I was recently lucky enough to spend this last weekend in Columbus for the Wisconsin-Ohio State football game. I was also blessed (read: not blessed) to have spent eight hours in the car on the way there and eight hours in the car on the way back. Lucky for you, I wrote down a precise, minute-by-minute description of what I was thinking during the trip, just for your entertainment. Enjoy.
6:00 a.m. All right, leaving Madison. This will be fun.
6:20 a.m. Welp, Matt is really late. Someone should probably call him.
6:30 a.m. All right, actually leaving Madison. This will be fun.
7 a.m. I need coffee. Actually no. I slept like shit last night, so if I have coffee then I won’t sleep in the car. Actually, I probably won’t be able to sleep in the car anyway, and I have all this homework to do so if I stay awake I can do it. I mean, Age of Innocence isn’t going to read itself.
7:01 a.m. One coffee please.
7:10 a.m. Balls. I am tired.
7:30 a.m. I’m just going to take a quick nap. Just a nap until Illinois. And then let’s do some work.
10:00 a.m. Welp, we’re in Indiana. I know this because of the corn, the flat land, the wind farms and the absolute nothingness of nothing. It’d be more interesting if we drove through Wyoming or the land of Waterworld.
10:30 a.m. I should probably start reading this fucking book.
10:32 a.m. Actually just kidding, there’s been no music on this trip. I’m going to plug in my iPhone and I’ll DJ the next few hours. I’m going to play some classics and some new music. The perfect road trip playlist.
10:55 a.m. I hope everyone enjoyed my playing of “Wrecking Ball” five times in a row.
10:56 a.m. I CAME IN LIKE A WRECKING BALLLLLLLLLLLLLL.
11:15 a.m. iPhone is at 20 percent battery. Perfect. Probably from the millions of times I checked Twitter, my email, Facebook, Soundcloud, Klout, LinkedIn, Podcast app and iMessage. Whoops. It’s not like I need it or anything.
11:15 a.m. I’m also running Google Maps because I’m navigating. (Note: I’m not using Apple Maps because I didn’t want us to die.)
12:00 p.m. Guess it’s my turn to drive. As long as one other person in the car is awake and talking to me, this shouldn’t be too bad.
12:15 p.m. And… they’re all asleep. Brilliant.
12:30 p.m. I wonder what’s on the radio in Indiana. So, it’s mostly right-wing nonsense, country music and predictions for NASCAR races. No wonder the Indianapolis Colts are in the AFC South.
12:45 p.m. Hey look—it’s Gary, Indiana. The Flint, Michigan of the Midwest. No, that doesn’t make sense. Ummmmm… Gary and Flint are two terrible cities and they both have names of people as their city names. COINCIDENCE!?! I think not.
1:00 p.m. We stopped in West Lafayette for lunch. The good: Purdue’s frat houses look like mansions. The bad: almost everything else. Especially given the fact that this was their gameday against Northern Illinois. Place was dead as dicks.
2:30 p.m. Bought Double Bubble Bubble Gum, Diet Mountain Dew, and a scratch-off lottery ticket. Yup, definitely on a road trip.
4:00 p.m. (5:00 p.m. EST) Ohio has the most boring entrance sign. It’s just an arch that says “Ohio: Land of Discovery.” Boooooo.
6:00 p.m. Oh god we finally made it and just two hours before the game. I would like to thank my large bladder for never giving in, XM radio for letting me not listen to shitty Indiana radio for four hours and Double Bubble for losing its flavor after just a minute.
6:01 p.m. Oh fuck, we have to do this again tomorrow morning.
Ever been killed by Apple Maps? Tell Michael by emailing mvoloshin@wisc.edu.
