I split a bottle of Aftershock with a friend once in 1999, when I was 19. When the liquor was gone, I ate all the candy to myself. Like 20 minutes later, I was throwing up all over the shoulder of the 101 in Phoenix. This is where the story gets interesting.

We were driving to San Diego to see a punk rock festival show. (Some one off thing, not Warped Tour.) Anyway, we got to roughly Needles, CA when the engine seized in the car we were driving, because the girl who owned it had let it overheat without ever adding more coolant.

So, this being in the time before cell phones, we started walking with our thumbs out in hopes of catching a ride. It's roughly 3 AM in the rural California desert, and we all have nothing but a bottle of water and a backpack each with clothes and toiletries.

Eventually, a conversion van stops, and the driver clears out some of the mess in the back so we can ride with him. He asks where we are going, and says that he is going to Chula Vista. We can ride there with him, and then we're on our own to get to/around San Diego.

A few miles in, he starts flirting with our female companion. She's not interested, but she's being polite. My friend who is in the back seat with me rouses my attention and sort of signals to be ready, because he's feeling like this guy is a creep.

At roughly this point, the driver of the van asks if we like magic. Friend and I both get nervous, thinking he's going to make a bad joke about hitchhikers disappearing. The girl says, "sure, do a trick for us!" and the guy driving makes a gesture with his hand which produces a small flash, a puff of smoke, and a small bouquet of fake flowers. The flash powder freaked the girl out, and she told him to pay attention to where he was driving, and please stop doing magic.

The rest of the ride was very quiet, but we got where we were going at about 5:30 AM and started calling around, trying to find someone we knew who was awake and willing to accommodate us, at least until the show started.

We ended up getting picked up by a kid we all went to high school with, who showed up with a bag of McDonalds and some weed. So, in the span of about 8 hours, I went from sitting alone in my apartment to smoking a joint on the beach in San Diego at 6 AM.

The two companions went on to the show. I literally never saw the girl again, and wouldn't see my buddy for another 23 years. I called my then girlfriend at USD who put me up for the weekend, and drove me to the Greyhound station on Sunday morning so I could be back in AZ in time for work on Monday.

I managed to get to Phoenix, where I ran out of money and spent another night panhandling to gather enough money to hire a car back to Prescott. Someone recommended that I try a limo company instead of a cab company, because they usually have fixed rates that can save you money as opposed to a cabbie who runs a meter and charges more for travel outside their service area.

After a day of calling into work and sleeping and busking/panhandling at the Greyhound station, I finally had enough money scraped up to take a limo back to my parents house, where I was dropped off after midnight by a black 10 passenger limo with just a Jansport backpack of clothes and food wrappers.

Fuck Aftershock.