Last night after Owen’s last baseball game (It was the championship game. They won. He hit a homerun. At the banquet Owen was chosen as the Most Valuable Player of the tournament.), we decided to take a little trip to Rogersville, Tennessee, where I had spent a few years as a child. It was a last minute idea with little or no preparation.
We left fairly early because it is a 200 mile trip. We stopped to have breakfast at Bo Jangles. Every morning, several older gentlemen have breakfast together to socialize, solve the problems of the world, and tell stories of the good ole days.
When I went into the restaurant, I left my purse in the trunk because it was so heavy. I was carrying my camera, a TomTom, my telephone, and my plastic bag with my user’s manuals for my camera, my telephone, and blue tooth headset. Well, you never know when you’ll need your instruction books. I also have a small flashlight, a pocket knife, cosmetics, sunglasses, etc., etc., etc. The purse weighs about 10 pounds.
I have a wallet to which I can attach a shoulder strap, so I often leave my purse in the car and just carry the wallet. I had laid the wallet on the table while we ate.
One the gentlemen passed by our table and noticed the wallet. He said to me, “I can’t believe you can only carry that little purse. My wife’s purse is big and so heavy she can hardly lift it.”
I then had to admit that my big, heavy purse was in the trunk of the car. I was a bit embarrassed. He thought it was funny.
Mr. Fixit recently purchased a new TomTom. He said that the battery in the old one wouldn’t hold a charge so he needed a new one. He gave me the old one which I now carry with me. (It seems to hold charge just fine for me.) I had programmed mine last night to show us the way to Rogersville. As we began our trip, I took it out of my purse. Mr. Fixit said he was going to program his new one. We compared information indicated on each unit. They both chose the same route, and the mileage was the same on both. However, there was a 30 minute difference in the travel times. He decided that we should leave them both on to see if we could determine how this discrepancy occurred.
I had an uncomfortable thought. “Do you see anything disturbing about us using two TomToms at the same time, programmed to go to the same place?” I asked. “What does that say about us? Can you say ‘Anal Retentive’?”
As Christmas nears, the Scrooge part of me has already begun to manifest itself. It began before Halloween when lots of stores put out Christmas items and decorated their businesses with Christmas decorations
As we were driving through Greenville, SC, this morning at the beginning of our trip, there was Santa in all his glory riding a motorcycle at 8:00 am. I wanted to yell out the car window and tell him to get his red velvet clad butt back to his enchanted cottage/toy factory at the Pole until the day after Thanksgiving. Bah, Humbug!
By virture of the fact that we had TWO TomToms, we reached our destination after getting off course only a few times. We drove around Rogersville looking for the school I attended and some of the houses we lived in. We stopped at McDonald’s for a quick lunch. Quick being the operative words. We ordered--no special order items--just a Big Mac combo and a Fish Filet combo. We had to wait about 10 minutes for our order. People behind us came and went, and there we stood waiting. There was no apology, no nothing! Mr. Fixit was so pissed. He’s an impatient person.
On our way home on I26 between Johnson City and Asheville, NC, my phone rang. I answered--it was Jason. He said, “Where are you?” I told him where we were, and, of course, he made a remark about us doing retired people things. He then asked me a question about making cheese and garlic grits that they were taking to a shrimp and oyster roast tonight. I offered a suggestion to his culinary problem while tooling around mountainous terrain about 150 miles from home. Yes, sometimes technology is good.
We took the same route home as we did on the way there because it is such beautiful country. It took us from Rogersville to Kingsport, TN on to Johnson City, TN Asheville, NC and home through Greenville, SC. We were making good time as we arrived in Asheville. Let me say that both Mr. Fixit and I have driven in some of the worst places east of the Mississippi there are to drive. I’ve driven in Manhattan, Boston, Providence, RI, Washington, DC, Nashville, TN, Memphis, TN, New Jersey, and Atlanta, but Asheville always causes us and Ms. TomTom problems. We always go off course there.
Today was no exception, Ms. TomTom was too slow so we missed an exit. She recalibrated and planned a route to get us back on track. It took us through the Hookerville section of Asheville. We were on a surface street and there at an abandoned gas station were three ladies of ill repute plying their trade right in front of God, me, and everyone else on the street. I had never seen anything like this in person. I was shocked! Of course, we were stuck in traffic and had to sit there for longer than we should have. One of the ladies took her client over to a stack of tires and sat down on it with him and ministered to his needs in broad daylight. Oh, it wasn’t the--how do I put this?--complete action one might expect, but it was still too gross for words. E-e-w-w-w! Ms. TomTom came through for us and we got the heck out of Dodge!
After leaving Hookerville, we had an uneventful ride home. There’s more to tell about the trip, but it will have to wait until tomorrow. Riding over 400 miles in one day isn’t has easy as it used to be.
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