PART TWO: "Easy Bake Wedding"

So it was decided! Brad and I were off to Las Vegas in his beat up Mustang with his friend Woody as our witness. It was during a Fourth of July weekend, meaning it was hot as balls. Our drive over there was one of the single most unpleasant experiences I've ever had in my life. As we approached the "lovely" Mojave dessert, with all it's grandeaur of nothingness, Brad's car began to look as if it was going to overheat, so OFF with the air conditioner and DOWN with the windows. It felt like I had stuck my face in the devil's hot ass, but we had no choice. Put the windows down and get dried up like beef jerky or put the windows up and sweat it out like a whore in church. Jerky it was! When we finally got to Las Vegas, we were dusty, grumpy and hungry. Thank you God for the freezing cold casinos and the $ 1.50 rib eye steaks. After eating and drinking about a gallon or two of water, we had the other difficult task of finding a hotel on Fourth of July weekend. (Did I mention that we were YOUNG, STUPID and BROKE???) Luckily, we found a "motel" off the strip. ONE ROOM, for all THREE of us. On the way up to our room, we had to duck a few bullets and kick off some crack addicts that were climbing the banisters. The room had two luxuriously lumpy queen "beds" (pretty much mattresses on wooden pallets) and the bathroom had very decorative artwork! (there was a handprint on the wall that was either done with paint, blood or poop, we all said paint but oddly enough we didn't come within 10 feet of the "art".)
The next day was our wedding day! Fourth of July! Even though we didn't really consider it our "real" wedding.. this was pretty much going to make it official and FOREVER. We wanted to look semi-nice. However, when we stepped outside at 8:00 am, it felt like an easy bake oven.!
115 mother bloody degrees!!! So, the nice outfits stayed nice (inside our suitcases) and we decided on these outfits instead:

I know what you're thinking:
STRAIGHT UP MOTHER EFFIN PIAMPS!

We basically ate breakfast, went to the courthouse, signed our names in blood and got married at "The Chapel By The Courthouse." Coincidentally, the courthouse was named "Courthouse By the Chapel."
Okay, no it wasn't.
It should have been.
I digress.

We decided to walk around Las Vegas before going home. (cough cough.. pivotal point in the story.. cough cough) While we parked at one of the casinos, Brad noticed why his car appeared to be overheating on the way there. There was a leak in the radiator but it didn't seem like anything "Stop Leak" couldn't handle. So we bought it, put it in there, leak appeared to be gone. Unbeknownst to us, Woody who had been "sharing the car with Brad at the Navy base noticed the leak a few MONTHS ago and just kept putting "Stop Leak" in it instead. He promptly forgot about the leak up until then but was too afraid to tell Brad that most likely, there was a gaping hole in the radiator.
Just before it got dark, we headed home.
Well, we tried.
We didn't even go 60 miles before the car's temperature needle hit the "holy shit I'm hot" red mark. The car was seriously overheating. We pulled over at a nearby construction site and pondered our situation. Thankfully there was a security guard nearby and he let us know that the construction supply manager was on the premises. He could probably get us some more Stop Leak from one of their supply rooms, which would probably get us as far as the next gas station.
Phew right?
Wrong.
The supplies manager: 1000 years old.. and SURE, he had the keys to the "supply garage" alright....somewhere in his 75 pound keyring, which had about 500 random keys. About 4 years later, he FINALLY found the supply room key.
Phew again right?
Nope. Lady luck was being a drunken bitch to us on this night and was passed out in her own vomit somewhere at the Bellagio Hotel.

Moses comes back from the supply room with PEPPER. No Stop Leak as promised because he "couldn't find it" so he just got us pepper.
Thanks jackass.
Which, technically, you could stop a small radiator leak with pepper. But in our situation, we needed at least a jar of pepper to go anywhere. But noooo, he gave us tiny, miniscule, atom sized packets of pepper.. the kind where you have to use four packets to see if you even HAD any pepper on your food.
Desperate, we got a styrofoam cup and started ripping those babies apart, collecting whatever pepper atoms we could into it. (Meanwhile Moses had wished us luck, gathered up his tablets and continued to lead the Jews into the Mojave) We got about one small handful of pepper, which was about as useful to us as a handful of shit. But we put it in there anyways and decided our best bet was to go back to Primm, Nevada, which was about 15 miles from where we were. Thankfully, most of the ride was going downhill. and we got to Primm on pepper, sweat and sheer momentum. Once we got there, it was pretty late and there was really nothing we could do but stay one more night. I DID mention we were broke right? Brad and I spent our "honeymoon" sleeping in the car. Woody in the passenger seat, Brad in the driver's seat, yours truly in the backseat. A cozy little family we were.
Nothing could POSSIBLY go wrong right?!?! What could possibly go wrong?!?! We were sleeping, we were safe in an RV/Trailer parking area of the casino. It should be all good right?

AAH, but you know better than THAT by now.

So we were all sleeping, exhausted by the crazy day we had. Feeling kind of nice since the temperature had dropped down from 115 to 90 degrees, with a light breeze going through the car.

Yeah, we were feeling good until .....

It began to RAIN. (I swear I CANNOT make this shit up...)

Not just sprinkle sprinkle spit spit piddly rain.. but buckets and buckets of water POURING into our vehicle! We attempted to roll up the windows, but oh wait.. we need the keys to turn on the car so the automatic windows could work BUT....

WHERE ARE THE KEYS?!?!?!

All three of us were scrambling around the car looking for the elusive keys and we could NOT find them. We finally had to resort to holding up our blankets against the windows lest we drown in the car. First Moses and the thousand keys and now, Noah's Arc. I half expected some locusts to swarm the car and fly us over a cliff.
When the rain finally subsided (thank God it was a wierd flash flood thing and only lasted for about 10 minutes), we were still wondering where the keys where. Woody thought that maybe we dropped it somewhere near the trunk, since that's where we were last when we got the blankets out. As soon as Woody jumped out of the car to check....
Clink!
What the?!!?!?
Clink! clink! clink!
"Woody, that sounds amazingly like there are keys in your pocket. Are the keys in YOUR POCKET!?!"
"ummmmm.....no?"
(he made a sad attempt of sneaking the keys out of his pocket and dropping it on the ground!)
At this point, Brad started chasing Woody around the car vowing to use his head as a hood ornament.

I was in the backseat, laughing so hard that I almost peed my pants.

Woody survived with his head still intact. It was 2:00 am at that point and Brad was too tired to chase him around the car for the 5th time, so he lucked out. The next morning, Woody called his mom and had her wire some money to him. We ate some food, got a makeshift shower in one of the casino bathroom, bought a new radiator for the car and went home.

Yep. That was our FIRST wedding. Our second wedding (with the family, church and the whole big tadoo) would OF COURSE be better than this one right?

Ahhh but you know better than THAT by now....

TO BE CONTINUED...................