Occasionally, I'd ask Stef what time it was to make sure we weren't staying too long. She had to be back at the dorm at 12:30. So when, towards the end of the movie, I happened to ask again what time it was, and she brandished her phone and pressed a button, and the glowy brightness displayed the time, and it was 12:13, well, I immediately did the math in my head and realized that we were already pushing it. I, inspired by Spock, had already calculated the approximate duration of our trip, and therefore our intended time of theater-exiting: 12:08. We were five minutes late.
Running to the car before the movie was over, believe it or not, got my adrenaline going a little bit. Thankfully, there were hardly any cars out at such an early hour on Thursday morning. Unthankfully, the first three stoplights we arrived to decided to stay red for an unreasonable amount of time as we were the only ones present at all three. Finally, pushing the limits of my little Hyundai's acceleration and hitting maximum G-forces, we got onto the freeway for all of the 73 seconds, or whatever, that you're on it between Shallowford and Bonnie Oaks. We got to the light off the exit and finally, it was a green one. A half mile down the road, we end up behind a semi. This wasn't Optimus, this was McKee. I was edging left in order to pass it at the dotted line, when I saw the headlights ahead. Crap. Try again a little later. Crap again. We are dragging past the Conoco's weird intersection and I mentally made the executive decision to pass the truck at an illegal stretch up ahead if it looked clear. We got there, it looked clear, and I went for it. We had loud music, so I couldn't hear the engine, but I noticed the RPMs were probably the highest they've ever been. Heading down Apison Pyke now, around 15 mph over the speed limit, I was worried and constantly looking in my mirrors and in the shadows. It might not sound too fast, but for Collegedale, it's certainly attention-grabbing by you-know-who. Somehow, the light at Little Debbie Parkway was green, as was the one at Exxon. We just had to make it past the bend, behind the school because of the detour, and into the parking lot without any popes seeing us or any accidents stalling us. At this point, you'd like to hear an exhilarating account of an unfortunate police stop. Well, sucka, you ain't gonna hear it. We made it. At 12:28. I think it's the fastest I've ever gone from Hamilton Place to Collegedale. Yeah, yeah, I'm sure you've done better.
Like Spock, Kirk, and Scotty, I was at warp speed passing that semi. Unlike the space travelers, I was praying the whole time. Is that wrong? I don't know, but it was fun.
