One Turbo-Tastic Day at a Time
I got to Wal-Mart before Turbs did since I had a feeling that he had gone to that abandoned parking lot that he thought of as his own personal mini-track. I couldn't think of anywhere else he would've gone in an attempt to calm down. It would be a while before he showed up so I was able to take my time looking at comforter sets. Let's see, should I get something similar to what I had so I'll know it matches my décor? Or should I get something completely new?
I decided to go with something new but would still match my stuff. I have this really pretty Chinese painting of a vibrant turquoise bird with super long tail feathers (I'm not sure what breed it is) and it has rich browns around the borders of it, so I went with this set that had those colors mixed in it with a fancy design and also so bright turquoise sheets to go with it. I thought it looked really nice anyway.
It had taken me about twenty minutes to make my mind up as far as that goes and Turbo still wasn't here yet so I went ahead and headed over to the electronics section, which was located in the very back of the store. It wasn't too crowded yet over where the video game stuff was since most people were in the phones or movies part so I wasn't feeling too overwhelmed yet.
There was actually only one other person on the gaming aisle and he was crouched down looking at some PlayStation games that were on the bottom row. He had a Jeff Gordon cap on so I'll make the educated assumption that he's into NASCAR and racing in general. Naturally, I began wondering if he saw Wreck-It Ralph since most of the movie takes place inside a racing game and also has a racing villain in it.
My thoughts were interrupted when someone poked my ribs from behind me, spooking me and making me turn around.
"You didn't make any poor purchase choices already, did you?" Turbs asked me with sly grin.
I gave him a wry smile and lightly shoved his shoulder to make him back up a bit. "If you'd taken any longer, I would've just bought the new Wii and been done with it."
He smirked and rolled his eyes at me, before getting on his tiptoes so he could see the games on the top row. They keep all the games locked up behind glass doors so you can't pick them up and read the backs of them like you can a movie. I'm not sure why they think they have to keep those locked up but not any of the expensive televisions.
I figured he was looking for any new racing games that might have been released since we last bought any so I let my eyes wander. I noticed NASCAR Dude was still crouched down yet instead of staring at whatever game he had been looking at earlier, now he was staring up at the Turbs with large eyes that were framed behind a pair of glasses.
I stared back at him for a while, waiting for him to say something about either "Why does that guy have gray skin?" or (if he'd seen the movie) "How the heck is Turbo from Wreck-It Ralph here?" but he didn't. He just kept staring at him like he was in complete shock. It started to unnerve me, plus I didn't want the guy to stay frozen like that forever, so I grabbed his cap and slapped him on top of the head with it to snap him out of his trance.
NASCAR Dude startled back and blinked a few times at me like he was just now seeing me for the first time. He stood up to his full height slowly and….crap, he's tall. Taller than Gaston even. He had to be over six feet so I now had to crane my neck painfully to look at him. He pointed at Turbo and then at me as if to silently ask if we were either together or if perhaps I too had noticed him standing there. Maybe he thought he was seeing things, I don't know.
Turbs was preoccupied looking at games so he wasn't even paying us any attention. I nodded at NASCAR Dude to walk with me to the other end of the aisle and I gave him his hat back, which he put on promptly.
He kept pointing in Turbo's direction and he asked me in a whisper, "Do you see what I see? That's Turbo from Wreck-It Ralph, right?"
Okay good, he saw the movie. At least I don't have to explain that much. "Yes, that's him. Yes, he's real," I answered bluntly. I really hate having to repeat this story to people. "Long story, but all Disney characters are real and they live in their own special world in a different dimension. Turbo lives with me as part of this rehabilitation program thing so if you're worried about him going psycho on you, he's not."
NASCAR Dude blinked at me again and then he finally snapped to his senses. "Oh, no no, I mean, I wasn't thinking he'd hurt me. It's just surreal seeing him standing in freakin' Wal-Mart looking at games like a normal person."
"He is a normal person."
"What do you mean he's-," I think it finally dawned on him that he was a "real" person as opposed to fictional. "Right, normal person. Gotcha. Hey, you think he'd mind if I said 'hey' to him?"
I wanted to laugh but didn't want to be rude either. "Yeah, sure, he likes getting recognized."
He chuckled at that and said, "Oh yeah, of course he does. He's Turbo, of course he likes getting recognized!" He hung his head down and rubbed his head as if he were getting a headache from this sudden knowledge that "fictional" people are real and all that.
I'm just glad he didn't go on an anti-Turbo rant like that guy from the Dodge dealership. I motioned with my hand for NASCAR Dude to follow me and I approached the Turbs while he was still looking at games.
"Hey, Turbs, this guy wants to say 'hey'," I informed him, jutting my thumb behind me at our flabbergasted friend.
Turbo looked up at NASCAR Dude and before either of us could say anything, the dude had grabbed Turbo's hand and started shaking him really hard.
"Man, this is really cool meeting an actual movie character!" he said excitedly. "Though, no offense, I'd rather meet Vanellope or Ralph but this is still pretty awesome!"
He let go of Turbo's hand, and he had to kinda massage his wrist a bit since NASCAR Dude had a strong grip.
"Um, thanks, nice to meet you too," Turbo replied back, tossing me a quick unsure look. It's been a while since he's had someone give him an enthusiastic greeting like that. "And I think everybody would rather meet them, to be honest."
"Anyways," I butted in. "My Wii got tore up by another guest we had over so we're trying to figure out which new one to get."
NASCAR Dude suddenly became very helpful. "Oh, get the PS3 for sure. Xbox sucks big time." He waved his hands over the PlayStation section to demonstrate where everything was.
Turbs peeked at the games for that system and asked, "They have good racing games for it?"
The dude kinda laughed at that as if it were the funniest question ever. "Do they have…yeah, they have great games for it!" He pointed at one in particular through the glass. "You ever played an actual NASCAR game? It's extremely realistic. You even get to choose if your car's tires wear down or not, just like in a real race!"
Why am I not surprised that NASCAR Dude would pick a NASCAR game for him to play? I had to lean over and squint to read the title: NASCAR The Game: Inside Line. Well, it looks like something Turbs' would play anyway. If I was going to play a racing game, which is rare, I'd rather have one that has power-ups and cute fantasy-like designs/characters in it.
Turbo was being the complete opposite of me, of course, like with most everything else. He seemed to like the idea of playing a realistic NASCAR race since these last few months, he started watching a few on the television. He didn't originally care to see them because he'd rather be in the race as opposed to watching one. Also, I think it used to make him wish that he still did race for real, so he would avoid watching them to keep from feeling sad.
"You get to pick real NASCAR drivers too?" Turbs asked you-know-who.
"Of course!" He suddenly narrowed his eyes and spoke in a low voice. "Just don't pick Jimmie Johnson…" He raised his brow at that. "You don't like him, do you?"
Oh brother. "He likes Gordon and Earnhardt Jr.," I piped up quickly.
NASCAR Dude's face changed back to being all friendly and stuff. "Okay, great then! You can pick any of their cars actually. And you can redesign the cars to fit each track so they'll go faster just like they do in real life."
Turbs looked at me the way a kid does when they see a toy they want now rather than waiting until Christmas for Santa to bring it. "We have to get this one, blondie!"
NASCAR Dude was nodding at me and giving me a thumbs up. Sigh. I can't really ignore two guys, can I?
We didn't exit the store right away. Oh no. Turbo thought he had to chat with NASCAR Dude for another twenty minutes about you-know-what. I thought I was going to die of boredom. Not that racing's boring or anything, but I don't know anything about it. I had silently disappeared to the book section to see if there was any Stephen King books out that I hadn't read yet, which there weren't.
Anyway, we got home and you'd think it was Christmas Day around here the way he was going on. He's so adorable when he's in a good mood, not that I ever tell him that, and I'm glad he wasn't still acting upset about what had happened earlier this morning. It took him a few minutes to set the thing up and he made himself read the instructions on how to work the controller since he was so accustomed to my wireless Wii controller.
"You gonna watch me play?" Turbo asked me after he finally got the game set up.
I groaned a bit but he gave me one of those puppy-dog looks that he knows I can't ignore. Lord help me, he knows me a little too well. I plopped down on the couch beside him, crossing my legs Indian-style like little kids do, and reclined back against the couch. Kitty strolled along from wherever she had been hiding from and sniffed around the PlayStation box for a few seconds before crawling inside of it to curl up and take another nap.
So anyway, I had to sit here and watch Turbs go through this garage scene where he got to start the race and then a bunch of options popped up. He had to pick the driving team he wanted first and since he wanted Jeff Gordon, he picked Hendrick Motorsports and then Gordon himself. He likes the AARP Drive To End Hunger car because it has a lot of burgundy on it as opposed to the other cars, and burgundy is a shade of red and of course Turbo likes things that are red.
So anyway, then he had to pick which track he wanted and since we were planning on going to the one in Daytona, he wanted to play on that track.
"See, that's where we're going!" he exclaimed happily, pointing at the screen. Some other options came up and good heavens I'm so bored and then Turbs said, "Huh, you can't pick how many laps in this game. It gives it in percentages. Which one should I do?"
Why is he asking me? "I dunno…might as well do the whole 100 percent. That's probably as long as a real race lasts."
He reached a hand up and lightly scratched the back of my head through my hair. "You're so smart, blondie. I never even thought of that."
My breathing hitched when he did that and I'd be lying if I said I wished he'd quit, which is what he did anyway. What? It feels nice having your head scratched, okay? Especially when the person doing is the person that you kindahaveacrushon but don't wanttotellhim because you're scaredofwhatmighthappen.
I had to turn my face away for a few seconds so I could mentally force myself to quit blushing. By the time I turned my head back forwards, the game had finally gotten to the short animation deal right before the actual game begins. There was a few shots of the track and some fake audience members, some jets flying overhead, and then these two announcer guys started talking just like we were about to witness a real live race. At least Turbs was excited about this and since him being excited about anything is always a treat to witness, I figured I might as well try to enjoy myself with this. I hate to be the one to put a damper on his mood.
"Wait a minute, I thought you had to qualify first?" I felt the need to ask. I only know this because I have a younger cousin that is real into NASCAR as well, though we haven't spoken in a while, and I kinda remember some stuff that she'd say.
"You weren't paying attention when I skipped that option," he told me, not taking his eyes off the screen. "But yeah, that is how a real race would work, kinda like when we did the Random Roster Race in Sugar Rush to see who would be allowed to race the next day. Except, obviously, there's more than nine racers, there's a maximum of forty-three."
"So if there's forty-three people racing, that means the guy that came in last place can still race? What the heck's the point in that?"
"So they'll know what position they can be in for the actual race. The people that qualified the highest get to start closer to the line."
Oh. I guess that makes sense. I always feel stupid when talking about stuff I know nothing about. Anyway, the game itself finally started and…what, there's no music in this game?! Oh for the love of 90s Nickelodeon, this really is realistic! There's not a dead-blasted song in this game! Oh someone help me! I got to sit here and watch him play a video game with no music in it and no power-up items or anything! I might as well find a sports channel somewhere and watch a real race!
Instead of music, you got to listen to this guy talking to you giving you pointers I guess like they do in real life. I'm sure he has a name but I don't know what it is. Apparently all these people talking are real NASCAR people but I'm not educated enough to know who they are. The speedometer in the bottom right corner said he was going about 185 mph, which if you ask me is supersonic fast. Of course this is coming from someone who has never driven over 90 mph so perhaps to an actual racecar driver, 185 is really slow. I'm not sure.
"How fast can you actually go anyway?" I decided to ask while I was thinking about it.
"Two hundred would be the top," Turbo answered me without looking away from the screen. He was concentrating pretty hard it seemed, even more so than he does any of his other games. Maybe this one is harder than the others, I don't know.
The rear-view mirror function in the top center screen showed some guy riding his tail. I thought that was pretty rude. I hate it when people tailgate me.
"Why is he riding your bumper like that?" I wanted to know. I couldn't tell which driver it was because I'm not familiar with that many cars. "He can't pass you if he's doing that so what's the point?"
"He's not, he's riding in the draft from my car so he goes faster," Turbs explained…kinda. "It's aerodynamics; the air splices around my car and it makes less resistance for his car so he's using it to speed himself up without him actually having to press down on the gas pedal."
"Isn't that cheating?"
"No, it's perfectly legal. They do it all the time."
"But he's using your car to do the work for him."
"That's the whole point, blondie, but it's still legal."
I didn't think it sounded very fair but whatever. All of a sudden, the car that had been doing this drafting thing swooped around and BANG! He took off super fast around him!
"How the heck did he do that?" I started griping. "These computer-operated cars are cheating!"
"Geez, you're getting more excitable about this than I thought you would," Turbs commented humorously with a slight smile. "That's a result from the draft thing; he used that to slingshot himself around."
"How come you're not doing that?"
"Because I haven't gotten close enough to anybody in front of me."
"Then speed up."
"I'm going as fast as I can, chill out. I have to get used to this traction stuff on here. This game is insanely realistic."
I have no idea what he's talking about. Anyway, I have no idea why I even want to know any of this stuff. Maybe it's because I'm being forced to sit here and watch and there's nothing better for me to do.
"How come some people are riding closer to the wall thing and other people are riding closer to the median?"
"They're trying to find the fastest way to get around the track." He was on lap four now I think. It's hard for me to understand all the stuff that's on the screen. "Sometimes it's faster to ride the 'high line' which is closer to the wall and sometimes it's faster to take the 'low line' which is closer to the apron. "
"The what?"
I think I'm starting to get on his nerves with all these questions. "What you're calling 'close to the median', if you want the very simple definition."
"Oh…so how do you know which is faster?"
I saw him briefly roll his eyes which was a sheer indicator that I was driving him insane. "It depends on a variety of factors. First of all, each track is different from each other. Typically, the lower line is faster and shorter but you can use higher line in case something happens with your tires, or if you need to be more stable, so on and so forth. And each car is set up differently from the others after the drivers' alter them. So there's not really a straight answer for that."
Wait, the cars are altered? What the heck does that mean? I wanted to ask but he was looking a little annoyed right now so I guess I better shut up and let him play in silence for a while.
That lasted about three minutes.
"What do you mean the cars are altered?" I couldn't stop my inquisitive mind from asking out loud. "What if they're using some illegal engine booster or whatever those things are called?"
Turbo pushed a button to put the game on "Pause" and then he slowly turned and looked at me with this very serious expression. "Are you asking this stuff because you really want to know or are just that bored?"
Ouch.
"Well gee, pal, if you're gonna make me sit here and watch this," I started off, motioning towards the television, "And then drag me off to a real race in Daytona, it'd be nice to have a little knowledge about what I'm watching, don't you think? Unless you'd rather me yak during a real live race and annoy the audience around us."
"It'll probably be too loud for me to hear you anyway," he informed me flatly, resting the controller in his lap for the time being. He rubbed at his eyes with one hand while the other stayed rested on his knee. "What all exactly do you know about cars?"
"You mean besides putting gas in it? Um…" I had to think about that one. I could see Turbo giving me a blank look out of the corner of my eye, probably thinking to himself how the heck he got stuck with someone that doesn't know anything about what he was originally designed for. "And you have to go to the oil changing place to get new fluids. Oh, and you get new paperwork like stuff in the mail every year." I thought some more. "And get new windshield stickers."
He kept looking at me in silent disbelief, which only made me feel nervous.
"Except windshield stickers can be bought every two years now instead of every year," I decided to add, trying to make myself sound a tiny bit more intelligent.
Turbs turned his head away and put a hand against his eyes and forehead, hissing his breath through his teeth as if he were in pain. I suppose my lack of basic car expertise was physically hurting him.
"How is that I came to live with someone that knows next-to-nothing about vehicles?" he muttered aloud, still not looking at me.
I lowered my eyes at him, partially offended. "You escaped Disney World by teleporting yourself to my front door close to midnight and then invited yourself in before practically forcing me to take care of you."
He coughed a laugh and slid his hand down his face slowly before looking at me again. "Not to mention, you're a smarty-pants," he said mostly to himself even though he obviously meant for me to hear it.
He scooted down to the other end of the couch where the magazine rack was at and he dug around for about a minute before finding whatever it was he was looking for. Turbs tossed this big yellow book at me like a Frisbee and it landed nicely in my lap. I had to turn it around to read the cover: NASCAR for Dummies.
It was my turn to give him a disbelieving look. "I am not going to sit here and read this," I stated firmly, pointing down at the book. "You're out of your mind."
Turbo scooted back down to where he had been sitting at originally and picked his controller back up. "Blondie, please," he said in a begging voice. "I'm trying to enjoy myself here. I can't do that if I'm constantly answering questions."
"But if I read this, then I'll just be asking you to clarify something I don't understand," I countered back. "So you might as well just answer me like you were doing earlier."
"I don't know everything," he admitted to me. "Just read the dang book."
I tossed the book on the other side of me. "You read it to me."
"I am not reading that entire book to you."
"I bet my dad would read it to me."
"I'm not your dad."
"Good, because that would make things extremely awkward between us, I think."
Ha! Like they're not already? was my immediate thought after I said that.
Turbo gave me an intense look from the side before heaving a sigh and rolling his eyes up. He then went back into the game's main menu, the scene that looked like the inside of a garage, and pulled up some extra option stuff.
"See this?" he asked me, pointing a finger at the screen. "Every car is built the exact same way. The driver can add or take away parts depending on which track he's at to make his car handle in the best way possible. So every car is now different because everybody has their own personal taste in how they want their car to drive. It's like figuring out a puzzle, only there are multiple solutions."
Oh. Well, that makes sense.
"See, you could've told me that a long time ago and it only took you ten seconds to even say it," I told him somewhat smugly. "How do you know all this stuff anyway?"
He gave me a prideful smile. "I read the book plus magazines. Plus, it helps that I'm already a racer so it all made sense right away."
I crossed my arms and gently flopped back against the couch. "Gee, aren't you special?"
He grinned widely at me as his answer to my rhetorical question. I smiled and rolled my eyes in response. What a goofball.
"Hey, there's a multiplayer option, you want to play?" he offered to me once he looked back at the screen.
My face fell when he said that. "You know I'm no good at these…"
"You got first place in Sugar Rush."
"Only because I got a power up box at the last second," I mumbled, looking down at the carpet with my hands folded up in my lap.
"You don't give yourself enough credit," I heard him tell me in a serious voice, which was enough to make me look back up and over at him. He fiddled with something on the screen for a minute before scooting over a bit and patting his hand on the spot that he had been sitting in. "Come here. I'll help you out."
I studied him for about five seconds to make sure he was being serious; when I deduced that he was, I scooted down to where I'd be sitting directly in front of the television and he handed me the remote. I'll be honest, I've only ever played on Nintendo consoles before so holding a PlayStation controller was very odd for me. I'm used to pushing A, B, X or Y...not triangles, circles or squares!
"I put it on 'easy' for ya," he told me, going ahead and pushing some other button on the controller; which one, I don't know because I was looking at the screen. Anyway, yadda yadda yadda, the game started and there I was hopelessly about to take over driving Jeff Gordon's car. I have this weird feeling that he gets a mental tingle in his brain every time someone wrecks his car in a game.
"Steer with the left analog stick and you make the car move with R2," Turbs instructed me, pointing briefly at where that last button was located.
Okay sounds easy enough. Basically like every other racing game I've ever played...and failed miserably at. The countdown started on the screen and...take off! I cringed about five seconds into the game because some car (I don't know which one) rammed itself into my front right side and made me do a half-spin thing, which further allowed the guy behind me to ram into me more and then start bulldozing me forward until he was able to move me out of the way. I groaned as I tried to get the car to turn back around but I ended up facing the wrong direction.
Why do I suck at these games so bad? This is worse than when I tried to play old-school Mario Bros. and I kept making little Mario get killed by the first Goomba in the level. True story.
So there I was trying get poor Jeff Gordon to turn around in his car (I wonder if he buys these games and plays as himself?) and making an utter fool of myself. I never even noticed Turbs getting closer to me on the couch until I felt one of his arms wrap around me. It was so unexpected that I stiffened up quite a bit and even more so when both his hands ended up on top of mine so he could help me control the car.
"Relax," he said in this really soft voice, using his thumb that was on top of mine to make the little analog stick turn in a circle so the car would go in the correct direction. His other hand was pushing buttons on the other side of the controller by pushing my fingers so it was kinda like I was the one doing the work when it really wasn't.
Relax, he says! RELAX?! How am I supposed to relax with him practically on top of me like this? I couldn't even pay attention to the dang game anymore, I was just staring at it blankly. He shifted a little bit so he'd get more behind me instead of exactly beside me, I guess so the arm he had thrown around me wouldn't be so sore.
"You okay?" he asked me and heck no does it look like I'm okay? I can't even breathe! His heart's beating into one of my shoulder blades and...
"Y-yeah, fine," I answered him, trying to act as normal as possible even though I could fell that slight quiver in my voice. For Pete's sake, I'm acting like a dang teenager! If I were able to, I'd physically slap some sense into myself.
Okay, this is fine. Nothing's happening. He's just helping me play the game is all.
"The controls are sensitive so don't press so hard on them," he was practically purring at me and I felt him lean his head a little closer to mine. How do I know that he did this? Gee, for starters he was talking in my ear, or should I purring in my ear really since that's the only word I can say to describe it appropriately. Not to mention, he was putting more of his weight on me now so in order to prevent myself from falling forward, I had no choice to but press back.
"What're you shaking for?"
The question came out of nowhere and I felt my already rabid heart rate speed up even more, all the blood seeming to rush into my head.
"Huh?" was the only thing I could think of to say since honestly I had no idea what he was talking about.
"You," he repeated, a hint of humor in his voice. "You're shaking."
I forced what ended up being a nervous laugh and I felt like strangling myself. "I...I'm kinda cold...that's all."
"I feel fine," was the casual reply he gave me right before he leaned his head even closer up against mine. "Oh look, you went two laps without crashing!"
Is he serious? Is he SERIOUS? Oh sweet merciful God, I'm about to go into full-blown panic attack mode and here he is casually commenting on the freakin' game as if this is how we spend all our afternoons together! Ughhhh why am I such a nutcase? Why can't I just relax? I just want to be a normal person and let things happen that are good happen to me without me freaking out about it.
Okay, calm down. If I can relax with him being all snuggled up with me in the bed, I should be able to handle this. Breathe...in and out...in and out...
My head still felt all fuzzy but I eventually got myself to stop being so tense anyway. Breathing techniques work rather well apparently. Once my muscles relaxed, I felt a lot better even though I still had that nagging anxious feeling there, which was only natural given the circumstances I was in.
You know, it actually felt pretty nice sitting here like this. Like...like it was normal. That probably sounds insane after I just had a mental freak out but now that I'm calmed down, this does feel rather natural. I allowed myself to recline a bit so I wouldn't feel like I was holding up all of Turbo's weight on me. I felt him sigh a little so I guess he was comfortable...or something like that. Or maybe he was glad that I finally settled down.
Me and Guy never did stuff like this...just chill and hang out. He always had to be dramatic or extreme about things. Like, for example, he'd watch a movie and get this idea in his head that we had to do exactly what they did in the movie and it had to "perfect" and he'd get mad if things didn't go exactly right. It was rather stressful doing this and the majority of the time I felt like I was acting in a live roleplay game or something. Nothing ever felt genuine because it was forced. So I guess it's odd that I stuck around with him for so long. Well, that's because I'm speaking from experience now. Back when we were actually together, I was young and naive and since he was also my first boyfriend, I just accepted all this stuff as normal. It wasn't until years later that I realized nothing was normal about it.
So yeah, it's nice to just sit here and do nothing except play mindless video games. This is what normal people do. I could get used to this.
If I'd let myself get used to it.
I want to love him but I'm going to die later on at some point and then he'll be all alone and sad and I can't do that to him. It's like in Lord of the Rings when Arwen's father told her that she couldn't be with Aragorn because she was going to live forever after he died and she would be destined to wander around like a forgotten ghost for the rest of her eternity. I mean yeah sure they got the situation taken care of but...I don't think that can happen in our case.
It's not fair.
"You can always get up if you're bored."
Turbo's voice wasn't exactly expected and I jolted a little when I heard it. "Wh-what?"
"If you're bored," he repeated himself slowly, "you don't have to sit here. It's not gonna hurt my feelings."
I have this feeling that he's lying about that...but at least he's giving me the option of whether or not I want to get up or not.
"Well, I...I think you'd have more fun playing this on your own," I had to admit to him.
I felt a low chuckle travel from him into my back. "It'd be easier anyway." He paused the game and unwrapped himself from around me, which gave me an instant feeling of freedom and at the same time this feeling of loneliness. He scooted himself back a bit so he could recline back against the couch and play more comfortably. "You can still sit by me if you want."
I could croak. And...oh for crying out loud, he was just hanging on top of me, it's not going to kill me to sit by him!
"It's technically my couch so I can sit wherever I want on it," I commented to him, scooting back a bit so I could sit by him, but not too close since I was pushing my limits enough as it was. Why am I being such a spazz?
"Gee, someone got in a smart aleck mood," Turbo replied back in a playful manner as he switched his game's settings back to being more difficult. "You get that vacation approved you asked your boss about?"
The sudden change of subject startled me for a second but then finally it sank into my mind what he was talking about. "Uh...yeah...yeah I did."
We were planning to go to Daytona pretty soon and I got approved to have two weeks off, which was a big shock since our boss doesn't seem to like approving vacation that often. We were going to drive there, how I was going to survive this I don't know, but Turbo wanted to see the country first hand so yeah...driving across the country with the Turbs. Should be interesting.
Any further conversation was interrupted by a random series of knocks at the door. Now what?
"That better not be Mickey with another wayward villain in need of babysitting," Turbo muttered out loud as I got up to answer the door.
Oh it's just Pest Control, he comes by and sprays the apartments once a month for bugs. I had to let him in, of course, unless I just wanted to have insects crawling around. We tend to have a nice bug problem in the South at certain times of the year. He only took a minute to spray the place before leaving but the momentary interruption killed any kind of tension in the room, even though it wasn't even a bad tension once I had gotten myself to calm down.
Even though I don't know why I'm even fooling myself with this...as nice a thought as it is, it won't work for reasons I've already stated in the past. I feel so conflicted. I want it but I don't. I'm not sure which direction to go in. I wish life came with a map. I've made so many bad choices in my life, what if this is another one?
Still, I did allow myself to rest my head on his shoulder while watching him play.
Big huge thank you to my author bud "Wreck-It Ralph" with all the help on NASCAR and general racing information! Hopefully I didn't flub something up.
And I know some of you guys probably think I'm really dragging this romance thing out a long time but it will pay off, I promise. No need to rush anything, you know ;)
