White Elephant

My friend Christina invited me to go with her this past Sunday to see one of her friends perform. Her name is Rachel Stacy http://rachelstacy.com and she was playing at the White Elephant http://whiteelephantsaloon.com at the Fort Worth Stock Yards.

She came by my apartment around 5:15 and with the assistance of her sister Jennifer's Tomtom, headed towards another friend of hers house, Chris, that she had invited as well and who lived in Fort Worth.

The drive over there was pretty smooth and considering a minor accident on I30, which is always an occurrence, we made pretty good time.

We arrived at Chris' house where Christina proceeded to change out of her Tony Romo jersey and into a black blouse and then we were ready to go.

Because Christina had I believe only printed out directions from her house to mine, from my place to Chris' and from his place back to mine, she gave up driving rights to the Stock Yards to Chris, which made sense since he does live in Fort Worth and I'm sure at least knows the area better than us - me for sure - I had never even been there.

So we at first are asked if we would like to ride in a SMALL car or a BIG truck - and really that was the truth about the size of them. Then we were basically told the small car was easier to park downtown than the big truck so Christina was like, then in the small car we go.

We walk out to the garage and low and behold in front of us - the small car, a Porshe. Okay so honestly, with as much money as that car I'm sure costs, I would never spend it on that kind of car. I say this because I of course was like "I'll ride in the back seat," and boy did I find out real quick the back seat is really nonexistent - I mean the 2 holes where you are suppose to sit are there, but it doesn't deserve to be called a back seat. Luckily for me, I'm quite small in height and was able to squeeze my feet together and duck a little so that my head wasn't hitting the low lying roof.

Oh and just to point out what the other vehicle that was difficult to park downtown was, it was like a Ford F350 - I mean seriously, that thing was huge. Talk about going from one extreme to the other.

Anyways, we head out to the Stock Yards and find a parking space that was easy to parallel into considering the car was no bigger than a monster truck tire!

We started walking around looking for this place, the White Elephant, and finally spot it.

We go in and Christina immediately sees her friend Rachel, and we stop to say hi and introduce ourselves - she seems to be a very sweet, down to earth girl - very pretty too.

She tells us to make ourselves at home, which later I would realize to her it was almost like home, because basically a bunch of friends and relatives came out to watch her.

Prior to the show beginning, Christina, Chris and I are just sitting and she and Chris are having these heated conversations about relationships, etc. It was pretty interesting - those 2 are like brother and sister and the weird thing is that Christina (and this is her account) went on one date with Chris and they have been good friends for 5 years now.

Anyways, the show finally gets going, and honestly turned out to be really nice. Prior to going I had my reservations. For one, it was going to be at a bar and well since I'm not a big drinker, I don't frequent bars, I've been maybe at the most and that is probably too much, 5 times with Frank to watch him play pool.

Two, I can't stand the smell of cigarettes - I'm not kidding either, I get these horrible headaches and it just grosses me out to no end. I was extremely lucky that the entire time we were there, maybe 3 people out of the entire place were smoking and it wasn't one cigarette after the other either.

So, after about listening to her for about 2 hours, we decided to head out, as all three had to wake up the next morning to go to work.

We arrive at Chris' and Christina walks in to get the clothes she had left behind and then we proceed to head out to her car. This is where the fun begins - well in my point of view - I'm sure Christina will beg to differ.

So we hop in her car, strap our seat belts on, and the car won't turn on. She turns to me and says, "Elisa, my car won't turn on." I'm like, "are you sure?"

So she tries again, and again, and again, and nothing. We both sit there for a minute in dead silence and then she gets on her phone and calls someone.

She finally decides to call Chris to see if he had jumper cables - we assumed maybe the battery was dead but were in doubts because all her lights were coming on. At first she was hesitant to call Chris thinking maybe he didn't have jumper cables, but I was like if he's got a Ford, what are the odds he wouldn't have them. Well he did and in the process chewed her out some more for us sitting outside of his house and not calling him earlier.

While we wait for him to come around the front with the truck, I tell Christina, let's get the hood opened. We are trying to figure that out when a neighbor from across the street that happened to be watering the lawn comes over and asks if we need some help.

Christina informed him that her friend was coming around to see if some cables would jump her possible dead battery but she told him in the meantime we were trying to figure out how to open her hood. Seriously, I'm not stupid when it comes to these things, but boy was that one difficult hood to open - finally the neighbor figured it out. On her car, you actually have to push the lever down and not sideways like in most vehicles - just a tidbit to remember for future emergencies.

We quickly figured out that the battery was not the problem and started to wonder if maybe it was the starter. The nice neighbor, an older gentleman who obviously has worked on bad cars before, tried to bypass the starter and tried getting it to start with a screwdriver - that was not happening either.

We ended up checking some fuses thinking maybe one of them had gone bad - as the car now sounded like gas was not getting through and maybe the fuse had killed the car computer system and NOTHING. That car was not going anywhere that night for sure.

Christina called another friend of hers, Joe, who also lives in Fort Worth, and he was kind enough to bring us back to my apartment.

We ended up getting home close to midnight when our original plans were to be home by 10 at the latest.

I kept telling Christina that things happen for a reason and that everything would be okay. I mean seriously, it could have been way worse - broken down on the side of the road on I30 late at night and with nowhere to go.

So with that said, that was my eventful Sunday night - Christina felt so bad. She was like I can't believe the first time I go out with her and her car DIES! I was like happens to all of us, even if you drive a new car.