Remember those test questions on those SAT and ACT test that wanted to know which item in four did not belong to the group? Here’s one for you:

a) Empty bottle of apple cider vinegar
b) Sheriff’s Deputy
c) Frost
d) Joe

Give up?

The correct answer is “D.”

After our Friday Night with Abba (which was absolutely phenomenal, by the way — more on it tomorrow), everyone left to go home. We had been far too engaged in our evening and everyone had reluctantly left the building around 11:15 that night. We were pulling into our driveway when we got a “please come help us!” call from some of the folks who’d been present at the gathering. They’d run out of gas in the middle of nowhere between Leland and Shallotte.

We rummaged through the trash, found an empty bottle of apple cider vinegar, found a gas station still open at 11:45pm and headed back across the river to find our stranded friends. They’s said they were 5 miles outside of Leland… turns out they were 17!

We put the gas in the car only to discover that the battery had died and wouldn’t crank the car. A call to the Sheriff’s department brought the nicest deputy I’ve ever met within 5 minutes of the call (neither of us had jumper cables in our cars).

As the deputy and I were hooking up his “jump box,” we both commented on how hard it was to stand up because we kept slipping on the frost.

After the adventure ended, we pulled up in the driveway, again, only it was now 1:15am.

THAT was what wasn’t supposed to be in the group — ME!