THE MILKSHAKE MISTAKE

When I was in high school, a friend (Marc) had a old 1965 GMC pick-up truck with standard transmission. It was a neat truck, and Marc had put a lot of work into it. One day, Marc was driving, I was riding shotgun, and we were running just a bit late to run by our friend Bob's house to pick him up. (This is the same Bob whom I am collecting donations for.)

When we got to Bob's, Marc honked the horn and Bob came running out of his house. As Bob came up to the truck, we noticed that he had a quart jar in his hand. When asked what was in the jar, Bob said it was his lunch -- a homemade chocolate shake. 

I got out of the way to let him in. Bob climbed in and settled in the center of the seat. I climbed back in. I barely got the door closed and we were on our way to class. As we got near the intersection, where we had to make a right turn, the police officer who was there every weekday to direct traffic was doing that.

We never really understood why they would not put in a stop light at this intersection. The police officer would stop traffic, motion for cars to make the right turn and, as always, maybe he would let three to four vehicles make the turn, then he'd stop them and let traffic go on by, then do it again. Sometimes it could take 15 minutes or so to be able to make that turn. Just about all of the vehicles were high school students trying to get to the new vocational school.

As we waited, we talked of things that high school guys talk about. Mostly girls. Bob would take a drink now and then of his homemade shake and put his two cents worth in on the conversation. We'd stop, pull forward, three cars get to make the turn. Stop, pull forward, and the officer would let three or four cars go. We kept talking, stopping, pulling forward. Finally, we were the third car in line waiting to make the turn.

All this time, Marc had his truck in first gear. We would creep forward, then stop and wait. The cop stopped oncoming traffic and started to wave the next three cars through. BUT, this time he only let two go through! There we sat, now late for class. We waited and waited and, finally, the cop stopped oncoming traffic.

He looked at us and started to wave us through. Marc gave the truck some gas and came off the clutch just as Bob lifted the milkshake to take a drink. SPLOOSH! Bob had a face fully covered by his shake.

I laughed, Marc laughed, and the police officer was about rolling on the street in laughter. Bob, on the other hand, was not laughing. There was shake covering his face like a mask. There was shake all over the back window. There was shake on the seat. There was shake in Bob's hair.

We were running late for class. Do you think Marc would stop? No! He kept driving and laughing. Bob got enough shake off of his face that he could see Marc, and he started punching him in the arm. I was still laughing. There was shake on the floor of the truck, trickling everywhere. 

We made it to the school. Marc parked his truck and we bailed out. Bob just kind of slipped out of the truck, still covered in shake. He still had the jar in his hand and threw it at Marc. Marc ducked. The jar landed in the back of the truck. The rest of the shake ended up there.

Bob was MAD, to say the least. But then he finally started to chuckle a bit. Marc found a oily rag under the seat and tossed it to Bob. Bob wiped as much shake as he could off of himself. I hurried to my class, and Marc and Bob went to their class. I was lucky: my class was in a different building. Marc and Bob were in the same class.

When their teacher saw them he told Marc to get busy. He sent Bob to the locker room to clean up. Did you know that milkshake rinsed out of your hair makes it nice and fluffy?

After school, Marc managed to get the biggest part of the shake up off of the seat and kind of off the floor.

I found another ride home!