Joe drove down the interstate in his mother’s mini-van. All of his friends were with him; Dude, Candy, Rose and Homey. They were on their way to the mall. Since Joe was the only one who could legally drive he was taking them.

They were all arguing in the back, “I’m telling you, they exist.” Homey was insisting.

“No they don’t!” Dude argued.

“I swear on this bible! They are real!”

Rose glared at Homey, “First of all, that’s not a bible, that’s a phonebook! And second of all, how many times do I have to tell you, the Keebler Elves do NOT exist!”

“But I SAW them!” Homey whined, “They were going through my underwear drawer!”

“No Homey, you didn’t see the Keebler Elves. What you saw were Gremlins.” Dude said.

“Oh God Dude, please don’t start that again!” Candy groaned.

“I swear to God I saw them! They were watching King Kong vs. Godzilla Live on Pay-Per-View!”

Candy sighed and rolled her eyes.

Joe growled under his breath and turned the volume up on his radio to drown them out. His favorite song began playing. Joe nodded his head and tapped his foot to the tune. The problem was, that was the foot that was working the gas pedal.

The van started to lunge forward and back, jerking its passengers back and forth, until everyone screamed at the driver, “JOE!!”

Joe came out of his little musical happy place and turned to face the four people he called friends. “I’m Sorry. Excuse me if I have a rhythm.” He snapped.

“WATCH THE ROAD YOU MORON!!” They frantically screamed at him.

“Well, if you are going to call me names, maybe I shouldn’t even drive at all.” And with that, Joe let go of the steering wheel.

“WHOULD YOU GRAB THE FREAKING STEERING WHEEL!?” they all screamed, except for Homey, who shouted something about a monkey eating cheese for some odd reason.

Joe didn’t do anything, even as the van slowly veered towards the forest. It was then, in one motion, that Rose heroically dived forward and seized the steering wheel. She gave it a yank and the van quickly veered the other direction. She straightened it out and roughly grabbed Joe’s wrists, slammed them on the steering wheel, and clenched his fingers around it.

“THERE! NOW YOU DON’T DO ANYTHING BUT DRIVE! DO YOU UNDERSTAND ME!?” Rose bellowed.

“Yes mother.” Joe grumpily mumbled to himself.

“What was that?” Rose asked, a threatening tone in her voice. Joe didn’t have a chance to respond. Suddenly a loud BANG! erupted from outside the van.

Dude clutched his chest and wailed, “AUUGH!! I’VE BEEN SHOT!” before he flopped upon the floor and lifelessly lied there.

“What in the world was that?” Candy exclaimed.

“Sorry.” Homey replied, “I shouldn’t have had those burritos for lunch.”

Rose punched him in the arm, “Oh shut up! It wasn’t you.” She growled, “It sounded like we may have blown a tire.”

Dude opened his eyes, and slowly sat up, feeling his body in utter disbelief, “I-I- I’M ALIVE! IT’S A MIRICLE!” He cried out joyously, “What did I miss?”

“Great!” Joe whined, as he pulled the van over to the side of the road, “Just great, we blew a tire in the middle of the dang interstate. Life is so grand!” He sarcastically remarked.

Everybody sat in silence for a few minutes. Then Joe turned to face everyone,

“Does anyone here know how to change a tire?”

They all stared blankly at him, until Candy asked, “Don’t you know how to change a tire Joe?”

He gave her a “yeah-right” look and remarked, “Yeah, sure I do Candy. I love to change tires while I’m working on my GT-500 in the chop shop!”

“Sweet! You have a GT-500?” Dude exclaimed.

“No Way! How come you never told us?” Homey asked in amazement.

Rose took a hold of Dude and Homey’s heads, and rammed them together. The two boys fell to the floor.

Candy gave him a stern look, and said, “You don’t need to yell at me Joe. And there’s no need for sarcasm either.”

“I think I know how,” Rose chimed in as she poked Homey with a stick to see if he was still alive, “First we need a jack.”

Homey opened his eyes and sat up as the stick jabbed him in the ribs, “Leave that to me,” He slapped the stick away as Rose continued to poke him with it.

He got up and went outside around to the back of the van. Everyone watched him open the back door, and for a couple of seconds he looked like he was doing something.

“Ok, what the heck is he doing?” Rose asked everyone, as she watched her boyfriend out the window.

“It looks like he’s standing on the side of the road holding up a sign.” Joe said looking at her through the rearview mirror.

“He’s hitch-hiking a ride to Disneyland without us?” Dude exclaimed, “That’s a new low even for him!”

Rose gave a frustrated growl and went outside. Homey was holding up cardboard sign that had “Jack” written on it in big bold letters, and he was screaming at the top of his lungs, “JACK!YO JACK! WE NEED YOUR HELP JACK! COME ON JACK! DON’T LET US DIE OUT HERE!”

“What are you doing!?” Rose growled through clenched teeth.

“I’m trying to find a Jack.” Homey replied as if it were obvious. “JACK, HELP US!” he continued shouting as cars drove past giving him the finger and shouting obscene things at him, to which he screamed back, “THANKS!”

“WOULD YOU GET BACK IN THE VAN!?” Rose roared, cuffing him upside the head.

“Geez ok! I’m going!” Homey said angrily.

SMACK! Rose belted him again, “Ow! What was that for?” Homey whined.

“That was for talking back” she barked, and hit him again, “Twice!”

He growled at her under his breath, SMACK! “That’s for growling at me.”

He turned his back to her and rolled his eyes, SMACK! “That’s for rolling those eyes of yours at me!”

He sighed and started walking towards the van, thinking to himself, SMACK! “That was for thinking angry thoughts about me!”

A few seconds passed, SMACK! “Hey!” Homey griped, “I didn’t do anything this time! What was that for?”

“That was because I felt like it.” She said.

Joe opened his door and walked over to them, “If you two are finished flirting with each other or whatever you two call it, I think that I have a spare tire and possibly a jack in the storage compartment underneath the back seat.”

Everyone else began to file out of the van, “ We are all going to help to change this tire,” Candy said as she approached, “We figured that if we all work together we might actually have a chance of figuring this problem out.”

Everyone exchanged smiles with each other (even Rose!) , They all were starting to remember just why they were all friends. They worked together so well, even if they couldn’t stand one another.

Joe opened the storage compartment and discovered a jack. But no tire! “Hey! Where’s my spare tire?” Joe exclaimed.

“Spare tire?” Homey asked with the usual high pitch and nervous twitch in his voice that he got when he knew he was in trouble.

Everyone immeadetly turned on him, “Homey, what did you do?”

“Homey sheepishly grinned and quietly replied, “ I thought it was an inner tube.”

Upon hearing this, Dude began to slowly creep away from the group. Rose grabbed him with one hand before he could get far, “Do you have some part of this Dude?” She asked menacingly.

“Well, kinda,” He replied, “Last weekend we were going to go to the beach. Well, Homey wanted an inner tube. Neither of us had one, but we thought that you might Joe. So I waited outside while Homey went to go look in your garage for an inner tube. We knew that you wouldn’t mind.”

“Wrong! I DO mind!” Joe yelled, “ Where did you think I would be alright with you two just prowling around my property? How do I know you two don’t sneak in my house through some little secret passage underneath my bed?”

Homey started to say something that sound like, “He knows about the tunnel,” but Dude kicked him in the shin while saying “shut up.” out of the corner of his mouth.

“Anyways,” Dude continued, “He came out with this black tube. I didn’t know it was a tire from the van.”

“That’s where that tire went!” Joe said to himself, “Mom did say one of the tires was stolen a couple weeks ago. She had to use the spare to replace it. I should have known it was you two. Did you at least bring it back?”

“Not really,” Homey answered, “I didn’t take the rim off you see, and as a result… it kinda sank to the bottom of the river like a rock.”

Everyone stared at him in disbelief, “I had no idea you were that stupid Homey.” Rose said, “you honestly thought that the wheel could have been used as a flotation device? WITH the rim still on the thing!?”

“I did think it was a bit heavy, but then again, the Titanic was made of steel, and it floated.” Homey said, “…Until it kinda hit that iceberg and sank to the bottom of the ocean like a guy wearing cement shoes.”

“Just how stupid are you?” Rose said with a glare.

“I dunno… um, this much?” Homey said spreading his arms out.

Rose just glared at him and Dude, “It doesn’t matter, because we are going to go to the mall…” She spoke with an ice-cold tone, “… one way or another.”

A couple minutes later, Joe was stretched out quite comfortably on the back seat. Candy was reclined back in the passenger seat, looking very relaxed.

“It’s so nice not to be driving anymore.” He said.

“It is rather relaxing,” Candy agreed, as she stared out the window at the trees as they went by.

“We are slowing down a bit though,” Joe noticed, and shouted up front, “Rose! Can you speed up a bit please?”

Rose turned and faced him from the hood of the van where she sat. She nodded and cracked her whip, “HEY! LET’S PICK UP THE PACE! WE WANT TO GET THERE BY DARK!”

Dude and Homey reared up in fright at the crack of the whip, and started to run faster.

“Man, this is so humiliating,” Dude grumbled as he pulled on the collar around his neck.

“Hey, at least we get alfalfa and oats.” Homey said as he continued running with a feeder bag strapped to his head. He happily munched away as he pulled the van behind him. Two long chains were strapped to the bumper and the other ends were fasted to the collars around Dude and Homey’s necks.

“I said, let’s pick up the pace Black Beauties! “ Rose yelled as she cracked the whip again.

“This is one of the most embarrassing moments of my life.” Dude whined.

“Oh would you quite you’re complaining?” Homey snapped, “We get good food, plenty of exercise, and we also get these cool collars to wear.”

“Yeah, you should talk.” Dude said angrily, “At least you’re collar isn’t pink!”

“At least we get the great healthy food.” Homey said.

Dude glanced at his friend and replied, “You do know that is horse food don’t you?”

Homey just shrugged his shoulders and continued to happily munch away.