TravelLog 2

Continuing my TravelLog Series with more on my trip to Florida:

Wednesday 22 March 2006, 19:33 ET – N 37º44.4' W 81º12.4' – Macarthur, WV

Well, dinner wasn't very fun. It's a good thing I can laugh at myself.

I went to Sbarro, one of the "fine establishments" of the food court. The female drum major, to whom I was writing random notes earlier, was right behind me in line. She ordered a slice of cheese pizza, and when the lady behind the counter handed it to her, she dropped it. Right onto the front of my band jacket.

Even though garlic rolls were listed on their menu for individual sale at 79 cents a piece, the second lady would not give me one because I didn't get pasta. As I proceeded down the line, I stepped in a serving of spilled spaghetti that the third lady insists she warned me about (although probably only at a few soft decibels). So yeah. I'll be walking around with bits of spaghetti in my shoes, though I got most of it out.

Anyway, my slice of pizza was all I bought there. No drink, no garlic roll I wanted anyways. But I was still hungry, so I went to the Burger King nearby. Not hungry enough for a full meal, I asked if I could get a single cheeseburger in a meal (planning on getting a medium instead of a large). The girl at the register said I could do so only if I got a Kids' Meal. So I did. I mean, come on, I felt ridiculous, but I could give the top to one of my younger cousins or something, right?

Well, after specifically, asking for a plain burger, I got one covered with, among other things, mustard. I despise mustard. So I took it back to the counter, and after some additional wait, I got one the way I asked for it.

Now, it's always been a family rule that you can't look at your toy, let alone play with it, until you've finished your meal. So I observed this rule. But once the moment of truth arrived, I found that I had been given the "three and under" toy. Pathetic. Dearbeck was thoroughly amused though. Both by my experience and by my toy.

Ha ha ha.

Begging for someone to make my day better, pizza-dropping girl informed me that it was almost over. Okay then. Yay.

Wednesday 22 March 2006, 22:15 ET – N 35º53.0' W 80º52.0' – Statesville, NC

Finally. The officially designated quiet time. Yay.

Except, yeah, we're all pretty much on each others' nerves. My brother is flaming mad because someone else's Burger King drink rolled forward into his seat and spilled itself all over his kid-friendly road atlas (he's trying to learn navigational skills). A Pop-Tart rapper also appeared next to the culpable beverage, so of course he linked that to the crime.

"Okay, who ate the Pop-Tart?!?"

"No one's listening to you; they don't care."

"Well everyone's blaming me for it."

"No one has blamed you for anything."

"Well they keep telling me to pick up the mess. I call that blaming."

"They're simply asking you to pick it up so the bus doesn't have to be a pigsty."

"This kid's drink ruined my map!"

"Well fine, if you want to be a jerk about it, do so on your own time at your own expense. But be considerate of those of us who aren't involved at all."

"Well they haven't been very considerate of me."

And so on. For well over ten minutes, before he switched to something else that irked him. Before the rest stop, it was the movie. Or, rather, the people talking over the movie so he couldn't hear it. I could have told anyone that when you play two movies back-to-back, no one is going to pay attention to the second one.

And it didn't help that it was his favorite movie, either, Monty Python and the Holy Grail. I mean, it's a good movie, it's funny, but, let's face it, better films have been produced. And right after Monsters, Inc. with a bus full of mostly freshmen who don't know what it is, it doesn't stand a chance.

Now it's people's cell phones. They keep ringing, and every time, my brother gets wound up and says, "What the heck?" angrily, or something to that effect. Mind you, this is approximately once every three minutes right now.

I can't wait for people to fall asleep.