Originally posted on 2.9.18 — roughly three years ago: I used to hitchhike everywhere in my mid to late teens, and people used to pick me up. There were times when I’d have to wait for 15 or 20 minutes but someone always pulled over eventually. Those were the days.
The last time I thumbed a ride was ten years ago in Park City, and the only reason anyone stopped was because the Sundance Film Festival was on and I was wearing a press badge and my cowboy hat and I looked reasonably sane. Otherwise hitchhiking died…what, sometime in the mid ’70s?
I was hitching north on Route 7 in Wilton, Connecticut. Nancy, an old platonic friend from New Jersey, was with me, and dusk was starting to settle into night. The cars were whizzing by (30 or 35 mph) but I was situated near a big gravel shoulder that made it easy to pull over.
So I’m standing there and all of a sudden I was hit in my right shoulder…thunk. Like some dude had walked up and punched me. It didn’t exactly “hurt” but felt like a blow of some kind. I grabbed my shoulder and felt something gooey. And tiny bits of something brittle, like potato chips or pieces of plaster.
That’s right — a guy riding shotgun in somebody’s car had hit me with an egg.
There was a traffic light about 100 feet in front of where I was standing, and that’s surely where he spotted me from. A friend was driving, of course. They must have been out shopping — how else to explain a carton of eggs at the ready?
Imagine how fast the egg-tosser had to react. “Look at that fucking guy!” He immediately dove over the back seat and reached into one of the grocery bags. He ripped open an egg carton, grabbed one, rolled down the passenger window and told the driver to slow down a tad.
It’s not that hard to hit something from a moving car but you can miss if you’re not careful. Did he throw the egg like a baseball or did he do an underhand lob? Was he aiming for my head?
“The fuck…somebody just hit me with an egg!” I yelled. Nancy found this hilarious. Gales of laughter. I was mystified. Why would anyone do that? I was scraping the yolk and the gooey clear fluid off my jacket and throwing tiny gobs of it to the ground. Nancy couldn’t stop laughing.
For whatever reason I’ve never forgotten this moment.