my cousion dana came into the bar to see me. she is 25 now and im 22.

when she first got her lisence she was 17 and i was 14... we would go driving around our tiny state all day and night and we would get back to my house and even sleep in the car so we wouldnt have to get out and climb the stairs to the 3rd floor and then go back down them the next day...
we were a little insaine about being in the car.

now that i think about it... i cant figure out where we got the money to do this... i think i was working at the textile mill irregular days making $3.25 an hour. enough to get $5 in gas to last us the day... when gas didnt cost you your first born child and 3 weeks pay.

we would go to mc donalds in the morning... we would get 2 hash browns while it was breakfast serving time... sit in the parking lot and eat them... wait for the manager to come out and flip the sign from breakfast to lunch and we would get a 2 cheese burger meal and put it in the "fridge".

(im already giggiling)

i hadnt seen my cousion or talked to her for more then 5 minutes since our summer of inseporation ended. (ill explain)

so when she asked me last week... me behind the bar at work... her, sipping a fresh made midori sour...
"kris... do you remember what the refrigerator was?"

i thought for a long time.

i could remember distinctly the cans of grape crush and pepsi that lined the emergency brake in between the bucket seats of her chevy stationwagon with the bumper sticker the read "this car climbed mt. washington"...

i could remember the pile of wet towels in the far back from us going to the beach everyday.
the mc donalds bags you had to fight thru to find the back seat... but i couldnt remember "the fridge".

she laughed when i gave up... trying to tell me but finding it so funny herself she finally said "it was the glove box!!!"

and it all came rushing back... we would get that 2 cheeseburger combo meal in the early afternoon and we would eat half of it a few hours later and then stick the 2nd burger in the "fridge" and save it... sometimes it would sit 8, 9, 10 hours and we would remember it was there and eat it.

man o man...

if i knew then, what i know about food bourne illness now...

i probably still would have eaten it because i dont care that much.

as my mom would say... "bacteria builds immunities"

things that bring back that time in my life...

1) fake plastic trees- radiohead.
dana got a cassette single of "creep" and fake plastic trees was on the b side. we listened to it for hours everyday.

2) any over sized jeans and any too small baby t. thats all i used to wear.
that... and velvet... or flowers... nerd alert.

3) 2 cheeseburger meals

4) orange or grape soda. my aunt didnt count those as bad for you because they tasted like fruit.

5) ball chain necklaces. they were cool when i was 14 and i had a million of them.

6) "this car climbed mt. washington" stickers. self explainitory.

7) antique shops... heres the big story.

if you've made it this far... i commend you...

like i said, dana and i used to drive around all day with one another... this was cut short...

we would drive to the more rural part of rhode island and go to the beach. on the route there, there was an antique shop named "jakes".

it didnt have a painted sign or stuff outside to lure you to it... nothing... as far as either of us could remember... we had never seen it open...
we'd both been going there... together a lot of the time... since we were born. our moms would take us kids to the same freshwater beach dana and i were fequenting on almost a daily basis and we would drive the same route by jakes.

now what makes it special is this: it literally looks like someone took the roof off of the run down building that houses this shop, dumped in peoples treasures, and put the decrepit roof back on. things holding more history than text books.

dana and i were fascinated and would pull over a few times a week and look in the windows. you couldnt see much more than what was pressed against them unless you looked at the front door... once used as the main entrance for the shop itself. you could barely see a path in there either...
looking at this building one would imagine throwing a rock and cracking the window only to have tons of antiques fall out all over you... they would bury you like in cartoons when you would only see your eyes wide and white and hear the infamous "blink blink".

so... one bird brainded night as dana and i are in the car with 3 friends in tow. were bringing one home and he lives where else? right near jakes. we drop #3 off and then its suggested that we go to jakes with our friends and break in. for some reason this sounded like A GOOD IDEA!!!???

not one of us diagreed with this notion. i was hesitant but... hey... i just want to see whats in there.

conveniently there is a crow bar in the far back with the rest of the just in cast car stuff and we take it with us... (i dont know why there was a crow bar... to this day... i cannot figure it out)

we park a half mile down this main street. ( a road with a 45 mph speed limit and hardly any street lamps on the stretch we were on)
we walk to the scene and the boys... hum the music for "mission impossible"...
dana, myself and the guys hide behind a broken down truck in front of the place so we cant be seen from the street. we make a pact right then and there that no one is allowed to touch anything. we put our hands in our pockets and they stay there. nothing gets moved and NOTHING gets taken.

we send the bigger of the 2 boys to the door to break the lock. he does and runs back with us to hide. we sit in silence for a few minutes... contemplating what to do next... we send the same boy up to make sure the door will open... he kicks it and laying in wait... silent to all the other noise we were making... a very large, mean, lonely, possibly hungry ROTWEILER.

im not afraid of dogs... UNLESS THEY ARE CHARGING AT ME!
so we all high tail it... dana and one of the boys are tearing ass and little ol me is running as hard as i can. the big boy (who mind you is literally twice my size) comes flying up behind me as we hit the pavement of the road...
he grabs me by my hips in hopes to make me run faster.
ehhhhhh. WRONG.
his 200lbs ass runs over my 80lbs ass and im on the tar... and the dirt and the glass..
i hit my head so hard i cant see and i have major sprains.

big boy runs back to the car with me in his arms. we all get in and the darkness hides us... blankets us from traffic driving north or south... we done good. we didnt get in and we didnt see anything other than what we have been seeing for years (minus the guard dog) but we didnt get caught either... at that moment big boy turns on the car (danas car) and turns on the head lights.... juuuuuuuuust as a state cop is about to pass in the darkness.

A BIG FAT SCREWED.

they made us feel like we were going to do it.
im laying in the back on the mcdonalds bags bleeding and wincing at every bump we hit...
then they make their move. once we had 3 cops behind us and we were just about to cross the city lines back into providence. when we get pulled over... we were listening to fake plastic trees...

i get put in an ambulance because i, 14 yrs old and hurt and the other 3 get taken in cruisers to the station. blah blah blah... we go to court a bunch... none of us over 18... its taken off our records...

dana and i decide maybe its not a good idea for us to hang out all the time anymore and she ends up taking 2... count em... 2 of my boyfriends. (like it matters but when your 14 and your older cousin keeps taking your men... you gotta cut her loose)

the big kicker...
a week after the incident im going by jakes with one of the boys that was there that night and his parents. were going to the same beach that dana and i were always at for a work cook out...

JAKES? A BIG RED AND WHITE OPEN SIGN POSTED ON THE ROAD...