The Festival. Goodbye.

The next morning came too soon.

Exhausted, bedraggled, weathered, we rose. We packed our things.

Packing to leave for the festival, I managed all of my clothes, towels, laptop, adapters, and chargers into my one large yellow Yadeng backpack of much fame. It was at max capacity when we left, and now, packing to go, I found I had acquired a few more items during the course of this excursion. Namely:

• Two glasses
• The badass bathrobe
• A large checkers set, with a quilt for the playing board
• Two boxes of granola bars
• A plastic container of meat
• A plastic container of cheese
• Bread
  
• All of the Reverend's food (he departed a day early)
• and the empty bottles...

All of this did not fit. There were spare plastic grocery bags lying about, so I filled these and tied them off to my backpack long distance hiking-style, except it looked way more homeless. I carried the rest, plus an extra case of soda for Whitesnake I ended up keeping. So, fully loaded, holding everything, ready to rock, I went down to the car.

The scene was surreal as I exited the Super 8. All of the maids, chamberlains, housekeeping staff were sitting together outside clucking to each other like Spanish/American chickens and smoking cigarettes. They chuckled at me as I past.

I left before Bones and Whitesnake, since they'd piled all of their luggage on a luggage roller thing and we wouldn't have fit in the elevator together. So I had to wait by Whitesnake's car. The doors were locked. Superlame.

Joelle and Other Travis went out to their car, and began loading the trunk.

But wait! A window was cracked, so I set down my bag, bathrobe, laptop and soda box and snaked my hand through down the handle. I made a joke to myself about taking up a career in grand theft auto as I clicked the handle up and the door open.

ERR ERR ERR his horn exploded. Fuck. God fucking damn it. Car alarm.

At first the maids were worried, thinking I was trying to steal this car, but when they saw the shame on my face as I opened my cell and speed-dialed Whitesnake, they all just laughed and laughed. The alarm kept going. Faces appeared in windows, looking out at the embarassment of a human being in the parking lot. Whitesnake didn't pick up the phone. I was running out of options.

One of the pretty girls from Connecticut, who looked like Rachel Weisz but sexier, came out and went to a car nearby, she saw it was me the alarm was about and giggled at my expression. Then the alarm went off.

The surreal quiet of the Super 8 lot had been broken, but the mood was still there. All of the Connecticut folks emptied out and headed to their cars, all of us with far too little sleep. Weisz came over and showed me a banana that was completely dark brown she had taken from her car and held it before her like a little child showing his parents something interesting he'd found.

"Oh....wow." Was really all I could think to say.

"It's from last month."

"Oh. Wow." I said very differently than the first time.

But that was that, not even a parting "hey maybe add me on facebook." The rest just waved as they walked to their cars. Not even a "hey dude i would like you to have sex with all my female friends." Not even a "hey we only just met but i love you lets get married and have sex every day till we cant anymore." But you know, whatever. I'm better living single anyways. Good riddance.

We packed the car, gave the crappy motel our crappy motel key cards. Walking out the door for the last time, I shouted back in "Good-Bye, Super 8." It did not say good bye back.

And we drove away from Leominster, Massachusetts. Forever.



[on a truly personal note, the radio came up with a poignant soundtrack for the return trip, starting with "We Belong" by Pat Benatar, then stereotypically but appropriately "Good Riddance" by Green Day, and just from when we pulled off the turnpike into Portland right up until the moment we parked in front of Payson St... "Glycerine," by Bush.]