so, we get up early-ish to drive to camden, and one of our friends' cars is broken. SO we have like 5 girls who have no clue what's going on... we couldn't try to help if we wanted to anyway (if we had any idea what was wrong)... so I grabbed my book and laid under a tree in the lawn of the Red Roof Inn with the rest of the girls. after all, the guys with us decided that they should use duct tape, and then see what happened.  It had already been like 2 hours, and that didn't even work. I think it was a Sunday, so no mechanics were open. 

So, people had been walking by all day, and not one person knew what we should do.....they all gave different ideas and all were "experts" who knew exactly what was wrong.... and we were just a group of 14 really hot, tired, irritable people by now. We had spent about 6 hours trying to figure out what to do....well, we decide that we would leave his car in Hartford, and all pile into the other 3 cars (one very packed van, a saturn and another van so we had room).... and the driver would come back the day after camden to get his car in hartford, since he and others were stopping after Camden. 

Why that idea took so long to come about is beyond me.....so anyway, I'm really anal about really silly things. I know it, but I can't help it. One of the things is that I like every car in the group to have the same directions....so if someone gets lost, we know where they are, though we all had cell phones, walkie talkies....so I make sure we all have the same directions, which we don't, so we make one more copy for the car that lost theirs, and after a stop at Burger King, and the gas station, we were on our way, FINALLY. 

Our day of rest (we thought) had turned out a lot more stressful. SO, after the hell of driving through Connecticut, we make it to Jersey.  We're all still together, and still relatively happy at this point. We get to Camden, and then it gets all weird....all I know is that there was some NUTS driving going on (by us), and we lost people, we turned around in weird sketchy parts of the road, we almost got killed because one of the ladies at the toll booth crossing the Ben Franklin Bridge told us we wanted the street that was ALL the way on the other side of the toll booth (we were on the left, the exit was on the WAAAAAY right, right before you go on the bridge) and we had to cut across charging traffic and still keep 3 cars together, just because we couldn't find some motel we were staying in.....

all of this happened because the directions were unclear, and the two direction girls in charge, me and one of my very best friends, April, couldn't agree on where we were supposed to go, and we fucked shit up. it was at first my fault, then her fault, then a combination of both of us......we were so angry with each other (a mixture of the bad day, no sleep and driving like loons for 2 hours all over camden) that we couldn't be in the same room together without re-feeling those mean feelings, so we spent the time in separate rooms, which is weird, since we're always together. 

That was the lowest point I've ever been at on tour, since I have never gotten mad like that before....so, anyway, the guys decide that we'll all be better off if we have some beers. We all agree, and we send a couple people on a beer run. It turns out that we're just staying in this super confusing area, they can't find a place to buy beer (so much better in NY where you can just buy beer at a gas station instead of these beer stores some states have), and they end up at a bowling alley, asking the bartender there to PLEASE sell them beer. 

It turns out, this lady has like 4 extras, 2 for each night, and VIP parking passes. So, she sells them beer at a semi-decent price and the 4 tickets as well, since she said she couldn't get rid of them at all..... (Weird, those people exist who don't know what to do with a Phish ticket)...so they come back with this story of triumph, and our spirits are lifted a bit, and it's all good, sort-of.....

we wake up the next morning, April and I are speaking, though not like usual....still some tension. We go to the show that night, we're fine, though no apologies have been made.....the next night, the 4th......everything came back together. being in such a tense situation with your sister sucks....and there's just something about eating a roll that makes you forget that you two are the most stubborn people in the world.....we spent the whole time at set break telling each other "you're great," which has now become this big joke between us.  We even have ID bracelets that say "you're great" and "you're great too" on them since it's become such a found memory.....

we laugh about it often, how we were swearing about each other in separate cars....and how my brother was in the backseat of her car as she yelled about me (my brother was like, I just sat there dude, and didn't say a word, she was so fucking pissed -- his best friend in the car I was in said the same thing about me)...

April (I call her Little Miss) and I have gotten closer since then, and I think that it probably takes something like that to make you realize how important someone actually is to you---I guess to take your friendship to the next level.....there are several different kinds of things that make you realize who your friends are...fights are definitely one of them.....I can honestly say that that story is one I will never forget, and will go down as one of my most favored, since the "great" came out of it (we sort-of made a game-thing out of it too).... 

definitely at the time, it was the worst thing that ever happened to me with my friends on tour.....but now? Hell, water under the bridge......and the funniest part of this whole story is that the kid's car wasn't even really broken......after getting home, his dad told him that he could have driven it to camden and home as long as he stopped every hour or so and put water in it.....the whole situation could have been avoided.......but then we may not have been "great", so.......it's all Hood :)

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Editor's Note: Let me tell you, Camden is not a fun place.  I'll just say that it hasn't been kind to me in the past, and I pity this kid who was stranded there for part of a night.