplies. Before getting out of the car he said "Watch the kids will you?” which seemed strange as he had already made it quite clear how much he trusted me, but went on “I'll be watching you and don't go under the seat." so I knew where I stood. He then went in to the store for about five minutes and definitely wasn’t watching me unless he had x-ray vision. I didn’t go under the seat though.

He continued to make various stops and each time it was something different - pizza, soda, cigarettes, aluminium foil at one point (?) and some more beer. And each time he asked me to watch the kids before getting out. It was a hot day and inside the van it was unpleasantly warm so waiting around wasn’t much fun.

The stops kept coming and really didn’t seem that necessary so I started to ask "Are we going to Delaware Water Gap next?" "Just a couple more stops." was the usual reply.

While we were stopped at a gas station, Troy saw a friend of his, who came over to have a chat. At one point Troy said to this guy "She's trying to take everything man, all for a little domestic disturbance." That and a couple of other things he said made me think he might have been on the run with the kids. I could be wrong about that and wouldn’t want to smear his good name unnecessarily. He had talked about his house on a lake in a gated community and his good relationship with his Costa Rican wife previously. Finish the story and you can make your own mind up.

We got to a town and I saw signs saying it was three miles away to Stroudsburg (Delaware Water Gap was a further two.) so I knew we were getting close. I was somewhat surprised when we pulled in to the car park of an adult store but Troy was quick to explain… He knew a woman who worked there who would give him a blow job for $15. "Watch the kids- I'll be back in a bit." He told me as he got out of the car.

Sitting in a stranger’s van and watching his kids while he is inside getting a blow job is an unusual experience. Katie was the only one of the three kids who could talk and she was starting to get annoyed by being cooped up in the back of a hot van for so long and so started to complain.

"Where's Daddy?"

"He's just gone inside for a bit."

"Where?"

"You can ask him when he gets back."

"Let me out"

"No."

"Why?"

"Because your Dad says so."

"Why?"

"You'll have to ask him."

"Let me out."

And so on until Troy came back after about fifteen minutes. He was unpleasantly sweaty and carrying a hard core pornographic magazine when he got back in the car. Before we set off again he told me about a potential money making opportunity. Apparently there was a guy inside who would pay me $50 if I showed him my penis while he masturbated. Troy told me he had done it before and it was easy money but I politely declined. He then tried to encourage me to do it by telling me a rambling story about how the guy was an idiot and Troy had previously managed to steal his wedding ring without him knowing about it. Again, I turned down his kind offer. It was at this point I should have got out of the car and walked away, but I didn’t. After all, how much worse could it get? Troy set off again and combined the twin tasks of driving and flicking through his latest magazine purchase admirably. Instead of going down the freeway, which is what the sign we had seen suggested was the way, we turned down a country lane. This didn’t look right so I asked "Is this the back way to Delaware Water Gap then?"

"One more stop and we'll be there." was the predictable answer.

Before telling me about our next stop he quizzed me to make sure I wasn’t a policeman. My dishevelled walking gear, week of beard growth and English accent were enough to reassure him I was not about to arrest him. And so he let me know our next stop was going to be his drug dealer’s house where he could get a good deal on crack, if I was interested. We continued on in to the country and pulled in to a drive way in front of a single storey wooden house. There were other houses around but nothing particularly close.

It seemed that there had been some previous trouble between Troy and his drug dealer, because instead of getting out of the car himself he told me "Go and knock on the door and ask for Sean - tell him Troy’s here."

"Why can't you go?"

"Because his wife doesn't like me."

I didn’t like it but Troy was clearly a bit unhinged and he apparently had a gun under his seat and I was in the middle of nowhere. So I nervously got out of the car and knocked on the screen door.

“Yeah?” was the shouted response.

"Is Sean in?"

"Who's asking?"

"I'm Will. Troy's here. He wants to see Sean."

"I don't know no Troy."

I relayed this back to Troy who shouted back, "Tell him I'm Jimmie's brother."

"Tell him to come in." was the reply from inside the house. Troy clearly didn't like this, but after a bit more back and forth - his excuse was he had the kids in the car and so couldn’t come in, Sean said "He's got to come in."

Troy finally did go in and I went back to the car to endure more complaints from Katie. Troy came out a few minutes later and walked over to my side of the van. "Hey, would you drive the van for a bit?"

What do you say to that? I chose “Sure.” So I got out of the van, walked around to the driver’s side, checked out that it was something I could drive and we started off. I imagine it is fairly unusual to hitchhike and end up driving the ride you get in but I have done it. But when you consider the logistics, it was clear I had to be the one driving. Although he could drive whilst reading porn there was no way Troy could have driven, read porn, made an aluminium foil crack pipe (Ahh, that was what it was for) and smoked crack all at the same time. (And all with his 3 children in the back of the van.) We drove along the country roads with him giving me seemingly random directions. I had no idea where we were so I kept driving and turning when he said turn. At one point he told me to pull over and once we had stopped he offered me the pipe.

“No thanks- I don’t want to try it. It’s too addictive.”

"That's what my wife said and she's fine. She only does it when I want her to." Troy reassured me, but, even after such a convincing argument, I still said no and so started driving again. After some more turns we came to sign saying that at the t junction up ahead, Stroudsburg was three miles to the left. Troy said “Turn right.”

This clearly wasn’t right so I pulled the van over and said “I need to get to Delaware Water Gap. I need to go left.”

Troy had clearly been thinking and let me in on his new alternative plan... “I tell you what. We’ll pick up a couple of hookers and we’ll get a hotel room for the night.”

I saw an immediate problem with his plan. "Who's going to watch the kids?"

“The prostitutes" he replied, as if it should have been obvious - Of course, how stupid of me. After once again turning down another bizarre suggestion from Troy, I grabbed my bag, got out of the van and walked the five miles to Delaware Water Gap slightly scared Troy was going to drive by and shoot me. Fortunately he didn’t.

And that was my hitch hike. Slightly scary at the time but entertaining looking back on it and at least I made $50 out of it… I mean, at least I got a good story out of it.

Self Facilitating Media Nodes

I work near shoreditch in London. It is an area full of people convinced they are the epitome of urban cool. This morning on my walk from the station to work i saw a man in trendy clothes riding a blue bmx that was far too small for him and then another trendily attired man riding a unicycle.

Excruciatingly hip I'm sure...

job description

Working as a recruitment consultant I see some amusingly poor CVs and some odd job descriptions. The one i was sent this morning was the best i have received so far...

"Dear Sir/Madam,
We would like to introduce ourselves as a trading company in Iran. We want to establish a company in London and we need a manager for our office. As you are a recruitment firm in London, we will be glad if you can help us. In the below you can find some terms about employing of a manager. You are kindly requested to introduce and send us 4 or 5 CV’s and we will choose one of them. Please let us know about the result and all of your terms as soon as possible.
Terms:
1-The manager should be feminine.
2-She should be middle age
3-Her nationality should be English (even her parents)
4-She should come from medium to high class family.
5-she should have 3 years experience of being a manager or 5 years experience of being a Trade manager of a company.
6-She should mention the reason of leaving her previous job.
7-She should be familiar with the internal bazaar of England. Such as: 1-food products 2-handicrafts.
8-She should be educated
9-If it is possible she should give some evidence about her developments in her working process.
10-She should have high social behavior. And have a good and suitable appearance.
11-She should be able for trading job (importing and exporting goods from Iran or vice versa)
12-Be sure that she doesn’t have any miss background
13-She should love Iran.

I am looking forward to hearing from you soon."

I am looking forward to hearing from them soon too.