One of the most overrated birthdays ever in my opinion. Many times, people say “you only turn sixteen once.” Then I think to myself ‘well, I will not be turning 17 twice.’ Yet I was given money and pushed to have a party. I was not spending my own money, so my thought was ‘why not?’ Party planning is awfully stressful, no wonder I do not do this often, but I eventually was able to pull everything together at the last minute. By last minute I mean an hour before everyone had arrived.

The Saturday night of August 31, 2013 was the night of my party. I wanted this to be a night to remember, and eventually, one particular incident made sure that happened.

I had ordered a limousine to drive me and some of my friends around Dallas to do some fun stuff such as: going to the North Park Center to go shop in a beautiful, three-storey mall. Later in the evening, we ended up eating at The Cheesecake Factory which was really fun because I saw my basketball coach and all of us actually talked to each other for an extended period of time with limited social media interruption. What I mean by that is that in this day and age, being able to speak to multiple teenagers at the same time with limited twitter and instagram checks is an accomplishment.

The night was pretty fun to me, until a certain event happened...

We had just left the restaurant and were on our way back home when all of a sudden, the lights in the limo had faded away. These lights were on because the time was approximately 10 o’ clock at night. None of us thought this was a big deal because as soon as we got into the limo, everyone was back on their phones, so there was plenty of light to go around. Then something began to worry me because the air in the limo became thicker by the minute which is not a good sign when there are 10 people in a Lincoln Limousine. Me not being very observant did not realize how hot the limo had became until I started sweating in one of my favorite shirts, but it sadly shows even the smallest trickle of sweat. I then had asked my mother to turn the air conditioning on a high setting, but she had said “The air conditioning is on full blast.”

Knowing that at this point we were maybe 10 minutes away from home, I was okay with a little perspiration. But, then out of nowhere we begin slowing down and pulling to the side as a state trooper is flashing his lights and sounding his siren behind us on Stemmons Freeway. At this point, I am worried because I have never had a run in with the state law enforcement. Yet this was not about me or anyone in the limo, this was about the taillights that refused to turn on. This was when the limo driver told us that the power was out in the limousine due to the extremely high temperatures outdoors.

The trooper was saying how this was a dangerous time to be driving around with no lights because it was a Saturday night. Then the trooper also gave our limo driver a very sarcastic speech and made many sarcastic remarks when the driver was on the phone with his boss. After the trooper was done, he just left us still on the side of the highway stranded. I had asked the driver if he could open the sun roof, but having many people laugh, I realized you need electricity to power the roof.

The limo was very hot right now, so we had opened the doors to let the air circulate through. Our driver was telling us that many limos had broken down that day, but that was not my concern. My concern was getting my guests back home safely and within the four hours we paid the limo for. I was definitely not paying anything else for this broken down limo.

After approximately 20 minutes on Interstate 35, the limo company had sent an Escalade to come to our rescue and take us home.

We began piling out of the car and the outdoors felt like a whole new world. Outside, there was more of a breeze and the air was not as sticky as in the limo.

Before you say “Wow, you ordered a cheap limo,” let me say that there was a lot of money that went into renting this limo ride.

We began walking through the almost knee high grass to get to the Escalade slowly and carefully because the ground was slanted and what was in the grass was unknown.

All of us eventually made it to the sports utility vehicle and drove home. In the heat of the moment, I was worried that this would ruin my party, but like my friend had said “Something to tell the kids right?” So I guess the experience was quite funny and I will remember this day because this is the first and hopefully the last time I will ever ride in a limo that breaks down.