So, to avoid traffic, we left Atlanta at 4:45am, and drove through the darkness into Florida. I called Delilah from near Gainesville to see what time she’s getting to Tampa at. It was going to be her 1st party with this new lounge, “Chateau Prive” - and it also happened to be her birthday party, and I designed the flyer for it. Skizzy never met Delilah before, so that was a good opportunity for them to meet. Delilah (couch 4) knew that Skizzy (couch 24) MIGHT be coming, but wasn’t sure. She called me back after I left that voicemail, and told me she’s heading to Tampa shortly. She mentioned I should give Skizzy their # if he calls me. She had no idea I was on the road. We got to Couch #5’s, as when I called to invite him out to D’s party, he said he was working at home that day, and we could come over and kill time there. We did, and Skizzy passed out. A while later, I was getting pretty sleepy as well, and passed out myself. I guess that makes Skizzy my 1st Co-Surfer. As we traveled to a different state together, and Couch-surfed at the same time. I figure some day I’ll find a beautiful woman with an awesome sense of humor, warmth, cooking abilities, a sense of adventure, patience, and video skills, and we can go and do the Steve Irwin type of thing Some friends of Couch 5’s were over, and I had met one of them previously. We had a jolly time chatting, and then it was time to go for dinner - wings n beer. On the way out, I see that one of the cars’ license plates is Chopra3. “Is that like in ‘ Deepak Chopra’ ?” “That’s my Dad.” Turns out he wasn’t yanking my leg… the resemblance was there too. So, it was an honor, and told many jokes to Deepak Chopra’s son. It was not harped upon… barely even mentioned, as that’s the kind of thing that would dominate a conversation. He was an awesome person on his own, and doesn’t need his dad’s prestige to be cool. I very much enjoyed the company. We left dinner, and went to Delilah’s party. We got there a bit late, and missed the fashion show, and things were pretty slow. It was great to see the surprise on her face as she saw my face / camera. Took a few cute photos, hung out, and then the club closed, and we took off to South Florida.

The scary part: I went to sleep, as it would soon be my turn to drive. Skizzy likes to blast his music, which kept waking me up. One area, right before the Turnpike had a flashing yellow light, and a stop sign apparently - or maybe it was a traffic light that was turning red. Either way, Skizzy ran it, as my GPS was talking to him, and he looked down at it. This was 3 or 4 in the morning, and there was not much, if any traffic. We turn left to get on the Turnpike, and some cop lights come on right behind us. The thing is that there was a gun in the car that someone had forgotten as a prop after a photo shoot… but was a real gun, with bullets and all that… and Skizzy didn’t have his license on him, nor did he apparently have his registration. Maybe there were other things in the car that you don’t want to get pulled over with. Oh yeah… Skizzy’s pretty sure there’s a warrant out for him in Atlanta, for skipping a court date or something…. all in all, he was pretty confident our trip was over. This was not a good thing, eh? Well.. for starters, the cop came to my side (since this was the on-ramp for the turnpike) — actually, he spooked me when he knocked on my window. I kept making jokes, and I kept my cool (though, on the inside I was not holding together that well… either the cold (it was cold), or the anxiety, but I was kind of shaking on the inside). The cop took a long time, so we were left stewing in stress. I started telling jokes, to cut the tension. I had told the cop that I have my license, if that helps any. The cop came back and said that since I had my license, and seemed ok, he’s going to believe Skizzy that he’s who he says he is. He did not even give Skizzy a ticket for running the light… but he did give him one for failing to have proper identification. Much cheaper than a moving violation though! The cop said “I shouldn’t let you drive out of here- with out a license…” (me)”I can drive.” (cop)”But I’m a realist, I know that you can swap drivers 2 feet from here.” What a pleasant fellow! I should have told HIM that joke I told the cop the prior night. The rest of the drive was event-less, and I spent it thinking, while Skizz slept. We pulled up to Couch 26(mom n dad)’s place at about 6am. The funny thing was that my folks knew I was arriving some time this weekend. Mom went into my little brother’s room, as she thought that’s where I was sleeping, and saw the door was closed. She was surprised of course to see Skizzy.

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