My 100 Kilometre Relationship

It had been about two hours. I had been standing on the side of the road with my thumb stuck out to every car on the highway. I’m a big guy, 6 foot 3, 90 kilos, but that’s not why people weren’t willing to pick me up. It was my nose. It was completely swollen, badly bruised, covered in tape and slanted at a 45-degree angle. That’s what was scaring people off. Another 15 minutes gone and eventually, a sky-blue Toyota Corolla came towards me.

It stopped about 10 metres away. The driver spoke with the passenger for a couple seconds and then they rolled forward and stopped right by me. The passenger rolled down the window and said ‘where you headed?’ I cheerfully replied ‘about 100 kilometres away.’ He smiled and said ‘hop in, we’ll take you most of the way.’ And that’s how it started, my 100 kilometre friendship with two strangers.

I sat down in the car, behind the passenger seat. I buckled in. The driver hit the gas and instantly, I was asked, ‘what happened to your nose?’ I just laughed and said, ‘it’s a long story.’ They both simultaneously uttered the words ‘we have time,’ so I began telling these two strangers the story of how I broke my nose, because we had time.

They remained quiet throughout my entire story, the whole 15 kilometres it took. They sat silently, motionless, except for the driver of course. I finished the story and they both responded, slightly shocked, ‘wow.’ They sat still for another moment and then the guy in front of me, in the passenger seat, said ‘we forgot to introduce ourselves. I’m Sean and my friend next to me is Dylan.’ I said, ‘nice to meet you, I’m Roger.’ Then the next 85 kilometres began.

Music was playing softly in the car. There was some casual conversation between Sean and me, otherwise, nothing, just the hum of the engine. It was boring, so I thought I’d spice it up. Sean had told me that he was a stock broker in a big investment firm, so I started testing him. Question after question, not that I knew much, but he answered every time, correctly, I thought. Then I threw a curveball, I said ‘have you ever done something that got you into trouble?’ He froze. He looked scared, even confused. He looked at me with piercing eyes. I apologised and said I’ll stop with the questions. He sighed and words starting coming out of his mouth. He said ‘it didn’t really get me into trouble.’ Then he proceeded ‘I never meant to do it. I was under extreme pressure from my boss to increase my earnings and under even bigger pressure from one of my clients to improve their stock. So, I did what anyone else would have done, I floated the stock and bought into it myself. Two birds, one stone.

It worked, really well actually. My boss was impressed and my clients were overjoyed. No one knew how I did it, no one does. Except Dylan. And you.’ I thanked him deeply for sharing and then I sat quietly, for the rest of the ride.

We were about 2 kilometres away from my destination. I told Dylan and he said ‘no problem, we’ll turn off at the next stop.’

We arrived. I smiled and thanked both Sean and Dylan. I said ‘maybe I’ll catch you guys another time.’ I started walking away and Sean shouted out ‘fix your nose if you find time!’ I laughed and continued walking. My 100 kilometre friendship. My single serve friends. As soon as they drove off, I walked back to the side of the road and stood there, with my thumb stuck out.

I love to travel, especially by car with random strangers who are kind enough to pick me up off the side of the road. Hitch hiking doesn’t really matter where you are going, just who you are with. That’s why I love to hitch hike, the journey is amazing, and it’s done with strangers.

Thanks for reading! Hope you enjoyed my first car travel blog.

Signing off,

Benji Greenstein