The 12am Ice Cream Run...

At about ten o'clock tonight I received a text from a friend asking if I would like to go get ice cream with her later on. I agreed, even though I didn't know when "later on" would come. After a couple of hours, my phone rings and the first words I hear when I pick up are, "Are you up, because I still want ice cream." Fortunately for her, I was still up. She then said that she would be at my apartment in about five minutes. I quickly turned off the television, put on some shoes, and gave Puggy a treat as I went outside to wait.

Sure enough, after about five minutes, Rachel showed up in her red Honda Civic which was missing the front bumper and had a black hood she had painted herself earlier this summer. She smiled as I approached the car, and as I climbed in I realized that there was at least one car in the world that is messier than mine. I sat on top of the many cups and fast food wrappers as we traveled to Wendy's where we would get our delicious ice cream.

When we arrived, we were highly disappointed to find that Wendy's was closed. Rachel in her unfailing optimism insisted that there would be at least one ice cream shop in Springfield open at midnight. Driving down the nearly abandoned paved roads we came across another Wendy's. Delighted, we found that it was open to satisfy our ice cream needs. Going through the drive through line, there was one car in front of us. Looking on the screen that was in place "to ensure order accuracy," I could see that the people in front of us were extremely hungry or going home to have a Wendy's party. They ordered $17.00 worth of food for just two people. I couldn't help but wonder why they needed all that food at midnight.

Five minutes later, we were pulling out of the Wendy's parking lot when I asked the infamous question, "What do we do now?" Of course, Rachel being the random person that she is replies, "Let's go golfing." I agreed, and we were off for the mini golf course. Arriving at the golf course and batting cages, we rolled down our windows and asked a group of teens what time the place closed. They said that it had closed at midnight and there were just a couple people finishing up their game. We thanked them and drove off laughing as we realized just how creepy we looked.

After getting back on the main road, once again the question of what to do arose. We decided to just drive and happened to come across a wreck at one of the intersections. Unfortunately, we were never close enough to see exactly what had happened, so the events of the collision were left to our imaginations.

Continuing to drive down the main road, we decided to head to Rachel's apartment. Once there, we traveled up the three flights of steps to reach her apartment on the third floor. Upon entering
the apartment, the smell of cigarette smoke became present and the faint glow of a table lamp in one of the bedrooms could be seen. Rachel's sister greeted us as we sat in the kitchen. Rachel then proceeded to explain to me about some expensive drink I had never even heard of. After taking a couple of swigs to try it, I put the bottle back in the refrigerator and sat at the kitchen table.

For the next five minutes or so, we just sat watching the mouse that was in a cage on top of the refrigerator as it made its way around the loop. Then we decided to head to my apartment, because Rachel had to work at nine in the morning and needed sleep.

When we arrived at the apartment, I said goodbye and came in the apartment to find my pug's tail wagging in glee that I had not abandoned her. I smiled as I threw down my keys and took off my shoes. I layed on the bed and thought about the previous hour's events. Sure, nothing really interesting happened in that hour, but it was an experience I will never forget. I had considered just going to sleep and not going out for ice cream, but why waste an opportunity to do something completely random? Life is all about being spontaneous. Besides, ice cream really does taste better at midnight. : )