Road Trip to Chicago or How I Almost Killed My Boyfriend.

There is something relationship-affirming about taking a road trip with someone. Maybe it's because you have no way out. Here I am, nearly 500 miles away from home passing through some hick-ass Tennessee town that has no cell reception and probably no indoor plumbing and I have to hope that he will not kick me out of the car after hearing me reenact my Twitter feed for the last three hours.

That's trust. 

I don't talk about my significant other on here very often (primarily because I'm not entirely sure I won't be trading him up for a newer model soon), but his entire family lives in Chicago, which means we take the 18-hour trip at least once a year. 

Every time after the labor-like excursion we swear we'll fly. We'll take a train. We'll fucking teleport. Anything other than spending a full day in our car, which is the automobile equivalent of a studio apartment with a bathtub in the kitchen. But our overall poverty makes us forget the hellacious experience, and every year we pack ourselves and our 80-pound English bulldog into our two-door sardine can and get on the road.

The first few hours aren't bad. We laugh. We sing. We talk. We catch up in a way that two full-time jobs prohibit. But something happens along the way. About hour six. There is a shift. A change of energy. That takes two seemingly reasonable adults, who like each other, and turns them into maniacs. It's like a mother-fucking Real World reunion. We are carnivorous. It's the Hunger Games set in a Toyota Yaris.

Him: Change the music. If I have to listen to Adele start her period one more time, I'm going to kill myself.

Me: (turns music up) Don't worry, I will kill you myself if you ever FUCKING TALK ABOUT ADELE LIKE THAT AGAIN!!!

It's at this time, when my hatred for him is at an all time high, I have to trust. 

I have to trust that if I get out to pee and/or catch herpes from a truck-stop restroom, that he will not sell me to the first truck driver he encounters for a souvenir keychain. I have to trust that he will not run us into the side of a mountain just so I will stop asking about his high-school girlfriends. I have to trust that he will not turn into Chris Brown after listening to me sing the Wicked soundtrack through the entire state of Kentucky. 

You all know I like to give horrible relationship advice, but here is the best advice I will ever give anyone questioning their relationship: Take a road trip. If both parties come back alive, then it's solid. 

We made it to Chicago, by the way. But next year, we're teleporting.