The Real Deal

As Rich so elegantly states below, we are indeed "in". However, there are many levels of "in", and lots of juicy details that any theoretical reader of this blog might be delighted to hear. Thus, I will be ignoring Rich's rather lackluster attempts at one-upmanship, and posting now about our FABULOUS SUCCESS.

This post actual contains several mini-events; I beg forgiveness for being too caught up in finals and term papers to post specifically about them. The chain of events goes as follows:

Approximately one week ago, on a Friday or thereabouts, I received the long-awaited email offering us a place on the Rally. I had known that this was coming, being as we were in first place on the waiting list, but still somewhat like coming home to a beautiful wife of many years who has unexpectedly received noticeable-but-tasteful breast implants. Overjoyed, I quickly perused the email. What it came down to was that we had a spot open for us, and could confirm it by paying the king's ransom of £456, which is approximately $930 in today's woefully under-equipped dollars. We would have three days to lock in our payment and confirm our places.

Now, this is a cost we had agreed to split, of course, since it was a single fee for the team. I wanted to contact Rich and quadruple-confirm that he was ok with spending a hell a lot of money on this, one last time. I finally managed to catch him ( no easy task, given the time difference and Rich's own drunken vampire sleep cycle ), and he told me to, if I recall correctly, "Get on with it, fag". He's very loving, in his own special way. So I got on with it.

Entering in that modern miracle, the credit card number, I prepared to drop a huge amount of money on the chance to die terribly. However, disaster soon struck: credit card declined! Fraud! Identity theft! Oh my god!!!

I quickly deduced the situation. I had gone online and attempted to use nearly $1000 from my credit card, which had most recently been used to buy a gallon of milk, some time in October. My bank, bless their hearts, were slightly concerned, and requested that I call them and supply them with my social security number, address, height, weight, mother's maiden name, phone number, blood type, and penis measurements. Once they had sufficiently satisfied themselves that I was indeed myself, although not necessarily in my right mind, they unlocked the funds. I paid the Rally organizers once more, this time at the buzzer; we had only hours left on our hold when I got the confirmation. I feel that this is in keeping with the spirit of the Rally.

So, we now have our shiny new place awaiting us, as well as a bunch of shit with a cumulative value of $0, like T-shirts, a team blog (another one!), and invites to a couple of parties in Olde England which Rich will have to buck up and attend for us. But we're in!

The next step for us is to fill out and mail in what I like to refer to as the "Not Liable for Your Dumb Asses" form. This is a monstrous and intimidating sheaf of papers, filled with terrifying legal terms like "liability" and "parties" and "heretofor" and "tortured" and "starvation". We simply have to enter our names, sign and date it, and send it in before December 20-somethingth, to make sure our grieving loved ones can't sue the Adventurists when our bodies are dredged from a hundred-mile stretch of the Yangtze River.

Another good title for this document would be the "This shit just got real" form. Because it just did.

Next up: finding a car that fits the qualifications and possibly runs!

- Tony