What Makes a Snowbaroo

Chapter Twelve - Night Out at the Diner

Alright, here's a common misconception about Snowbaroo people like me and my coworkers: all we do after work is sit around and mod our cars or go driving on dirt roads in the wilderness.

Yeah, we enjoy that stuff – except me, because I officially dumped my 2001 Jealousy Wagon and my Lexus wouldn't see a dirt road in a hundred years – but we also do other funky stuff. The brothers ice skate (and inline skate when the weather isn't subzero); Isaac develops computer processing cores out of his apartment; George does his sewing and skeet shooting; Ben plays golf and is a top contributor to PalmStalk, the premier palm tree cultivation and surveying forum; Alex plays soccer and reads fiction; I myself enjoy some good, old fashioned electric guitar playing.

But get us all into a room outside of work, and all of a sudden, we turn to one topic in particular...

"If you were to even survive the blast, the EMP of a nuclear weapon would render the car's computer electronics useless," Isaac was explaining to us as we hunched over our meal; pancakes slathered in butter, maple syrup, or, in Isaac's case, a metric load of marmalade. He'd been delicately scooping the sickly-sweet orange substance from the tiny little Smucker's cups they give you at diners. It was the kind that it took five of just to coat one of Isaac's many pancakes in the desired amount, so it figured that he'd still be at the monumental task, especially after he made Alex and I scavenge for more of it at the nearby tables.

"But you should be inside for nuclear radiation anyhow," Wil stated through bites of his potato hash. "Brick buildings or concrete, if you can."

"We're not talking about staying somewhere though, Wil. This is all about trying to get someplace, isn't it?" At her rhetorical expression, Alex peered about the constellation of maroon, teal green, and glassy mirrors – the standard trappings of a seafaring 1990s RV interior, or a booth amongst the surroundings of the Shimmering Diner.

It wasn't really called that, but ever since I was a young kid, I'd called the place the "Shiny Diner" after its silvery exterior, marked at each corner by a rounded floor-to-ceiling installment of glass blocks. Since I was older now, it'd graduated into the "Shimmering Diner," so as to sound more formal or something.

"If we're discussing that matter," Isaac chided, with his fork dipping into what had now become marmalade and pancake soup, "then we should discuss a non-nuclear Armageddon scenario."

Everyone chewed on that prospect for a second. Literally, because we all took a breath to make our first bites of the flapjack dinner.

"Hopper says that he once rode his skateboard through a hurricane."

The eyes pivoted to me upon the mention of not only the youthful member of the PodunkWorks aircraft firm crew, but also the absurdity of his claim. I mean, who's ever heard of a guy skateboarding to get back home in water up to his knees and hurricane force winds?!

"But on a skateboard, you're not getting over much!" Alex managed through a swig of Coca-Cola. She was a Coke girl, not a Pepsi one. "A motorcycle, now that's an Armageddon vehicle."

"Remember the elderly gentleman who came in that one time for an Outrun?" Freddy prompted from the inside seat of the booth. We were all crammed in three-across-from-three into the booth, with George and Ben assuming chairs at the edge of the peninsula-like table.

Orv formed his boyish chuckle at the thought, while his brother simply affixed a nod of recollection to Frederick, who sat astride the two of them.

"Of course," Wil replied.