Pinkies Up (ft Jesus)

This post won’t come as a surprise to anyone who read about my trip to Iceland. I’m all packed up to go to Napa Valley for the third time in my life, and I’m thinking about the first time I laid eyes on the beautiful valley, licking french fry grease from my fingers.

Kath and I were making our way up to the Pacific Northwest after a three month stay in LA, followed by an eight day trip to Tokyo. After staying at our good friend, J’s, we had started on the 101 heading North. Plenty of wonderfully hilarious things happened on this trip, but not all of them fall under the category of ” Pinkies Up”.

Let us back up and just understand my love for this phrase. I would not call myself a person who is comfortable luxury, while I may make myself familiar with it from time to time. I have been scolded for picking off my brother’s plate at a nice restaurant. I have finished a rack of ribs without a napkin on my lap. To me, anywhere where your pinky should be up, the other one is probably up your own butthole. That’s why we have two, right? So I make the “pinkies up” sign whenever I feel I have entered such classy environments. Soon after making the sign to whomever I am with, I make a fool of myself.

So picture this: two women in their twenties, four days into a road trip that involved two days of camping and an airbnb held together with duct tape (that is a story within itself) adorned in cutoffs and old man fleeces. The good ol’ lesbaru filled to the ceiling with suitcases and worn clothes (AKA five days worth of worn underwear), and at our sides, at least three old fast food bags. It was the golden hour and Napa was on our horizon. I can still hear myself slurping up the Dairy Queen shake as we rolled up to one of the last wineries open.

We parked the car with twenty minutes left before the whole tasting room closed. Without thinking, we hopped out in our sweaty road trip clothes, clutching the old fast food bags, one in each hand, as if we were stopping at Wal-mart to dump our trash and maybe take a shit. Who knows, maybe even take a sink bath while we were at it. Unfortunately, there were no industrial sized garbage cans as we entered the mahogany filled room. I quickly turned around to bring our trash back to my poor, poor car.

I came back to find that Kath had been seated out on the porch with two empty wine glasses. I sat down next to her, feeling we both belonged in this beautiful, magical place. Unfrayed wicker lay under our asses and an unscratched, perfectly stained deck lay under our feet. A feeling of comfort took over; I kicked my shoes off and criss-crossed my legs under my butt. Then, our server came around. He had a list to show us and apparently not a lot of time to do so.

I have since driven past this winery in classy attire, laughing to myself. When I first started writing this post I had just passed by the winery. I was on an empty nesters themed vacation with a friend. We had no children, and already we were celebrating getting them out of the house by drinking entire bottles of wine in one sitting and showing a little too much PDA with way too much skin. Oh to age gracefully.

To think, just over a year ago I had been sitting on that wicker bench, getting the reader’s digest version of each wine because clearly I could not afford to become a wine club member. The supposed sommelier that stood in front of us was hot. An expensive button down that magically displayed cut muscles, an equally expensive haircut, and only one pinky showing, if ya catch my drift (or his). Immune to embarrassment (this would not hold true later that day), we barely let him finish describing the wine before we asked for more breadsticks. I am a big believer in cleansing the palette.

We were discreetly shooed away as the winery closed down for the night. The Oxbow Market awaited us as the sun set and our stomachs growled. We grabbed cappuccinos and tacos, messaging our airbnb host that we would of course be late. The GPS set an ETA of one am. Early for us.

We hit the road, with Kath driving first. The tasting was two hours behind us, but much more shame was to come. Possibly shame from above. That’s right, you guessed it. A test from God.

Kath graciously began the journey as I devoured my tacos, while keeping hers stabilized in a container between my legs. While we are on the friendship level of feeding each other, Kath insisted that I focus on navigation. Before we came upon the massive redwoods, the night fell upon us. Looming shadows hugged the road, looking like the legs of dinosaurs. I found myself flinching as the car passed each shadow. The forest felt alive. It felt like at any moment a tree could decide to step on our car. To pin us to this place forever.

I can’t remember if we both built up the fear in each other, but as some point, all we could talk about was how scared we were. There was no service and no sign of an upcoming town. And then, Kath’s fear turned to panic. This could only mean one thing: Kath was near peeing her pants. Sometimes I forget that my best friend is a self masochist.

The road was too narrow to pull off. We saw a sign up ahead and believed it to be our salvation. When we reached the orange triangular sign we found it to be full of upside down and right side up question marks. Another sign followed which read “¿Confusion Hill?”. The signs continued to repeat closer and closer together, until it finally pointed towards a road too narrow for a smart car.

Now by this time, Kath had probably done some damage to her bladder, but we could not fight the fear. Where the hell were we? Were we in hell?

No. No. We were safe. A sign for a rest area popped out to our right. Kath was under the impression that it was a full service area, while outlines of porta-potties on the sign were burned into my retinas. I knew it was going to be sketch af.

A dark parking lot rolled into view with outhouses off to the side in the shadows. Kath slowly crawled the car towards them. It could be poor recall, but I think I remember a few abandoned cars on the other side of us. Kath was paralyzed with fear. I couldn’t tell myself to reach for the door if I had held a gun to my own head.

Without turning the car off, or even switching spots, we were off again. It was midnight by the time we came upon a town. The only sign of life was a bum walking on the side of the road, wrapped in a ratty blanket. We pulled into a Best Western, Kath shooting out of the drivers seat as the car was set in park. I watched as she ran to the lobby, shook the locked doors, and turned back to me with lost hope. I ran over to her and assured her that the pool would have a bathroom. We ran down the steps to the pool, found a locked restroom, and turned back. At least I thought we were turning back. I had ran about 25 feet when I realized that Kath was not behind me. I turned to an archway that led to the balconies of the hotel guests. Kath was walking towards me, zipping her pants up. She had peed almost directly on the first floor balcony. Unbelievable.

If we had an ounce of dignity or integrity left over from the day, it was not to remain with us. I headed toward the drivers seat and Kath sat down in the passenger seat, searching for hand sanitizer to clean the pee off of her shoe. After a quick search, she remembered that the family sized sanitizer jug she had purchased was back in the hatch, buried under clothes. She hopped out to the back of the car, out of my view due to all of our belongings in the car. I waited somewhat impatiently, only to realize that she was talking to someone. I felt every hair on my body stand up. I went to open my door, only to have Kath zoom over to the passenger side and slam down on the seat. With a quick snap, the door was shut. The sound of the slammed door made the intended statement. Before Kath could say move, I had turned on the car and started backing up.

She started furiously eating her tacos while explaining to me that the bum in the blanket had approached her while she was searching for hand sanitizer. I asked her what he had said. She replied that he had asked if we had any extra food. Our fearful laughter died down as Kath took the last bite of cold taco. We were jerks.

We still refer to that as the time we met Jesus and failed his test. After all, the man had had long flowing hair and was draped in what looked like a robe. I personally think that Kath needed the protein to repair her overly stretched bladder. But I think our pinkies twitched up the night that we wouldn’t share our tacos. Somewhere between upper-class and safety, I stand by our decision. The only regret I have is not handing the sommelier our DQ trash. That shit stayed in my car up until this year.