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vacation 2 (may 2)
9:20 am
We made it to Raleigh last night a little after midnight. I'm glad we got
here, otherwise we'd have had way too much driving to do today. Well, Jane
would have anyway. I think today she's going to take a shot at teaching me
how to drive stick. We stopped at the first hotel inside the Raleigh city
limits - a Holiday Inn Express. I proved myself fit for southern travel
by keeping my mouth firmly shut when the front desk guy made fun of
Alabama and Alabamian accents in particular. What I did not do was point
out his own accent which he obviously didn't think he had. What's funny is
how in speaking to him I was very very aware of my speech patterns,
almost over-enunciating things lest I slip into a drawl against my will
and have him think I'm making fun. This happens to everyone, right? This
unconscious mimicking? It's weird, to feel so foreign right here in my own
country. Not foreign like "These people are nothing like me!" but foreign
like I just know people can tell I'm from out of town.
9:50 am Route 85 between Durham and Greensboro, NC
A miracle! An OPEN weight station!
1 pm
Just over the border to SC. We eat at Wendy's in a strip mall where the
bathroom stalls have ASHTRAYS in them. After lunch Jane gives me a driving
lesson. I am surprisingly not a natural. She is an excellent teacher,
however, not freaking out at all when I stall repeatedly while trying to
back out of the parking space. Seriously though, it just seems bad and
wrong to be in reverse and take your foot off the brake and perform like a
thousand motions before you can put your foot back on the brake. I sort of
got the whole idea but I am just not coordinated enough to make it work. I
suck and would be a danger to us both on the open road.
So we head across the parking lot to one of the three fireworks stores there. What kind of Yankees would we be without picking up some sparklers just because we could. We both wussed out and got small packs of assorted mini fireworks. I was tempted by the one that said "Warning: Shoots balls of fire." Warning? That's incentive!
Then. Oh, then. I am not making this up. I guess cliches are cliches for a reason. The clerk at the fireworks store? Missing several fingers on his right hand. I didn't notice until he handed Jane her change, or rather, tried to hand her the change. He dropped it on the counter and, as she told me afterwards back in the car, as she tried to help him scoop it up "He touched my hand with his stumps!"
Now, lest you think Jane and I are in the habit of making fun of people, this guy wasn't born this way - he blew up his hand. Occupational hazard yes, but something he willingly signed up for by handling shooting balls of fire.
Posted by beth at May 15, 2002 12:59 PM
