We put our groceries in the car. In the adjacent parking lot was a liquor store and it was time we all admitted to ourselves that we were going to need something to get us through the night. Something warm. Something comforting. Something familiar. What would it be this time? Early Times? Virignia Gentleman? One trip, in Arizona, I'd spent most of the night quoting from Lost In Translation; "For a good time. . .Early Times" everytime I unscrewed the cap of that horrible bottle and took a swig. Not this time, I thought. The part of that movie where Bill Murray's wife is on the phone asking him to pick out the color of the carpet swatches sticks in my mind for some reason, while I'm looking at liquor bottles and thinking about what made sense to bring hiking. Just pick something, I thought. It's getting late, anyways, I thought. What time was it? Would we ever hike? It didn't seem like it.
Ryan had found wine, packaged in cardboard like a quart of milk. Merlot. Cabernet. I don't really care for either if I have the choice between those two and Shiraz, but I figure I like Merlot better. It didn't matter. All they had was Merlot and Cabernet. I think I like Merlot better. Wasn't Ryan getting one too?
"You think this is any good?" I ask him.
"I dunno," he said looking at it. "You should get some Early Times."
I was not going to get Early Times. I didn't even know if I was going to be able to hike, let alone drink. A box of wine was good enough for me, I thought. Dawn looked around for something of her own. Two bottles of wine? Not enough for the three of us, methinks.
"What are you gettin', Dawn?" Ryan asked.
"Oh," she thought for a second. "I don't know."
"Get some Jagermeister."
"Do you think so?" she asked him.
"Oh yeah. We can all do Jager bombs," he said laughing.
She stood staring at the bottles.
"Dooo it. Doooooo it."
She did and we all payed up. We were that much closer to hiking. We left the liquor store with our goods and piled in the car with the dogs, which by now smelled better than they had after drying out, and our groceries, and we all agreed that we were hungry and were going to need to get something to eat. We pulled out of the parking lot of the grocery store and into the parking lot of a Wendy's and Dawn tried to find a shady spot to park so the dogs wouldn't cook and we went inside, got our food quickly, and left. We were on the road towards our destination again, finally.
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