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| ... A Toast...to a new world of Candy and Monsters... | ||
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5.27.2004 | |
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Part 2 of the rambling Odyssey... The caravan hops back into their respective vehicles. We in the Honda Odyssey, they in the Nissan Sentra and HUUUUUUUGE off-white box van. (shadows of the initial DC sniper reports).We drive to the small town that's "only a few miles away" from Raleigh - Dunn, NC, ladies and gentlemen. Look up Dunn on a map. It's not a few miles away from Raleigh. "A few miles" away turns into a full 60 minutes of driving, possibly getting lost, but - oh, I guess we weren't lost. Oh, look, we're here. And it's only 9:00 by now. Small annoyances aside, we're back in the car by around 9:30. With our coordinator friend, who wants to put down "a few last minute signs." I pray to the heavens that this is the opposite of the "few" miles we just drove. Not so. There are tens of millions of wooden stakes and paper arrows in the back of my van. I am the bicycling vampire slayer. "A few minutes later" we're finished putting up the little wooden signs everywhere from here to the cat's meow. (I don't know what that means.) So we hunker down for the last sign (my hands are raw by this time - they do not believe in hammers in Dunn, NC), and it goes into the ground quite easily - no splinters! There is much rejoicing. (yaaaay.) BAM! In a flash, we're back in the car heading to the hotel - I'm still thinking "wow, need to find a bar." Shelly (still alive and well at this point) is thinking "Wow, we need to check into the hotel." Dammit, she's right. We peel into Dunn, NC's own Jameson Inn - it's kind of a southern charm homeless shelter for cockroaches. The girl behind the counter checks me in for my TWO rooms, and yells behind to Shelly, standing in the lobby - "Hey, if you ain't gotta room now, y'ain't gettin' one ta-night!" "Um, she's with me. That's why the two rooms." She glares at me and is so consumed with rage she cannot speak. Or maybe she had fulfilled her talking quota for the night. Who knows? I grab our room keys and we split - dump off our luggage and hop back in the Honda Coffin to find a place to eat. No problem! I'm thinking - it's only 11:00 at night - there's gotta be something open - even a grocery store, a Denny's, something! Right? Right?? Riiiiiight? No, Virginia - Dunn, NC has no late evening restaurants. I begin to turn into a gas station to ask directions to a place where we COULD eat, even if it was in the next town. As if to illustrate my point with deadly precision, the gas station attendant shuts down all the lights at the station, including the sign - while staring me right in the face. I start to ask him a question, he walks back inside the station office. Ooo-kay. So much for southern hospitality. Suddenly it dawns on me that since we're in the south, this may actually be a dry county. Horror creeps up my spine as I turn to Shelly to convey my life's greatest fear... when out of the corner of my eye I spot a sign!! No, not the Jameson Inn again! Behind it! A STEAKHOUSE! We're saved!! I jam on the gas and we tear ass into the parking lot (going right past the Jameson Inn parking lot, where I could have turned left out of 20 minutes ago and saved us all this grief). The Rootin' Tootin' Steakhouse - you will never find a more wretched hive of scum and villany. We must be cautious. The Rootin' Tootin' has two guys standing in front - two guys, obviously drunk (this is a good sign), and with at least a full set of teeth between them - they eye my car. I ask "hey, either of you guys work here?" Ignoring my question, one of them saunters (ok, stumbles) up to the car "Heh. Virginia. Yeah, I got some family up 'ere in Chesapeake." "Hey, great. Yeah, we just drove through there!" (I have no idea where Chesapeake is). The dudes take off. I spot a host through the open door, tying the shoelaces of his new sneakers - ready to bolt. I ask him if they're still open. Sneaker Host replies, snottily "Yeah, well we close at 5 'til 11, so if it's 5 'til 11, we're closed!" Me: "Well, I've got 10:52, so it seems to me we've got a good 2, 3 minutes to spare!" Sneaker Host (incredulous): "Uh...Yeah, well... Awright." We are seated at a table near the back of the restaurant, and immediately a waitress comes over, hastily re-tying her apron. "Hey, welcome to the Rootin Tootin', can I get you somethin to drink, my name is..." she trails off. Waitress whips out two menus in front of Shelly and I - and without letting go of them, says "ok, what can I get ya." Uuuh... I order the fish. The FISH. I hate fish! Shelly orders a burger and we both get a beer. The waitress rips the menus from our clutching fingers and returns less than 1 minute later with two beers. She slams them down on the table and says "here you go. Oh yeah, that was last call. Sorry!" Gee, thanks. Minutes later, after suffering through the end of an American Idol rerun blasting through the tv, the "food" arrives. I get my fish on a plate. My entire fish. Head, eyeballs, skin, fins and all. My stomach attemps a jailbreak, but I beat it to death, Carandiru style. to Shelly: "Well, dig in!" She looks at me with the same look the fish is giving me, and we chow down. Er, sorta. Back at the Jameson Inn, we roll into bed around midnight and jump back out of bed at 4am, alarm blaring rudely. I slam in the contacts, take a quick shower and wait for death... no, I mean, I wait for Shelly to come down so we can drive to the event site. It would have been so easy just to turn around and run shrieking all the way home... But no, pain has a great friend in stupidity, and that day we were its bitches, Shelly and I. Posted by sarcophage @ 6:34:00 PM Add or check out a |
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5.20.2004 | |
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Read while you wait... While you're in the waiting room for the 2nd part (hopefully of 2!) of the North Carolina tale, take a read at this poignant but ultimately sad article pleading for reparations to the Star Wars trilogy's final chapter.http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/4980465/ Posted by sarcophage @ 2:46:00 PM Add or check out a |
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5.13.2004 | |
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Just kidding. Here it is. Part 1. Ok. Before I start with the Ballad of Rob & Shelly's Trip to North Carolina Part XVII, the sequel, I have to clear up a few things. First, there were no gummi worms. I'm proud of Dave for spelling "gummi" correctly, however. There were in fact, "Oompa Loompas," which are a new chewy Willy Wonka candy. There was also a Powerbar which I have just now realized is probably melted all over my Richard Pryor Greatest Bits CD because I left it in the car the past 2 weeks. Oops.WARNING!!! This story has twice in a row caused me to both lose my voice and knock the wind out of me when telling it - it is not for the faint of heart, or the short of attention span. (sharp inhale) Here goes. Somewhere around 6 weeks ago, I approached one of the Customer Service reps, Shelly, about going down to one of her events. The Customer Service reps all have about 30 events they are responsible for across the country. They make sure that all the people participating in the event get their information and money sent to the right place. "It'll be great," I assured her, attempting to affect that always-positive boss person voice while being jarringly aware of how little an authority I was on the subject. "How about one of the events you're having trouble with - you know, show them a little good faith and try to smooth out any ruffled feathers? Isn't Raleigh one of the offices that calls you to fix stuff a lot? That one would be good - Hey, it's a 2-day event - that sounds like a blast!" Even if you hadn't read Dave's semi-fictional account of this story, you can probably guess how accurate that last statement turned out to be. Fast-forward to the day we leave - 1pm on the friday before event date (the event starts Saturday morning, and goes through to Sunday night). Shelly and I are loading up in my (new-to-me) Honda Odyssey minivan. Scoff all you want - compared to a cramped sedan, it's like a frickin' cruise ship on long vacation trips! "Luggage." "Check." "Laptop?" "Check." "Cell phones?" "Check." "Map?" "Uh, well we have this National Geographic (tm) Atlas." "Works for me." "Willy Wonka brand candies?" "Check. And Check. Check." "Ok, I think we'r-" "Check." The caravan (actually it's an Odyssey) hits the road. 5 miles in Minutes later, we are hurtling down I-66 trying like rabid badgers to get out of the metro area before Traffic comes. Traffic is a huge bully who beats us up and steals our lunch money by robbing time away. Traffic is also the one thing all metro-Washingtonians fear. As soon as we get a fair distance away, I break out the Oompa Loompas and big blue soda. (it had a great name on the label, which is the 2nd reason I bought it*, but for the life of me, I can't remember it) Shelly turns to me and says "shouldn't we eat, you know, food?" Oh yeah. I pull into a conveniently located Wendy's 6 lanes and 4 feet ahead of our prior position. Rubber scorches the pavement. Several dozen hubcaps fly out in lovely arcing patterns. We pull part way into the drive-through when a nearby van begins a journey backwards straight at the side door of my van! I jam on the horn! He's still comin' (apparently very slowly). I jam HARDER on the horn. He stops, bothers to roll down his window, and actually shakes his fist at me! Hmph. I must have been in his "bubble." Undaunted, we continue up to the drive-through driveway when a rather old lady 3 or 4 cars ahead of us suddenly jumps out of her vehicle and begins hurling her arms and fists at us, as if she's practicing for the national windmill championships, but she never quite got the hang of making her arms go in different directions - The old woman walks directly up to each car in line and yells DIRECTLY into the driver's side window "it's BROKEN!! You'll have to back UUUUUUP!" She steps back and continues with the windmill hand gestures (which by the second car I gather to mean "back up"), then walks up to the next car and does the exact same thing! By the time she reaches the Shelly and Rob mobile, we are trying desperately to keep a straight face, which was about as plausible at this point as doing the same in church after the priest has flatulated loudly into the pulpit microphone. I nod in agreement or acknowledgment - I'm still not sure which, and begin the backwards creep into the car behind me, the driver of which who has also caught on and is doing the same thing to the person behind him. We are creeping inch by inch to our doom, ladies and gentlemen. I back up enough to sneak out the chicken exit built into the drive-through path for those not brave enough to follow through to the end, and we make a break for I-95, just up the road. I turn to Shelly with "boy, I tell ya, ever since Dave died, Wendy's just hasn't been the same." Oh what a comic am I. 30 miles in Yes, that number is correct. It just seems like we were further along. Sigh. As I hear and feel the soft "THUNK! THUNK!" of the I-95 potholes beneath my van's steadily weakening tires(Virginia's tax dollars at work), I see a small black thing way up ahead on the left side of the road. As we get closer and closer to it, I realize that it is a cute little kitty. A.. black.. one. That has just made its way to the right side of the road, thereby officially Crossing Our Path. Hoo boy. Not being particularly superstitious, I quickly knock on a piece of wood, rub a rabbit's foot, and pick up seven pennies, head side up. Shelly and I look at each other and exchange a glance that says "Well, normally I wouldn't be all that concerned or take it as an ill omen, but isn't it a little bizarre to have a small ebony feline cross a major state highway with the imminent skull-crushing danger of semi-trucks constantly careening past on two wheels? But it's probably just a coincidence - what's the worst that could happen?" Nothing happens for the next 80 miles. Oh wait, my mistake - something did happen. Some way down I-95 I got on highway 1, which was clearly marked on my directions. What wasn't so clearly marked was that I needed to take highway 1 in NORTH CAROLINA, not Virginia, which we were still in. (yes, still). On a side note, we did get the benefit of seeing several small southern Virginia towns, as they were like in the late 1800s. And still are today. In order to turn around and get back to I-95, we turned down Po'White Drive (I swear I am not making this up!). On the left side of the road, big as day and twice as important, I saw the following billboard ad for a motel - it read: "Having an affair?! STAY WITH US!! Dempsey Inn 848-2534" I was so flabbergasted we turned around and drove by it again. Yep, that's really what it said. Shelly grabbed a pen and wrote it down. Ok. Seriously now, we've GOT to get back on 95 and head south to Raleigh. We do just that - many MANY hours later we come up on the city limits of Raleigh. Raleigh. Not to be too flip, but the only reason I could tell that we had hit Raleigh was that Shelly and I saw a large black man shuffling down the street against the 6-lane city traffic, trying to hitch a ride. His hat said "RALEIGH." We named him Welcome Wagon Wayne. A quick cellphone call to our friends in the local office lends us directions to the Chick-Fil-A that's "just past the Home Depot and Best Buy on the right side. You can't miss it." Huh. You may notice that this story is filled with ironic sentences like that one. We pass a gas station. We pass Cracker Barrell. We pass Home Depot. We pass Best Buy. We pass some building that seems to have burned down. We pass Fashion Bug. Surely we've passed the Chick-Fil-A, since the next building in the area - a Home Medical Supply Store - could not possibly be mistaken for a restaurant. I'm not worried, though - after all, We Can't Miss It. Re-read that last paragraph and guess which building it turned out to be. Oh, it was there all right. And we'd missed it. Upon closer inspection, the bombed-out building we had passed had taped to the side a tiny 8 1/2" x 11" sign that read simply "We Are Open." Oh. So either this is a store called "We Are Open" or they're trying to tell us something. I take a chance and pull into the driveway. Hey, whaddaya know - there are our two friends sitting in the front booth at the Chick-Filet** . We walk in, exchange pleasantries and I ask "Ok, you gotta tell me - what the hell happened to this place?! It looks like Beiruit outside!" The reply I receive is "What? What do you mean? What's wrong with it?" We walk outside, and I point to the charred and mangled remains of the sign-holding cow. It now reads (faintly) "Eet muxxh xhikin." I point to the scarred tree which had been uprooted by part of the ROOF collapsing on it. I point to the blackened shingles and hole in the top of the building. "Oh! I hadn't even noticed! Wow." It is going to be a long weekend. to be continued. * you already know the first reason is just because it's blue. ** never has a name been more fitting Posted by sarcophage @ 12:14:00 AM Add or check out a |
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A Challenge has been put forth. The gauntlet thrown. This evening, a very peculiar Dave Alexander phone call met my ears (in this case, I mean the phone call was peculiar). To my great surprise, I was informed that1) someone(s) reads my inane blog, and 2) these single-digit hordes of readers are fairly chomping at the bit to hear my life's story, as told in the form of a weekend trip to North Carolina. I have learned much in the days between my last post and this one. Most notably "Marketing works." Dave asked me if I would mind that he posted his version of my account of said North Carolina trip. I figured he'd worked pretty hard on it, as it's quite a long story (mark my words, you WILL be sorry you wanted to read it!) so I said go for it. I've read it, and man, it's a doozy! WILL Rob and Shelly ever be able to make it out of North Carolina alive? HOW will they survive the sinister rain and the horrendous Red Stop Lights of Rural Town, NC? And what exactly DID they have for dinner that night? I'd hate to keep you waiting any longer to hear/read the story, so without further ado... here's a link to Dave's version. Posted by sarcophage @ 12:01:00 AM Add or check out a |
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5.03.2004 | |
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Wow. No update in 2 months - this is depressing!Well, I am here to update y'alls with the MOTHER trip update of all time! This past weekend (may 1-2) I visited North Carolina because I am a sick, sadistic bastard. And also because I had to for work. What followed was one of the most unbelievable, hilarious and frightening trips of my entire life. An' I been on a lotta trips. Details to come. Posted by sarcophage @ 4:41:00 PM Add or check out a |
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