Author's Note: This is based on real events, and most of what is written is true. The South of Nowhere characters play the respective people who accompanied me and my fiancé to Disneyland when this happened. Also, just for clarity Spencer is supposed to me my fiancé, and I am supposed to be Ashley.

"Spencer!" I yelled up the stairs of her parent's home.

"Be down in a minute" she replied calmly. What was taking her so long to get her ass down here? I know she hates flying, but this is ridiculous! She's going to make it so that we actually miss our flight. We still had to drive at least 1 ½ hours to get to San Jose, before traffic, then go drop the car off at her friends so her friend can keep an eye on it while we are in L.A. Then, her friend has to drive us to the San Jose International Airport. That's pretty much the extent of my knowledge thus far, other than the fact that we are staying with some of her family in Diamond Bar. We would have stayed with her Nana in Yorba Linda, but her Nana moved to Los Baños about 3 months ago.

Spencer drags her bag down the stairs and hands it to me. I take it to the car, load it in, and set up the GPS. I set it in my seat as I get up and walk back inside to say goodbye to her parents and brothers. We do, thank god, finally get out of there, only a few minutes behind. Good thing I planned to leave early enough to give us an extra hour if we need it.

About 1 hour and 45 minutes later, we arrive at Spencer's friends' apartment. The traffic wasn't actually that bad today, except on Highway 4, which I guess according to Spencer will always have traffic, no matter what time of day, no matter what day of the year. She says it's like clockwork, if the clock is working, the traffic will be there.

Her friend, Debbie, I think her name was, and her husband Daniel showed us around their place. It was nice, well furnished, and seemed homey. They had a nice flat screen hooked up to some At&t Uverse and a PS3. We sat around for about half an hour chatting, them catching up and laughing while Daniel and I shared awkward glances with one another.

Debbie got up to use the restroom before we left and Daniel said his goodbyes as he had to run an errand. We loaded our stuff into Debbie's car and off we went. We had to get to the airport early enough so that Spencer could get some alcohol in her. She was deathly afraid of flying, but we had some free tickets that expired soon, so we had to use them. We were going to be in L.A. for about 5 days, partly to celebrate my birthday, partly just because we had a free place to stay, and partly because we didn't have anything else to do right now. It was January 1st after all. I find my birthday annoying. As cool as it is to say I was born on the 1st day of the year, it was lame to answer the same questions over again.

"Oh, you're going to Los Angeles! Are you going to DisneyLand to celebrate your birthday?"

No.

We finally got through the security gates and tried to find our gate. Of course. Our gate had to be one of the farthest ones from the restaurants. I checked our boarding and flight times and they were all on time. We had about 45 minutes until we could boarded so we headed towards the nearest thing, a Ruby's Tuesday.

Spencer wanted to sit at the bar so she could get served quicker. I sat next to her, and received some stares from fellow patrons.

The bartender comes up, and I'm already prepared to show him my ID when he says, "You know, no one is allowed to sit at the bar unless they are 21." He looks me right in the eyes as he hisses this out at me.

"Well, excuse you, but I am 21, as of today." I slap my ID down on the bar and shove it towards him aggresivly. I just can't stand it when people say shit like that. Can't they just ask for my ID like they do for everyone else?

He slides it closer to him, trying to pick it up as he does, and he fails miserably. Serves you right, asshole. He looks at Spencer's for a quick minute before handing hers back, then looks at mine for what seems like 5. He knows as well as I do that there is no way to make these new California ID's fake. Not yet anyways. They are just way too complicated.

He finally hands it back to me and changed his tone a smidge nicer before asking what we want to drink. I ask for water, and he rolls his eyes as Spencer asks for double vodka with diet coke. He gets them and asks if we want to order any food. If I know Spencer, which I like to think I do, she's gonna want at least something in her stomach for the alcohol. I glance behind us and nudge her to look too. We order 2 of the endless salad bars and make ourselves a plate. Even though I'm 21 now, I don't want to drink yet. I'd much rather wait till we get there to break open the bottle. Plus, one of us has to be sober on the plane in case shit goes down.

Spencer order's another one and drinks it. As time inches closer to the dreaded boarding time, she asks me why I've never been afraid of flying. I stop to think about it. Well, I flew to Hawai'i when it was the summer before my freshman year. And that's the only time I've ever been on a plane. When I flew there, I wasn't afraid of flying or dying. I trusted our pilot to get us there safely. I had never really thought about it before, and couldn't think of any reason why I should be afraid of it. I mean, how often did these things go down anyways?

We heard our flight being called to board, so we got on. We found our seats and Spencer took hers as I put our luggage above our heads. Spencer insisted on packing light citing convenience and money. She knew full well though that I wanted to pack more, but what can I say, I was whipped. Well, whipped only for her. Everyone else can screw themselves.

Spencer was shaking as we waited to take off. I took my hand and covered hers in an attempt to comfort her. She took her hand from mine and gave me that look. You know the one, the one where it tells you to screw off and leave her alone or else. And trust me; you never want to get to the or else part of Spencer. I've barely survived my last 2 stays in hell.

We finally took off, and Spencer just looked out of the window the whole time. She only made an exception to order herself more vodka, to tell me to order her some vodka, and to prepare her drinks. As we were in the air, she finished her drinks. She was definitely getting drunk now, because she started getting a little louder. She had stopped looking out of the window now, and was focused on what I was doing. I was trying my luck at the Sudoku that was printed in my snack box. I wasn't having too much luck, but she seemed genuinely interested. As I tried to explain to her how it worked, the seatbelt light came back on. We had started our descent and Spencer was scared again. I told her it would be okay, and we landed.

We navigated ourselves through LAX to the nearest bathrooms. Spencer texted her cousin to make sure she was on her way, and I went into a different stall. I normally try to stay in the same stall as her to be courteous to others, but I just didn't want to deal with Spencer when she was drunk. I emerged first, as I expected, and washed my hands. I grabbed our bags and waited for her. I waited and waited and waited. She finally emerged and smiled at me. I smiled back and waved her in my direction. She washed her hands then joined me with a kiss on the lips.

Wow that was unexpected! I thought as I pulled away, shocked and worried about who might or might not care. I grabbed her hand and dragged her towards the exit. We tried to find a seat outside to wait for her cousin, but to no avail. We decided that we hated standing and took a seat in front of a pillar. After about 20 minutes, I was starting to wonder when we were getting picked up. I asked, so Spencer checked. She said that her cousin said the traffic was really bad, and that she would be here in about 20 minutes. 30 minutes pass and still no sign of her cousin. We wait for another 15 minutes (so that's 65 minutes thus far) before she says that her cousin was just around the corner and to prepare for her arrival. As we stand up, a car that I'm unfamiliar with pulls up next to us and the guy in the passenger seat waves to us. Was that… No, it couldn't be.

It was Spencer's family.