With my Kombi, suitably named Frogger, loaded up with my surfboards, petrol, food, and an esky full of beers, I rolled around to pick up Trish and Lana before heading up the coast for what was certain to be the greatest road trip in the history of pissing off work to go surfing. It was a little after midday on Monday, and as I walked into the girls place I was confronted by Lana staggering towards me before falling on me, almost dragging me to the ground. It seemed that shed only just got in from the previous night, and she was absolutely blind drunk, it was classic. It was a bender of epic proportions, and I must say I was inspired
Trish had taken it upon herself to cook us up a big curry before we left, and having sampled her cooking previously I politely declined, but she wouldnt take no for an answer. Rule number one of traveling, dont eat curry or baked beans or any other methane producing food, for fucks sake, youre in a car
So after choking that down we grabbed their gear, and I had to carry Lana to the van since her legs had given way and I couldnt bare to watch her fall face first into the bichumen any more. We got our gear together, fired up some classic driving songs on the stereo, and headed out of Sydney
Once on the freeway we discovered that Frogger had a not so respectable top speed of around 100km/h. We were certainly in no danger of getting any speeding fines at this rate, but we didnt care, as long as we got there we were happy
Around 100km out of Sydney, somewhere near Wyong, Lana was still passed out in the back as No Second Prize by Jimmy Barnes was blasting out of the speakers at full volume. We were approaching a bit of a hill, and as I glanced down at the speedometer there was a thud, and suddenly I lost power as the speedo needle began to make an unrelenting movement towards zero. I looked out the back window and saw nothing but smoke. Frogger had shit himself, and done it in a big way
I pulled over and Trish and I quickly jumped out and raced for the engine hatch as smoke continued to billow out and oil sprayed all over the road. I knew it was bad, really bad, and it seemed that what was to be a perfect trip had taken a turn for the worse. The only luck we seemed to have was that there was a roadside assistance phone only 200m away, so dejected I walked towards it and ordered a tow truck
After a mere 15 minute wait the towie arrived and loaded us up onto the truck. He took us down the road to a service center on the southbound side of the Highway. There was no town within sight, just a Caltex service station and truck-stop, a McDonalds, and what appeared to be a mechanic. The tow truck driver dropped us and the car outside the mechanic and left us to fend for ourselves
By now it was 4pm, and the mechanic was just packing it in for the day. I told him our problem and after a quick look at the engine he diagnosed a dropped cylinder. Disaster, this would result in an entire engine overhaul at the cost of around $2000, money that we simply didnt have. He told us that hed find us a new engine in the morning, and all we could do was hang around in what Ive declared to be the worst place ever
I must admit I was feeling a bit sorry for Lana. She was feeling as crook as rookwood, she really wasnt in a good way. She was still a bit drunk and also fighting off a ridiculous hangover. Put that on top of her boyfriend leaving her the previous night and suffering from tonsillitis, she wasnt at her best, and here we were with a dead car stuck in the middle of bloody nowhere
It seemed that there was only one thing to do, and that was empty my esky of beers and look at porn, so me and Trish loaded ourselves up with beer and headed into Caltex to read the latest Picture and People magazines. It was while we were having a laugh at the girls that had sent in pictures of themselves for the Homegirls section that I devised a cunning and almost brilliant plan. If I took nude photos of the two girls wed be sitting on a small fortune. Theyd easily win being both very good sorts, and with a $500 prize each that would surely cover the costs of the breakdown
Grinning from ear to ear at the prospect of seeing some muff I went back to the van to tell Lana to get her gear off. Unfortunately she didnt share the same enthusiasm and my plan had been foiled. There was only one thing I could do now, keep boozing it up and come up with a bigger and better plan, and I didnt let myself down
By this time Id probably necked around 12 beers, and suddenly I came up with a plan that I thought was fucken clever. Not only would it easily raise as much money as wed need but it would also get us instant cash. So I headed over to the truck-stop and made my rounds with the truckers trying to find a bloke I could pimp the girls out to. Ill never understand why the girls werent up for it, who would ever knock back an overweight trucker with a mullet, come on
It mustve been getting late, and I think the bloke at Caltex was beginning to tire of my drunken behaviour, so he buffed us with all the leftover pies and sausage rolls in a feeble effort to get rid of us. Free food was just what we needed, and soon after that we decided to pack it in, and back to the van we went
The great thing about pissing it up was that it wasnt hard for me to fall asleep, and I mustve gone out like a light. However my slumber was short lived. I was awoken at around 3am by Trish lying practically on top of me, snoring directly into my ear. Believe me, it couldve woken the dead, it was horrible
After that I had a most restless night until I finally gave up trying to sleep and made the effort to get out of bed at a little after 8am. I threw the blanket off myself only to discover that I was wearing nothing but a sock. Im still not sure about what point of the night my boxers vanished, but they were gone. I was forced to ever so delicately get out of bed and slip them back on before the girls woke up, and I managed to do it, disaster averted, but only just
I headed straight for the mechanic feeling a little the worse for wear, and he informed me that his search for an engine had not been a fruitful one. It seems that hed only tracked down one engine, and it would cost us $2200, plus labour to install it. We were fucked, plain and simple. I talked it over with the girls and we knew we had to look for an alternative
Many bad ideas crossed my mind, most of them involving either towing the Kombi back home and dealing with it there, tracking down another engine from somewhere else, or cutting my losses and selling Frogger to a wrecker. None of the options were particularly appealing, but we were in no position to have a wide variety of choices. We needed a miracle, and we got one, but it didnt come without a cost
I ran into a bloke, Shaun was his name, whod just broken down. I told him of our predicament and he got on the blower to his mate, Randall. It seemed that Randall had seen a Kombi for sale in Newcastle, around 45 minutes north, for sale for $450. If I could buy that, drive it back, and then swap the engines Id be set. So Randall set about tracking down the Kombi as a car turned up with the parts for Shauns car. It turned out that the three fellas in this car work for Randall, and theyd be able to give me a lift to Newcastle. Then it got even better, Randall tracked down the Kombi only to find that the bloke was mates with these three blokes, so he took the Kombi to their place and it would be waiting there for me. Things were working out just perfectly, but only momentarily
The three blokes were without a doubt the biggest bogans ever. Mullets were standard procedure, and everything about them screamed inbred. By chance another of their mates turned up. He was heading straight back to their place at Torro, just outside Newcastle, so I hopped into his Mitsubishi Magna and we were off
We didnt get far at all, showing off in front of the boys on the wide open gravel plains of the truck-stop he lost it and ploughed straight into an embankment, rolling the car several times. I ended up in the back seat. We somehow walked away unscathed, I dont know how, if I had my seatbelt on Id be dead. The car is a write-off
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