Jay’s #TBT: The Magical Floating Wal-Mart Bag

For this week's #TBT, I wanted to write about one of my favorite stories ever.

This is one of my favorite moments, partly because it's absolutely stupid. It's insane that not only do I vividly remember this story, but I have also told it to friends and on the radio easily hundreds of times. Every time I tell the story, it's always met with the same reaction... "Man, what a build-up then a let-down."

So I wanted to get that out of the way early. This is definitely one story that I have, that very likely only I truly care about. It's simply dumb, and yet, it's a story that I'll always tell with the same amount of passion for as long as I live, even if no one I know thinks it's 1/100th as cool as I do.

So, years ago, I was driving my 1984 Datsun 300zx down 31-32 near Mansfield road. This was probably 10 years ago, or so. It was one of those storybook beautiful Shreveport days. One of those days where I was absolutely broke, and things weren't necessarily going well for me at the time, but the day was so beautiful and perfect that it lifted my spirits.

I was driving along in my dream car, on a perfect day, when in the very far distance, I saw a Wal-Mart bag floating and bouncing along the highway.

I want you to understand, this bag was incredibly far away like when I first noticed it, I had no clue it was a plastic grocery bag. I just saw this thing bouncing like a bouncy ball, and for whatever reason, it caught my attention.

This bag was bouncing on the opposite side of the highway, so as I got closer to it, I kept watching it knowing it most likely couldn't possibly come in my direction. As I continued to drive, I notice that a large truck flew by, and the bag was now drifting over across the median, seemingly directly at me. I don't know why, but I had the urge to stick my hand out of the window, hold it as high as I can, and see if somehow the bag would find it's way to my hand.

A few seconds later, as I'm flying at around 70 MPH, like a magnet, this bag shoots from street-level, all the way into my hand. SWOOSH. It made the weirdest sound. It took me a second to fully comprehend what just happened, but then I just busted out laughing at how insane it all was, all while continuing to drive with my hand out of the window, with the bag wrapped completely around my arm.

I have no idea why I love this story so much, to this day, but somehow I think about it constantly.