I woke up bright and early Saturday morning to pay homage to my chest. Yep, you guessed it. My activity for Day 27 was to walk in the Race for the Cure. Believe it or not, I've never done this activity. There are thousands of people who participate in Des Moines but for whatever reason I hadn't - until this year. Thanks Octoberfest! Brrr....it was COLD Saturday morning. Put on three layers for pants and almost 5 layers on top. Stocking hat? Check. Gloves? Check. I was ready. For the most part, I stayed warm until we started the race. My fingertips were still cold but it wasn't unbearable, thank goodness. Once we started trekking, I was fine. So until the race started, we walked around looking at the different booths, collecting free giveaways and ironically running into people we knew. My cousin's friend Diane spotted me and said hello. She then turns to these two women and started to say "this is my friend Angel," when I literally looked at the woman and semi-shouted, "Oh my God we did the San Diego marathon together 10 years ago!!" Just a little FF (Fun Fact) for you all, I walked a full marathon back in 2002 in San Diego for the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society. I met a couple of women through the group who I ended up walking with for training and the actual marathon. We also all stayed in the same hotel room. Literally had not seen these two sisters for 10 YEARS! You can imagine the scene once they recognized me, screaming and hugging and oh my gawding, taking pictures, exchanging contact information, etc. Then Angel's sister says to me, "do you remember when we took that ride with the random stranger?" You better believe it Pam. And I'm going to share that story now because it will go down in my life history as one of the dumbest and yet funniest things I've ever done. If you are all familiar with some of my other stories in life (i.e. Downey ball), then you know that's saying a lot.
There's five of us women who all walked together in the marathon. Myself, Angel and Pam who were a little bit older and then two other girls my age (early 20s). So we get done with the marathon, we're in San Diego and our tickets entitled us to a free concert in Chula Vista which is down by the border. We go to the area where we think the train comes and we stand to wait. We waited for about 20 minutes when literally a man steps out of the shadows and says "are you waiting for the train to Chula Vista? Do you realize you're standing on the wrong side of the tracks and you just missed it?" Umm...no sir we did not. Then he says what should have been the biggest red flag to date "I can take you guys down there and I'll only charge you $5 a person." Now what did our parents teach us as kids? NEVER TAKE RIDES WITH STRANGERS. We chose to ignore that advice since there were 5 of us. So we get in this van, Steve is his name. And he "works for the airport transporting passengers." His drivers license picture suggests he could be a terrorist. I'm not going to focus on that. So he radios into the airport that he's taking some passengers down to Chula Vista and gets dead air back. Think "breaker, breaker, static" minus the "10-4". Again, nothing to worry about at this point. Except that EVERY time he radioed in, nobody responded. So we start driving down somewhere, I mean who in the hell knows where we're driving it's not like any of us was from the area. Steve tells us he's taking a shortcut so we don't miss the concert. Umm...ok....a shortcut...I mean is the shortcut necessary? Can't we take the route that all these other cars are taking? Cars that could save us if this guy indeed becomes a terrorist? Suddenly the "shortcut" becomes VERY dark. There are ZERO cars around anywhere and no street lamps. So it's just us with Steve the guy-who-very-well-could-be-a-terrorist-or-worse-yet-serial-killer-but-claims-to-be-an-airport-employee in a van somewhere in the back woods of California. At this point in the ride, I started quietly thumbing through my purse for something that I could weld as a weapon should the situation call for it. Turns out every woman in that van was doing the same thing we just didn't realize it at the time. Then comes the infamous words from Steve who said, "yeah, there isn't much in this part of California except junk yards and German Shepards." That's when Angel yells, "turn this (bleeping) van around right now!" and Pam says "Angel! What are you saying?" Those of us who had been scared but were trying to hide it were suddenly terrified. I'm thinking, "Omg. This is happening. I'm with a serial killer. Holy shit. This isn't the way I wanted to go down. What do I do?" And Angel repeats her hysterical order, "you better turn this (bleeping) van around right now Steve. I don't know what you're trying to pull here but you better do it because I am not (bleeping) kidding." And Steve says, "no it's just right up here, I promise you should see the ampitheater." Right as Angel is readying herself for another threat that Steve should probably heed, the dim lights of the ampitheater started to come into view. Turns out he was right. And it really was a shortcut. Steve got us there in time for the concert. And then decided he would just wait for us in the parking lot. Umm don't you need to go back to work? He assures us he's fine to wait. We go to the concert and are still nervous as hell. The group was split on whether to take another ride with him back to San Diego. When one of the girls comes up with a "brilliant" plan. "I saw this on an America's Most Wanted show one time," she says. "If Steve is really a serial killer, he won't take a picture with us because it would be evidence. So when we get back to the parking lot, we'll ask him to take a picture with us. If he refuses then we know he's a serial killer and we should get a ride elsewhere." Yeah, yeah, that's good, we all start nodding in agreement, shaking our heads and pacing back and forth like that's the best idea we'd ever heard in our lives. Never mind the semantics of any of it. Logic went out the window when we took the ride in the first place. At that point, half-assed logic was all we had left. So the concert gets done and we get out to the parking lot and ask Steve aka "Possible serial killer" to take a picture with us. And he emphatically agrees. So by some odd reason, we all decided since Steve took the picture with us that he probably wasn't a serial killer. And proceeded to take a ride with him AGAIN. During the ride back one of the girls in the group speaks up from the back and says, "Steve, we thought you were a serial killer." OMG. LOL. This situation has just gone to another level of absurdness. And Steve, surprised, says "a serial killer, why?" And we explain our points to him when he tells us the real reason that he offered to take us down there: he was in the process of starting his own cab/transportation service and he's trying to get his name out and build his clientele. He gave us business cards as we read the proof (Ted Bundy also had "proof" is what I should have been thinking). In the end, we were transported safely to and from the concert and took a ride with a complete stranger. Never living that one down or forgetting it because it was absolutely hilarious once we talked about it later.
When I brought that up to Pam and Angel at Race for the Cure, they couldn't believe I had remembered all the details (who me? I never forget ANY details, makes for a great story!) We all laughed and reminisced and promised to get together to catch up and tell that story over again. It was so great to see them. I mean never in a million years did I think I would run into them. The race was fantastic, it was so wonderful to see all the brave women walking either for someone or for their own courageous battle. I felt honored to be among such remarkable and strong women. Before hand Stacey insisted we get balloons for my birthday so the guy made us each a balloon hat and we wore those the entire race. Just use your imagination here, mine was supposed to be a candle (for my birthday) and looked nothing like a candle. See the picture as evidence and make your own assumption. So walking with a balloon hat was random, but not quite as random as running into long-lost friends. And then Stacey gave me another wonderful birthday present. A SUPER Saturday indeed.
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