a totally normal road trip

part 2- holy shit not ohio

*Author's note: All my statements about Ohio are meant as a joke and it is not my intention to offend anyone who lives there*

The road trip was started off pretty slow. The first couple hours of the trip were spent in Pennsylvania, and the only stop they made was at McDonalds for lunch.

"This is bullshit." Jack said, while holding up his Happy Meal toy. "This is is literally two pieces of cardboard!"

The toy was indeed very lame. It was themed around a new subpar children's movie. It was a piece of cardboard attached to a cardboard stick, and if you move the cardboard stick then the thing attached to the cardboard stick moves.

[a/n: I have actually received a lame Happy Meal toy like this. I am speaking from personal experience with this.]

"Remember the good old days when Happy Meal toys used to be fun?" Jack said sadly.

"Yeah." Ryan added, while looking wistfully at his own lame Happy Meal toy.

The three men left McDonalds, disappointed in their cardboard.

•~•

It was getting dark when they entered the state of Ohio. They really didn't want to stay in Ohio longer than they had to, so they kept driving in the dead of night. The three of them had decided that they would only sleep when they reached Indiana. That idea fell apart quickly when Jack and Ryan fell fast asleep in their seats while Adam was driving.

At some point in their long journey across Ohio, their car ran out of gas. Adam cursed more than one may think and got out of the car. He suddenly remembered that he was in Ohio and got back in the car. He tried to wake up his brothers. Tried being the key word. At some point, Adam got frustrated and ended up just pouring half his water bottle on Jack's face.

"wHAAAHHHGGGGG!" screamed Jack.

Jack slowly came to his senses and looked around. He saw a very frustrated Adam holding a metal water bottle. He then looked down at his Happy Meal toy he was still holding.

"Larry!" Jack exclaimed. "You drowned him!" Jack looked sadly at his two lame pieces of cardboard.

"You were literally just telling me how stupid today's McDonalds Happy Meal toys are." Adam sighed, rolling his eyes.

"That doesn't mean that I don't love these two, stupid pieces of cardboard." Jack responded, still pretty upset.

"Well," Adam said, "can't really argue with that. So anyways, we ran out of gas and we need to get this car to the nearest gas station."

"Well," Jack commented flippantly, "that sounds like a you problem." and he pulled his hat over his eyes.

"Jack," said Adam, slowly, trying to emphasize the point. "we're in Ohio."

Jack suddenly put his hat on correctly and opened the car door. "I'll wake Ryan." He said seriously. He ran to the side of the car and opened the door next to where Ryan was sitting.

"RYAN WAKE UP!" Yelled Jack.

"Mom, do I have to go to school today?" Mumbled Ryan, still half asleep

"Ryan," Jack sighed. "you're an adult. You haven't gone to school in almost 10 years."

"The trauma is real." Ryan turned over, still groggy from just being woken up.

"Well, the car has no gas and we're very much in Ohio." Jack explained simply.

"Oh, we gotta push the car then. I hate doing that." Ryan groaned, running a hand through his hair as he sat up.

So, the three brothers started to push the car. This task was fairly difficult for them since they did little to no physical activity on a day to day basis. By the time they got the car around halfway to the nearest gas station, it was almost dawn.

When they were taking a little break from pushing the heavy car, they saw this guy. He had a tow truck and was just driving around in it. That alone was pretty suspicious. His window was rolled down and he was playing that generic loud and bad music that comes with traffic at what seemed to be the highest volume the speakers could play without breaking them. He had a long, sandy, graying, beard and an equally sandy and frizzy hair. He had a bandanna tied on his head as a poor excuse for keeping his hair out of his face. He looked something like a pirate who had been hardened by his life at sea, but without the eyepatch.

"Y'all need help?" The guy asked Adam, Jack, and Ryan.

The three were pretty nervous about the guy. One of the first ground rules that they had laid down before they started was don't talk to locals in Ohio. But this guy talked to them first, it's only polite to respond, right?

"No thank you, we're good." Adam answered simply.

"Are you sure, sir?" The man asked, raising an eyebrow as he looked over the three of them. "I could give you three a lift with my truck."

They didn't really want to say no. It was still a mile to the gas station and they were really tired, hot and sweaty. Now on the other hand, this guy looked a bit sus and could very easily kidnap them. Although, if he was trying to kidnap them, he would use a van. Right?

After a few brotherly exchange of facial expressions, they agreed to get into tow truck.

The man stepped out of his truck to attach the car to his truck and got back in.

•~•

As it turned out, the truck guy was a really nice guy. His name was Charles and his daughter lives in New York City. He towed their car to the gas station free of charge, which was pretty cool of him. They started talking about their road trip, and Charles recommended some places to go on their trip. After Charles dropped them off, he gave them a fond goodbye and drove away. With a smile on their faces from not having to push the car another miles, they filled up the gas in their car and went on their way.

Maybe Ohio wasn't so bad after all.