The Time My Car Broke Down in Montana on Spring Break
Although the title of this article sounds doomed from the get-go, what transpired later during the "break" goes to show just how creative, desperate "products of the 80s" can be with music, movies, and packets of Top Ramen noodles. Okay, it's 1987 and my last year of college in Missoula. Now, for some martyr reason or another, I end up ditching plans to go with friends to Cancun to pick up extra hours at a job that I believe paid maybe $5 an hour at the time. The fact of the matter, I couldn't afford a trip to Mexico. So, as the week progressed, I was able to set aside a few days during the break to travel by car with my boyfriend and best friend to Seattle. The problem is the trip ended before it began, as we never made it past Alberton, Montana. That's when my beloved 1978 Subaru overheated and broke down. The next several hours were spent waiting on a tow truck and the three of us trying to devise alternative plans for Spring Break. So, while fast friends had already left Zoo Town to enjoy legit trips, we were left stranded with no car and most of our money set aside for school. Sure, if our Seattle trip had panned out, we would have had gas expenses of $1.00 a gallon, but the journey also involved crashing at my cousin's house to save money and to bug her for a while. (continued...)
So, what was the next best thing for us to do with a broken down car on Spring Break? Round up movies on VHS, sort out our favorite cassette tapes, and prepare to consume cheap noodles in the most peculiar ways possible, depending on the ingredients sporadically left in the fridge (usually eggs, cheese, and leftover soy sauce packets were involved). When it came to music, my boyfriend led with his favorite artists, The Eagles and The Marshall Tucker Band. For me, it was English Beat, David Bowie, Heart, The Pretenders, CSNY, Depeche Mode, Pink Floyd, and Led Zeppelin. My gal pal was all about General Public, U2, New Order, and just about anything else imaginable. As for movies, our tastes varied. Plus, remember it was when films presented at the theater didn't make it to VHS until almost a year later. The top ones we binge-watched that week were Aliens, Stand By Me, Blue Velvet, 9-1/2 Weeks, At Close Range, Ferris Bueller's Day Off, and The Color of Money. Plus, we weren't completely innocent as cheap beveraging and some other stuff played out during Spring Break, too. What major trip did you miss out on that left you in the same predicament on Spring Break?