Back in 1999, during our winter holidays we frequented many places in Midwest. Since I went to a school in Illinois, and all my final exams was over well before Christmas Holidays, a friend and me drove to multiple cities like Milwaukee, Minneapolis, St. Louis and Indianapolis and stayed at our friends and drank and became stupid.

This happened on our trip from St. Louis to Indianapolis on a cold December evening.

We left St. Louis at 6:00pm and expected to reach Indy at 10:00, but it never happened.

My friend who had been in US for only six months could never caulk his excitement when he had to drive. In fact during that trip, he drove over 1000 miles without complaining.  

So towards the end of our trip, we left St. Louis and headed towards Indy driving East on Interstate 70. 

I remember telling him something before I went to sleep – ‘GO STRAIGHT ON I-70 EAST’

BIG MISTAKE!

Actually I was technically correct, but then he perhaps overlooked the I-70 part and went straight ahead.

We were driving on I-70 East/I-55 North (merged interstates) when we left St. Louis, and the highways separate at a certain exit. We were supposed to take that exit and drive east on I-70.

Instead he kept on driving I-55 North.

I was asleep the entire time (something I always do when someone else drives), while he was busy singing after Tupac Shakur.

The dude drove past Springfield and Bloomington and kept driving humming the songs and rocking his tiny ass body and dreaming of some gangsta s#!t all the time until he saw city lights far away.

“दा उठिस्यो, इन्डियानापोलिस आयो” – he nudged me awake.

And when I woke up, I realized, to my horror; that the dude had driven for five hours on a wrong interstate….

…and we had reached Chicago.