For those of you who are unaware, St. John's is on an island. This meant that on top of a 7 hours in the car, we also needed to take a 17 hour ferry ride. 3. st. john's is effin far! St. John's is very far.
anyways...this story begins in halifax, nova scotia (NS)
two of my friends, Em and Lacey, pick me up in the van. i walk to the back of the van to put my things in and-- "stop! you can't open the trunk!" Em yelled.
"what? why?"
"i dont know...its weird or broken or something. Martin (our friend who had let us borrow his van) told us not to." Alright...
i hop in the back and we drive off to pick up our fourth passenger, Hunka. As we are driving, I notice it is unusually bumpy. "Hey maryam, there is no suspension in the back." That explained a little...or a lot if you are looking for a reason for the immediate nausea.
We arrive at Hunka's house and she says she has the company creditcard. "do we need to fill up on gas?" she asks.
"nope. we are good. we have half a tank. we can't fill it more than half a tank or else it will leak."
Rules of the van:
1. Do not open the trunk
2. Do not fill the tank more than half fill
3. Race to sit in one of the front seats.
Sooo...the road trip is going well. We did not have the typical need-to-go-pee-inconveniently stories since we had to stop so frequently to fill up the gas tank. there was a gas station just before the causeway between mainland Nova Scotia and Cape Breton, so we filled up (well...half-filled up...) and were on our way. about 20 minutes into cape breton we see a cop car driving in the oncoming traffic. no biggy...we were not speeding. strangely, the cop car turns around on the highway and begins to follow us along with another cop car. they are signalling us to pull over. "i was going BELOW the speed limit..." says hunka. the cop came over to hunka and asks to see her at the back of the van. Once at the back of the van we hear, "did you ladies stop to get gas?"
This is when Lacey realizes and exclaims to em and i: "WE FORGOT TO PAY FOR GAS!" Simultaneously, as if out of a cartoon, we all put our hands on our heads as if trying to keep in what little brain cells we have left: "oh mi godddd!!!!" followed by em's comment, "we are four silly bimbos." we are four silly bimbos.
So hunka walks back to the window to talk to us..."so guys, we didnt pay for our gas . . . and apparently our license plates have expired over a year ago." WHAT?! we just stole gas and we are driving an unregistered vehicle? It turns out we actually stole gas and the license plates are not registered and we don't have the registration in the vehicle and we don't have insurance on the vehicle and we don't have proof of ownership and we don't even know who legally owns the van.
the cops also informed us that it is a 1500$ fine to drive an unregistered vehicle. We got pulled over in a car with no registration, no insurance, no proof of ownership...all because WE STOLE GAS! now, i am an environmentalist, but stealing gas isn't really my form of protest.
We called the gas station and paid for the gas with our credit card. Then the cops were going to get us towed to the nearest city where we could rent a car. The car rental places would open in the morning at 8am--the same time as our ferry. After much deliberation with the cops they said "We are going to drive that way (pointing in the opposite direction of the ferry), you ladies can decide what you want to do. But you should decide what you want to do once we pass that hill." They then drove off.
And so did we.
Clean record
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