What a day

At 4:30 a.m. I got a call asking if I planned to bring an extra shirt.

At 5:30 a.m. the caller and I were on the road.

Will is a driver with a death wish. His 1993 Chevy, which already has a dent that extends from the driver-side headlight passed the edges of the door and is inches deep, blasted through the rain, over the slippery road (I-95) at 90 mph — 80 mph when he sent e-mails from his Blackberry (to who at 5:30 a.m.? I don't know either.)

I accepted that I would die before the student newspaper's Web editor and I arrived at the gay marriage debate in Augusta, Maine. This made the ride much easier.

Until the glam rock.

Here is a snippet of the lyrical value I weathered for the 2-hour ride, made 50-minute ride.

"You know honey, honey

That it's so funny, funny

That you mean so much to me."

Now imagine a man in glittery platform heels singing it. OK? Now repeat the above lyrics 20 times. OK. Will sang along cheerily  — cheerily; at 5:45 a.m. Thankfully, I was just coming into consciousness as Dunkin Donuts' medium hazelnut with cream and sugar eased its way through me.

Separate from Will and me, our copy editor turned video helper Kaley rode a bus down. Her assignment: Write a feature about riding the bus with UMaine gay, student activists.

It doesn't take the B- I got in calculus to figure this one out. Kaley's bus left UMaine at 5 a.m. 

Will and I left campus at 5:30 a.m.

The ride was approximately 95 miles.

Will passed the bus 70 miles into the drive.

Before reluctantly passing the bus — not "reluctantly" because he was worried about crashing into another car while going 90 mph down a wet highway and having his 16 year old Chevy burst into flames which would sizzle in the drizzle — no. He needed to say hello. To Kaley. In the bus. To achieve this, which he didn't, he stayed parallel to the bus for a good two miles. This held up the other one car on I-95 that morning.

We got there though. We got there where I reported on the debate on gay marriage in Maine for 12 hours, not including the drive, set up and break down of all the equipment. We then got back and edited a newspaper. All in a day's work.