Fun Times With Tom - Volume 2

In the previous “Fun Times With Tom” entry, I mentioned that Tom and I would frequently go to Twins games. After one particular game, he decided that he was way too tired to drive home. He told me that we were going to stay at his friend’s house in Lino Lakes. For those of you who aren’t up on the geography of Minnesota, crashing in Lino, instead of going all the way back to Mora, saved Tom a maximum of one hour of sleep. I would later find out that it was not so much that Tom was tired, but that this “friend” was actually a girl he met in 4H and had a big crush on.

I spend the next half hour begging Tom to just drive back to Mora. For those of you that aren’t good friends with Tom, you should know that once an idea gets in his head there is absolutely no way of changing his mind…none. We arrive (unannounced) to what to me is a stranger’s house at about 11:00 PM. It was obvious by looking at the house that there wasn’t anyone up and about. I then tell Tom that I refuse to go up to the house and that I am sleeping in the car. He then says “Ok, but when her dad wakes up tomorrow morning he is going to wonder why there is a stranger sleeping in a car in his driveway”. It then occurred to me that I had reached hostage status and followed him up to the door. Not really knowing what to do next, Tom lightly taps on the door…no answer. He turns the knob…locked. I am thinking to myself “Thank God! Let’s go home.” No such luck. Tom’s next plan is to go around the side of the house to see if their sliding glass door is unlocked. Unfortunately it was and I immediately reach panic mode. Little did I know, I hadn’t even scratched the surface.

As we are breaking and entering someone says “Tom, what the hell are you doing!” Luckily I had my wits about me, as I just was able to not piss myself. It was Tom’s friend’s little brother, I think his name was Eric (I apologize for forgetting everyone’s name in the story). Tom then proceeded to explain what we are doing and to my surprise he seemed to think it was a rational explanation. Eric then told us where to find some extra blankets and said we could crash in the basement.

While this was not an optimal situation, I finally had the feeling that I was going to survive this adventure. As we were getting ready to go to sleep Tom seemed a little agitated with how things turned out. He hinted that he was annoyed that this girl wasn’t there and she wouldn’t know that he stopped by. That is when I figured out that our path was not motivated by Tom’s weariness, but by his infatuation with the girl.

Then the event took a horrible turn. Tom said that he was going to go up to her room and sleep on her floor. I don’t think I will spend the time explaining all of the ways this was a bad idea, since I’m sure it is obvious to everyone in the world except Tom. I pleaded with him not to do this. I said that I could get in a lot of trouble if her parents came down into the basement in the morning and there was a stranger sleeping on the couch. He agreed and suggested that I accompany him to the girl’s bedroom floor. What was I to do? It was clear that Tom was going to do this. I weighed my options. On one hand her dad would be less likely to kill me if Tom was there since he would at least have an idea of who he was. On the other hand, his daughter’s bedroom floor was a far worse location to be discovered than their basement. I went with the former and followed Tom upstairs. I then spent the next few hours laying awake, terrified, and going over my plan of action for when this girl came home, screamed, and her parents came running in. It probably wouldn’t surprise many people that Tom fell asleep right away. When he finally woke up (the girl never came home) we went downstairs exactly 30 seconds before her father came out of his bedroom. While we did have a little explaining to do, it went a lot smoother than what would have been required in other scenarios.

Later Tom’s plan backfired. He called his lady and she was pissed that he broke into her house and slept on her bedroom floor. Go figure.

--Doohow