27. I should have never come on this road trip....because it was so fun.

What if they started fighting more than anyone I ever met.

Ashley and Phillip were outside at the side of my car before I knew it and they didn't look impressed.

Ashley said, "You know it's no big deal for one of us to drive, don't worry about it. Did this happen on the way over here?"

I was so embarrassed. "Ummmmmmmmmmm yeah it totally just happened like I was swerving out of the road because I was trying to like save someones life... yeah it's a long story but it looks like my car is not going to work right now."

Phillip gave Ashley huge eyes and then said very nicely, "Oh dang, well, if you have to take care of this I get it if you can't come on the trip," he was looking into the car and I didn't notice how much garbage that my friends left in the back seat and how much stuff got spilled everywhere. It looked horrible.

I followed his eyes back then looked at him and said, "Yeah when I had to swerve out of the road back there um, there was like this pride event and someone was going the wrong way on their bike and like, yeah I hit my breaks super hard and all the snacks for my trip spilled all over the back haha." This was SO bad. I looked at the snacks that were literring the back seat: stolen half eaten cookies, spilled coffees, monster and tab energy drink cans, cheese puffs, cookie crisp cereal: I would never eat any of that food. I only eat food that is Organic. This lie was going to completely ruin my reputation.

"Come on inside," said Ashley, "We'll just get Dharmit to drive. We don't take the LX460 on long road trips because it's so bad for the environment to drive, so we just get Dharmit to take us in his tesla."

"Wow that's great, I've never been in a tesla!"

Phillip was still doing big eyes back and forth from my car and Ashley. "We can't just leave your car here for a week. I'm sorry but the neighbors will kill us."

"What, like with a gun?" I said as a joke.

Phillip didn't even acknowledge this. He said: "We're going to have to get it towed or something. Do you want it towed to a mechanic or to Tiny's... or... where do you live?"

"Oh yeah, I'm staying with Tiny right now, that would be perfect!"

"Should we tell her? We were just doing a group video chat with her and some other friends this morning. Do you think she would mind?"

Why the F would Tiny be group chatting with them this morning. Was it a conspiracy theory to set me up on a deadly road trip after all?

Ashley did this mysterious smile with her mouth, and said, "Phillip why are you freaking out about this? No one is even going to care. People can have shitty cars at their house, it's not a big deal. I mean that guy-" she pointed like three doors down "-drives like an ancient truck. It's just like that. Just call Dharmit and let's help Leia got her stuff out of her car."

If it was possibile for someone to roll their eyes with their body only and not their eyes, that is what Phillip did right now. And no offense but, and he was supposed to be a man? Last night I thought he seemed so tough and cool, but he actually just reminds me of Mort (no offense to Mort - I LOVE Mort).

"Wow it is so crazy that I will get to drive in a Tesla!" I said.

Then I looked around and realized that there was like 5 other teslas in this neighborhood. I forget sometimes that Tiny and everyone she knows is rich.

Phillip was on the phone with Dharmit while we unpacked my backpack and the other stuff I threw together for this amazing road trip. I heard him say "Yeah well you'll have to hurry up if we're gonna catch the Krishnapoopi debate in Eugene. Leia's car is a complete and total piece of fucking shit." He was whispering as quiet as a mouse for this last part, but I am like 50% sure that he said something like that, which was so cruel.

I asked Ashley, "Wow, are we going to see a debate on the way to the climbing trip?"

Ashley smiled and said "Oh yeah I thought we told you last night. We're going to see our favorite philosopher, Krishnapoopi, debate Jordan Peterson about religion in Eugene on the way! We got you a ticket don't worry."

"Wow that's amazing. Wait what is Krishnapoopi? Is that like a band haha?" I said.

Phillip looked at me and so serious and said "No. Krishnapoopi is like the most important philosopher of the last 100 years, and we're going to see him speak tonight."

Ashley said, "Yeah, Phillip absolutely loves him, we all kind of don't like Jordan Peterson because of how transphobic he is, but like, well, it's like a once in a lifetime chance to see Krishnapoopi I guess because he's like 95 and might die soon."

"Wow, that is so sad," I said, "And yeah, I would NEVER be friends with people who like Jordan Peterson either haha," and I crossed my minds fingers, praying that she would never find out that my friends listen to Jordan Peterson secretly (NOT me).

"Okay," said Phillip, "Dharmit has to get a full charge that should only take like 30 minutes. Leia, we need to get your car towed. I can't have it here." He looked at Ashley emotionlessly for a quick second then back to me, "I'll cover it. Let's get it to a mechanic and you can pick it up when we get back."

I looked at my car, my perfect and boldly customized car that had the sickest mods anyone ever put on a hatchback, it was a car that was so perfect and so cool that I would miss it with all the bones in my body. "Okay," I said. I told him of the mechanic I always take it to and Phillip called for the tow.

"We're already like an hour late, I am so sorry!"

Phillip looked at Ashley, and said: "Oh that's okay. You can't predict these things. We're just excited to go on a fun trip with a new friend and climb some rocks!"

Then after he was done saying that sentence to me while looking at Ashley, he looked at me and smiled.

Phillip went inside.

I asked Ashley, embarrassed, "Does Phillip secretly already hate me?" And I put my hands on her leg and did a big frownie face at her.

"No!!!!! We love you!" and she put her hands on top of mine and smiled. That was the chillest thing EVER. It felt like my other friends were a million miles away, and right now that was kind of a 'don't smile because it happened, and don't cry because it's over situation.'

We sat on the steps and looked out at the road. The neighboorhood was so nice. "These houses are so dope. How long have you lived here?"

"Well, we both got our jobs at google after we graduated from Standford where we studied comp sci and did democratic socialist activism and graduated with honors suma cum laude after doing like so many college courses in high school and doing internships at google amazon and facebook and also like doing research at Stanford for machine learning like 3 years ago and bought like a month after that."

"Wow," I said, "That is so cool."

Phillip appeared with 3 cups of coffee. When I looked closer, they were actually lattes. My jaw dropped because they looked like actual, real lattes. "Oh my god Phillip. You ACTUALLY know how to be a barista?? That is SO crazy!!"

"Thanks, I watch like a ton of youtube about it and I basically prefer mine to everywhere." He took a sip and so did all of us. It was obviously a soy milk latte and I did not like it because I read on youtube that soy makes you sick, even though it is super ethical/humane and I love that its Chinese. Then he said, "I actually only like that Luigianna Ninaz Cupz place from the news' coffee more. Their beans are SO good!"

When I heard that, I had a crazy spasm in my jaw that hurt so much I basically threw the coffee all the way into the street and the cup and saucer it was on both exploded like a disgusting tool of war.

"I think I just had a seizure, ahh!!" I said, grabbing the back of my neck and looking to Ashley for sympathy, she looked SO worried. I was starting to wonder if she was going to be my new bestfriend?

"Leia! Oh my god are you okay! Seizures are so scary do you have them often?" Ashley said, putting her hand on my head.

Phillip was just blankly staring at the exploded coffee cup and kept drinking his soy milk latte. So chill not to react at all to that!

"I'm so sorry I exploded your cup Phillip," I turned to him and did a frowny face. He smiled, crooked his head, and took a sip of his soy milk latte.

"So you heard about the Krishnapoopi event! Are you excited? Sucks we also have to suffer through Jordan Peterson, but Krishnapoopi will make short work of that. Like, Krishnapoopi basically answered the question of free will. And yeah, we don't have it. I can't believe that anyone would even debate against that in the 21st century. It should be funny either way." Phillip said. "Did you know they used to call farts 'marsh gas'? Isn't that so stupid? Like 100 years ago, people didn't even know molecules existed. Now we have computers that can write better plays than any white man ever did and also maybe 3D art better than anyone." He took a sip of his soy milk latte and then expressed: "AI art is so fucking sick. Don't even get me started on AI."

"Wow. That is so amazing." I said.

Suddenly Phillip noticed my cracked phone and said, "What the heck is that an iPhone 5? We're on 13 now. It looks destroyed. What provider do you use?"

"Uhhh I think I'm on verizon? Honestly my parents still pay for it hahaha," I said. I haven't even told my old crew that!

"Hang on," and Phillip ran into the house and brought out what looked like a brand new iPhone except it was like 3 times bigger than mine.

"Wow that's crazy! Is that a iPad?" I said.

He also had his laptop with him and a pin. He took my phone out of my hand, took out this little card from the side of it with the pin, typed some stuff into his computer, told me to put in my pin, and then handed me the new giant iPhone. He said "It's still got a screen protector on it. Just take it."

I saw my new amazing phone blowing up with texts from everyone. It really just looked like visual confetti, celebrating the fact that after a long week of having a destroyed phone, I was going to be able to go back on reddit and engage in the online community. I was so thankful it made me want to cry. "Phillip!!!" I said, "What the heck!!!" and I gave him a big hug. "You just saved my freakin life bro!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"

He said, "It's no big deal, I always get like a set of 2 of every new iPhone just in case one of them is like, no good. Just don't tell Tiny you got it from us." And he winked at me. Why would he not want me to tell Tiny....? She is my girlfriend...?

It occurred to me that now I know way more about these new friends than they knew about me. Unless Tiny has been secretly telling them about me, and that's why they trust me so fast? But now that Tiny is mad at me, I am so confused about pretty much everything in my life, besides that this road trip is a reeeally good idea.

"My uncle is like super into computers too. I think he works in like IT or something." I lied. I am more into like cars and DIY electronics, I actually am a liiiittle out of my depth with the whole amazon/google people haha! "Wait isn't IT like something different? Wait, what do you guys do at google?"

Phillip started immediately, but Ashley was looking like she wanted to talk. I just looked at Ashley while Phillip was talking and basically didn't hear a single word he said. Then I noticed that actually Phillip was looking at Ashley too, like he was talking right at her, and not saying anything to me. And Ashley was looking at her phone!!!! I noticed that my jaw was hurting so bad again and doing like an auto clench. WTF is wrong with my brain this week!

Out of nowhere this low "weeeeeew" sound approached us and for a split second my life flashed before my eyes because it seemed like a UFO abduction type of sound. I remembered all those times growing up that was so nice, and I looked at all these sweet houses around me and I just couldn't make the connection. I remembered going to the grocery store and when my mom showed me how to pick out the good fruit and I remembered making drawings with my grandpa and that yes he actually was Chinese.

Then I realized it was just a tesla, not a UFO, and I said outloud doing my best fall out boy impression "thanks for tha memories!" and stood up excited to go on this fun road trip. I was just realizing how tired I was. Ashley laughed because of my fall out boy impression and Phillip had already stood up with his enormous backpack on, walking over to Dharmit.

Dharmit flew into the driveway like a race car man (race like racing, not like Indian/Black/white/Hispaniol) and stopped super fast like 1 inch from my poor car. He got out of the car so fast too, and stood with his legs crossed and with this attitude on his face.

Dharmit said: "I guess our new friends car was not quite up for the task?" and then he drank 2 five hour energies in a row.

"That's like, actually not okay with me. I wouldn't make fun of you for things you can't help." I said.

Dharmit said, "Well why did you say you could drive us all to the Smith rock if you can not even be driving anywhere at all?" and he laughed and looked down. Then he said, "Why did you ever driving anywhere at all in this car? You should not put a lift on a little car like this it makes it very dangerous!" I noticed that every time he said a v it sounded like a w, and any time he said a w, it sounded like a v. "Come on, let's go!"

We all loaded our stuff into his tesla. It was a BIG one, like it could have fit like 10 more huge backpacks, in addition to our 4 huge backpacks. That was amazing by itself. The tesla was so cool because it had this flat screen TV in it that had apps on it like a phone. Maybe technology wasn't so stupid after all, and that computers really are the shit.

I remembered how little sleep I got and why and noticed my jaw was clenching again. As soon as I sat down on the white leather seats in Dharmit's car I immediately fell asleep.