The Weirdest Hour of My Life

I forgot about this until a couple of days ago, and now that I remember, I can’t fathom how I haven’t told more people about it. As you may or may not know, I spend a good 11 out of 12 months in a smallish town in southeastern Minnesota, otherwise known as Winona. Rumor has it that Winona Ryder was named after the town when she was born here. And by “rumor,” I mean “IMDB told me.”

But I digress.

My point is this: after being planted in a town so small it has neither a Burger King nor Arby’s… you mustn’t stay put too long. And that, my internet friends, is where our tale begins.

It was roughly two years ago when my then-friend-now-roommate, Kate, and I took the forty-minute trip north to meet a few friends in the slightly larger town of Rochester. This town I speak of is known for exactly two things: the Mayo Clinic and taking youth hockey very seriously.

We were traveling on a hot day in June to take part in whatever the 2-year-ago-version of my friends and me took part in. I don’t remember. By the way, I’ve now accepted that I am a horrendous storyteller so I hope you have too. Moving on.

It is normally quite uncommon when situations take place in real life similar to how they do in movies. But right as we were getting close to our first destination, I saw it. Passing through an intersection, I witnessed two teenage girls standing on a corner in short shorts and tank tops holding a sign that read: CARWASH FOR HIGH SCHOOL DANCE TEAM. I immediately persuaded the unenthusiastic female driver to turn the vehicle around to check out the carwash. After all, it’s only right to support today’s high schools when given a chance. Now I know what you’re saying: “But Jake, how does that possibly equate to being similar to Hollywood?” That’s my bad. I forgot to mention that the girls were waving their sign around in slow motion as a catchy Van Halen guitar riff began playing.

Another vital detail I should probably include is that in movies, all of the actresses are at age of consent.

But in my real life situation, we discovered the dance team to be composed of mostly 16 year-olds. Sixteen year-olds in their dance team uniforms. This was obviously not my intention when we were recruited, nay, duped by the at least 17 year-old girls waving the sign around in heavy traffic. It was just quietly assumed that there would be legal persons taking part in said carwash.

After all of the sketchy molester vans in front of us went through and presumably finished getting off, it was our turn to receive a very poorly executed car wash. This is probably the only time in my life when I have stared at my feet for six minutes straight. As we paid for the poor attempt of a carwash and left, I felt an odd type of dirty. Not “haven’t showered in two days” dirty but like “just forced a baby dolphin to rape a newborn golden retriever at gunpoint” dirty. And Jesus, is that dirty.

That probably would have been enough for one day, but the hour only got odder.

It was only minutes later that we were driving through a maze of parking lots next to some strip mall and outside restaurant tables. As we were winding through the lot speckled with pedestrians, we paused for a stop sign when all of a sudden I noticed something out of the corner of my eye. Sitting on one of the restaurant patios, there were two girls sitting under a large umbrella, shielding them from the June sun. This wasn’t anything too absurd, but as I looked closer, I thought the two were sitting awfully close to one another.

It almost looked like they were sitting in each others lap which would be weird but nothing to brag about (unless you’re into bragging about insignificant shit). As we slowly rolled past the table, we saw your every day, run-of-the-mill two-headed human being.

A totally normal occurrence, right? A normal teenage girl sitting with presumably her normal family, eating outside a normal restaurant. The only minor change was that she had two normal sized, identical looking faces stemming from her normal torso.

Now, contrary to how I regularly describe myself here, I’d like to think of myself as a fairly considerate and civil person when seeing a two-headed human for the first time. But, alas, that just did not happen as I committed the most blatant gawking ever thought possible.

Was my mind seeing things? Maybe my eternal shame from the previous carwash incident had caused my eyes to start creating mirages out of everyday situations? I tried to verify the sight with the only other person in the car that would be able to vouch for me.

“Did you just see—,” I asked before being interrupted.
“Yes. Yes, I did,” my chauffeur of a roommate confirmed.

It was then that we decided to turn up the radio to take our minds off what we just witnessed, only to be further satisfied when we heard the most appropriate song start to play: the Eels’ “Beautiful Freak.”

After doing a little research on this whole two-headed person deal, I guess it’s not that wild and crazy to see the beautiful freak so close to one of the best hospitals in the nation. The “twins” were actually born in Minnesota, thus making it easier to believe that I wasn’t on some crazy, acid trip that lovely summer day. The coolest fun fact about these girls is probably this:

Each twin has their own heart and backbone and, although they share the same body, they had to take the written and driving tests to get their license. While driving, they both share control of the steering wheel, while one controls the pedals, transmission, radio, etc. and the other controls the turn signals and lights.

It seems like something out of a Family Guy episode or an even crappier version of Stuck On You, right? At least I can say I’ve seen a person with two spinal cords and 3.5 lungs before.

Now if only one of these things would have happened, it would not have been as special. But both of them occurring in the same hour? Magical.

And that, my dear readers, is the weirdest hour of my life.