Friday the 13th

A decade ago the reboot of Friday the 13th was released on Friday the 13th and being the horror movie fanatics Melissa and I are there was no way we were going to miss seeing that movie on that day. Although, I’m quite certain that by the night’s end, Melissa certainly wished she had just stayed home.

We were set to see the movie at O’Fallon 15 cinema in O’Fallon, Illinois at some point in the 9:00 hour, so this gave us plenty of time to eat dinner beforehand. After enjoying a delicious dinner at TGIFriday’s alongside our friends Nancy, Marcus, and Ashley the five of us all piled in Club Aurora and set off down the frontage road in route to the theater.

It is important to note the seating arrangement: Melissa was the driver, Marcus the front passenger, and then from left to right in the back seat it was Ashley, Nancy, me. No sooner had all four our doors shut had Ashley started whining about how badly she had to pee. Melissa shot a snarky comment at her about missing her opportunity to go while we were still at TGIFriday’s, but this only caused Ashley to whine more about her uncomfortable bladder conditions.

As Melissa drove the exact speed limit down the frontage road, which ran alongside the interstate, we crawled up on a stop sign. Rather than coming to a complete and total stop as she should have Melissa slowed and rolled right through it. No sooner had we made it through the crosswalk were there police lights spinning behind us. An officer had clearly witnessed Melissa run that stop sign.

“Oh my God. Oh my God. I’m seriously going to pee my pants. Oh my God,” Ashley exasperated from her driver’s side corner seat.

“Ashley, I don’t know what you want me to do,” Melissa said as she dug through her Kathy Van Zeeland handbag to get her license and registration. “It’s because of you I didn’t fully stop sign anyway, so just shut up!”

We all sat there in waiting as the officer took his sweet time to emerge from his vehicle and walk up to Melissa’s window, but luckily I had control of the jams and to best calm our nerves had us all listening to the classic, “Nothing Compares 2 U” by Sinead O’Connor. What an incredible song. Yes, I know this is a cover of Prince, but come on now, Sinead seriously made this one her own.

“Fuck! I can’t find my insurance card,” Melissa said as she rummaged through the clutter in her purse. “Marcus, can you check inside the glove box and see if it’s in there?”

As Marcus searched about in the glove box the officer had finally walked up to Melissa’s window shining his beaming flash light all over the inside of Club Aurora. Melissa rolled down her window to engage him in conversation.

“You know why I pulled you over?” The officer asked.

“Because I ran that stop sign,” Melissa answered coyly.

“That’s right,” the officer replied as he shined his light directly into Melissa’s eyes before asking, “have you been out drinking tonight?”

“No,” Melissa responded sounding quite surprised as she moved her hand up to cover her eyes from his glaring light.

“Then why are you squinting as I’m talking to you?” The officer asked abruptly.

“Because you’re shining that light right in my face,” Melissa responded trying her best not to sound like a sarcastic bitch despite wanting to be oh-so-badly.

“License and registration please,” requested the officer as he lowered his flashlight.

Melissa handed him her license and then turned to Marcus, “did you find my insurance card in there?”

“Couldn’t find it,” answered Marcus. “It’s definitely not in there.”

“Shit,” Melissa said under her breath, but all of us, including the officer heard. “Um… so I can’t find my insurance card,” Melissa said cautiously to the officer who was still looking over her driver’s license.

“You have insurance ma’am?” He asked as he pulled his eyes off Melissa’s license and back onto her.

“I do, yes,” she answered him solemnly. “I just can’t find my card right now,” she added.

“Hmmm… okay then. Well, just sit tight while I go run this,” he said before turning and walking back to his car.

“Oh my God. Oh my God. Oh my God. I am seriously going to pee my pants. I’m going to pee my pants. I cannot believe this is happening right now. I’m going to pee my pants. That’s all there is. I’m going to pee my pants right here and now in Club Aurora,” Ashley rattled off anxiously.

“Please don’t,” Nancy said as she inched away from Ashley and towards me in that back seat.

“Oh my God. I’m seriously going to pee my pants. Oh my God. You guys, I’m going to pee my pants,” Ashley said as she squirmed relentlessly in her seat making an already uneasy Nancy even moreso.

“Well Ashley, I don’t know what you want me to do,” Melissa snapped.

“There’s not anything you can do, but oh my God, I’m seriously going to pee. I can almost not hold it anymore. What if he thinks I’m drunk because I had that drink that TGIFriday’s?” Ashley was a bigger bundle of nerves than Melissa at this point, but given her need to pee, I understood. It’s hard to hold one’s bowels.

“Are you drunk?” Nancy directed at Ashley.

“No, but what if he thinks I am because of that drink I had,” Ashley whined as she squirmed worse than ever.

“If you’re not drunk then there is nothing for you to worry about,” a clearly irritated Nancy roared at Ashley. “Squirm about all you want, but just don’t pee on me.”

Melissa and Marcus were paying no mind to the ordeal in the backseat as they searched all over the front of the car to try and locate the missing insurance card, but continued coming up empty handed. Just as they exercised all possible locations, the officer returned to Melissa’s window, which she then rolled back down.

“So I got you two tickets here,” the officer began as we all hung on his every word. “One for ignoring that stop sign back there and another for not having your insurance card on you. Now if you can prove you had insurance at the time of this stop you will be able to have that ticket dropped, but because I’m issuing you two citations, you will be required to appear in court at the date shown on your ticket. Any questions?”

“No sir,” Melissa answered as she looked over the ticket.

“Okay then, you all have a good night and be sure to stop at any other stop signs you may come across,” the officer said before turning and walking back to his patrol vehicle.

Ashley was the first to break the silence, “thank God that didn’t take as long as normal because I am seriously about to pee my pants.”

“Well, I’m going to have to wait for him to move because I can’t pull forward or I’ll hit all this debris,” a clearly annoyed Melissa said forcing us all the just sit there in awkward silence as we waited for the officer to pull off.

A seemingly fair amount of time elapsed before it became clear the officer wasn’t going anywhere anytime soon, so I made a suggestion.

“There is plenty of room between your car and his, just back up, there’s nothing to hit, just a hill, and you will be able to get back on the road,” I said as all five of us peered out the back of the Club.

“Yeah, you should be fine,” echoed Nancy as Melissa took our advice and reversed slightly before pulling back out onto the frontage road.

Melissa drove along the road at the posted speed limit and made sure she stopped at all the other stop signs. She was driving more cautious than ever not because she had been pulled over, but because the officer who pulled us over was now driving right behind us mirroring our every move.

“Oh my God. He probably thinks I’m drunk,” Ashley said as she kept looking back to see if he was still there, which he always was.

“Ashley, shut up!” An annoyed Nancy demanded. “He doesn’t think you’re drunk, he didn’t even talk to you.”

We all laughed, but that laughed caused Ashley to go into full panic mode.

“Oh my God, I can’t laugh or I’m seriously going to pee,” Ashley said as she continued to wiggle around in her seat. “OH MY GOD! THERE’S IHOP! STOP THERE!”

“You want to go pee in the International House of Pancakes?” Melissa asked sounding surprised.

“YES! I CANNOT HOLD IT ANYMORE!” Ashley yelled as Melissa pulled into IHOP and stopped right at the front door.

Ashley dashed out of Club Aurora and into the restaurant leaving her door wide open. As she ran inside the four of us took notice that the officer had pulled right up behind us, but this time around, didn’t have his lights on.

“Nancy, shut Ashley’s door,” I said, fearful of the officer coming up to it.

“It’s too late! Here he comes!” Nancy said as we all looked back in suspense at the officer slowly walking up to Ashley’s wide open door.

Rather than peering inside, the officer merely just closed the door shut and walked up to Melissa’s window motioning for her to roll it back down, which quite cautiously she did.

“Can I help you officer?” Melissa asked trying to sound her sweetest, but her voice was full of caution.

“No, but I can help you,” he answered with a grin.

We all sat there in anticipation of what he was going to say next. Did he have a change of heart and was going to drop Melissa’s tickets? What was even about to happen! We all sat there eagerly awaiting his next words.

“When you backed up back there you backed into the hill,” the officer began. “You got dirt in your tailpipe. Just thought you’d want to know, so you can clean it out. That could cause some real problems.”

I laughed out loud. Yes, that was nice of him to inform her because we would never have noticed something like that, but it was certainly not what any of us were expecting him to say.

“Oh, okay, thank you then,” Melissa said as Marcus immediately got out of the car and walked around to the back and started removing the dirt from the tailpipe.

Ashley finally emerged from the restaurant to see the cop walking back to his car and Marcus throwing the clump of dirt from the pipe down on the ground. She looked confused as ever when she got back in the car, but we filled her in on what she had missed during her bathroom break and she erupted in laughter, which caused the rest of us to do the same.

“Let’s just go see this movie,” Melissa said sternly, signaling that our moment of laughter was over.

We pulled into and absolutely packed parking lot at the O’Fallon 15 Theater and Melissa is never one to drive around for a close spot, so she went straight to the back where there was plenty of parking and parked Club Aurora there. Anyone who might have voiced an alternate option certainly wasn’t going to do so given the mood of the moment, so we all quietly walked all the way across the parking area to the box office windows of the theater.

Marcus bought his and Ashley’s tickets, Nancy got hers, I got mine, and then came time for Melissa to get hers. She stepped up to the window and asked for one single ticket for Friday the 13th and the box office worker responded with,

“Can I see your ID please?” The rest of us had already shown each of ours, but Melissa had been on the phone the whole time and wasn’t paying any mind to what each of us were doing when purchasing our tickets.

“Um… actually I just got a ticket and the officer took it from me,” Melissa responded sounding as annoyed as ever, not with the box office attendant, just the situation.

“You can just show me the ticket then,” the box office cashier politely informed Melissa.

“Um… okay, great. Well, I left it in the car, so I guess I’ll be right back then,” Melissa said as she loaded her wallet back into her handbag and walked away from the box office window and over to the doors where we all stood.

“I have to go back to the car to get my ticket, so I can prove I’m over 17,” Melissa whined. “Did any of you have to show your ID’s?”

“We all did,” Nancy answered. “I can’t believe you left that ticket in the car,” she added.

“Well, I didn’t think I would need it,” Melissa snapped back as she hollered out in anger before beginning her long walk back across the parking lot to the car. “JUST GO INSIDE AND GET SEATS! I’LL BE IN IN A MINUTE!” Melissa yelled back at us as we all did just that.

As the four of us entered the auditorium, we quickly learned it was already packed and the only seats remaining were the non-stadium seating ones in the front couple of rows, so we took up camp there.

“Melissa’s gonna be so pissed,” Ashley said to the group. “She hates sitting in the front.”

“With how unlucky this Friday the 13th has been for her I can’t imagine she’ll be surprised,” I said as I looked back to see Melissa entering the auditorium with a great roll of her eyes.

“Of fucking course!” Melissa said throwing her hands in the air as she sat down in defeat next to the rest of us.

Well, that wraps up this entry! As always, THANK YOU FOR READING! I’ll be back next week with another awesome story, but until then I hope you all are living THE BEST life ever! Miss you already!