Friday, April 10, 2009

A Hell of a Trip to Bizzaro World

So I survived the trip to TN, to see my boys - which was questionable for a bit there. I was expecting to hit the shit weather in TN, not in KY, which was just supposed to be occasional showers. Yet it was in KY that I was hammered by a nasty deluge of heavy rain and occasional thunder and lightening. It was also in KY, where I almost changed lanes into a asshole who didn't think he needed his lights on - when the sky is twilight dark, visibility is about 200 feet and he's driving a black car. And he wasn't the only moron without their lights on.

It was also in KY that I discovered that the reason I had to cut the zip ties off the old wiper blades, is because the wiper arms aren't the right kind for my vehicle and so the blades don't lock into place properly - even though they seem to be locked in just fine. I will only say that I'm grateful the one that popped loose didn't go flying off - but it came really close and would have had I not noticed it initially start off the pin and took the next exit. When I actually stopped and lifted the arm, it fell right off...Also glad that the gas station I stopped at had zip ties.

Saw the boys for a bit before checking into my hotel - made it just before their bedtime (and am looking forward to mine, as soon as I can wind down from the damned drive). They were very excited to see me and I am certain we'll be having the big fun this weekend. Although I am not sure how fun the competing for papa's lap will be - we'll see how it goes.

And then I checked into the hotel - a pretty cheap one. I discovered that it is actually an improvement on the one that we stayed at when my mom came last time - that one being about fifty percent more than this one. And it is a definite improvement on the cheap one I stayed at before that - which was a little more than this one if I recall.

Onto the strange then. My base assumption when dealing with folks around here, is that the person I'm talking to is somewhere on the spectrum of right of center to extremely right of center - and given the bumper stickers and overheard discussions, it is generally a safe assumption to make. Not to say that folks in these parts aren't decent folks, some of them exceptionally so - just saying that they tend to be far more conservative than the folks back home, who tend to be staunch moderates. And a huge difference from Portland, where I pretty much qualify as a conservative myself.

So I stopped into a bar to grab a bite and there was a news show on, discussing a anti-gay marriage organization. There were a couple of guys sitting around the corner of the bar from me talking, when one of them noticed me scowl at the tee vee. The next thing I know, I'm in a very interesting discussion about gay marriage, in which both of them were pro and one of them really went off on a rant about it. Explaining that it's just nobody's damned business if people want to marry people of the same sex and how it wouldn't do a damned thing to hurt his marriage.

I love people sometimes - though not so much when I'm driving.

4 comments:

leigh said...

i love driving through kentucky (it's part of the trek home from mega u)... at about 2am when the only other people on the roads in the back country are the professional drivers. otherwise, no thanks.

talk about the worst way ever to find out your vehicle has screwed up equipment. the previous owner needs a smack upside the head.

enjoy your time with your kids!

Juniper Shoemaker said...

I'm glad you arrived safely!

Unknown said...

I have an unfortunate trend toward contrariness, so here in Portland I tend to be aggressively moderate with strong libertarian overtones, in the face of all the liberal pieties around me. It was the same in NYC. Haven't lived anywhere very conservative, but I imagine I'd practically become Marxist.

But it is always important to remember, as you point out, that people are people, whatever their views, and those views will sometimes surprise you.

Sounds like a good trip already!

Cath@VWXYNot? said...

The word verification is "hopers", which seems appropriate :)