AudreyPodrey.com

There is an expression that goes, “Fuck you.  AND the white horse you rode in on.”  A friend of mine, M, has shortened this simply to “And your white horse” whenever he wants to be subtly insulting but not profane.

Tuesday night, the horse i rode to the bridge game (my car) died.  I had played with M, and we’d had a decent game and a good time.  The game was over; i chatted with the director for awhile, then went into The BrickHouse where four bridge friends, including M, were having a drink.  I greeted them briefly, then left.  It was just after 11 pm.

Unfortunately, my car would not start.  It was snowing and sleeting and raining and my car would not start.  My first thought was that i needed a jump.  It was cold, and my car is getting up in years, maybe it just needed an extra boost(?)  My dad prepared me for the two most common car problems, so i know how to a) change a tire and b) jump a car.  And i always have jumper cables with me.  All i need is one of my bridge friends to help me out.

I went back into the bar where i had just said goodbye to these four people.  All men, ages 50-60.  All four are people i have played bridge with or attended dinner parties with, so we’re on good terms.  Three of them are self-important and always have the answer to anything.  Two of them like to flirt with me.  Honestly, i thought they might fight over who got to help me.  Boy, was i wrong.

“Hi again.  My car won’t start.  I have jumper cables.  Would one of you be able to give me a jump?”

A few seconds of silence, then M said he could help but his battery was under his back seat and we’d have to take it out his whole back seat so it would be easier if someone else did it.  Two of the other guys mumbled about where their batteries were located on their cars (one was near the front tire, the other in the trunk).  The fourth guy said nothing.  Then ensued a conversation about where car-makers are putting batteries and why, while i stood idly by, listening in semi-disbelief.  None of them made the slightest move to get up from their chairs.

Really?!??  None of you great men of the world, you bastions of bridge, you, who think so well of yourselves, NONE of you wants to rise to this occasion?  No one wants to be the hero, to save the damsel in distress?

Here’s a little something about me - i hate being the damsel in distress.  I don’t like feeling helpless and unable to fix things myself.  I don’t like having to depend on the goodwill of others, or being a burden to others.  So i try to be self-sufficient most of the time.  That said, the times i do find myself needing help, i can accept it and be gracious and thankful.

I wonder how they would feel if their wives needed this kind of assistance and were refused?  I guarantee they would feel protective and indignant.  I wonder if their batteries would be so hard to get to if they were the ones in need of a jump?

I think about how Lance would react to anyone, even a stranger, if he were asked to help in this situation - he would do it without hesitation, and he would wait around to make sure the person was safe.  I think about my Dad and my brothers, who would have been rising from the table as soon as i said “the car won’t start” to see if they could help.  I think about the complete stranger who changed my tire in the middle of the night.

I went back to the bridge room, where the director was finishing up.  He was the only person left.  I asked him if he could help me and he readily agreed.  As we were walking out, M came to follow and stand out in the cold and snow and sleet with us.

Unfortunately, jumping the car didn’t work.  I ended up leaving it there overnight, while M took me home.  So M ended up being a knight in shining armor even though he didn’t initially volunteer.

I’m not sure what to think, exactly.  If i had really, really needed help, surely one of them would have helped me… right?  But where is the line between when i asked for help and really really needing it?

As any Raleigh-ites know, the forecast was all over the place about the recent winter storm.  I saw 2-4″ predicted.  I saw up to 13″ predicted.  And those were within a few hours of each other.

With the news stations predicting the storm so far in advance, and talking it up, i heard stories about the grocery store lines.  Sadly, i knew i would have to stand in those lines Friday evening, because i had a huge grocery list.  My weekend  was going to be a cooking weekend, snow or no snow.

Despite the fact that the mob had been there before us, we were happily able to procure all the ingredients i needed, except for ground beef.  Nothing even resembling ground beef was left.  Of course, the recipe that requires ground beef is the one recipe i was dead set on making.  Oh well, i thought.  Maybe it won’t really snow or the roads will be passable by Sunday.

Outside, it was just starting to flurry.  We hurried home to unload the car and settle in for a white weekend.

Saturday afternoon we took a short walk up to Six Forks Rd to check out the driving conditions.  I was surprised to see that the road was still white.

Sunday was baking day: a) food for us, b) food for friends with a new baby and c) food for the upcoming bridge tournament.  My kitchen was vigorously used.  I ran the dishwasher four times.  The end result was:

• Spinach Balls - They look questionable, these little green and brown balls.  But if you pick one up and sample it, you will find yourself going back for more.  With “spinach” in the title, you might think these are healthy; they aren’t.  Not even a little bit.
• Cinnamon Coffee Cake - A tasty twist on yellow cake mix.
• Apple Crisp - this recipe comes from the cafe where i work.  I will make a special trip to the cafe if i know they are serving this.  This a dangerous dish because you can convince yourself that it’s healthy because it’s fruit.  And perhaps that’s fair; it’s certainly better for you thank the spinach balls.
• Homemade Peanut Butter Cups - Dangerously good, possibly better than the store-bought kind.  Easy and quick to make.
• Mexican Lasagna - It’s hard to go wrong with this dish, but you have to trust it.  When assembling the ingredients, you might think is this really going to be that good? The answer is yes.
• Orange Pecan Delights - A different kind of cookie.  Not your typical chocolate chip variety.  The nutty, orange flavor is subtle and light.

Before i could make the Mexican Lasagna, i had to walk half a mile to the grocery store to get the ground beef.  Thankfully, they had some and my walk was not in vain!  Otherwise, i would have had to bring a bunch of sugary sweets to my friend with the new baby.

It was fun to get out in the snow, but i am definitely ready for Spring!

Tuesday afternoon at work, my entire floor smelled like vomit.  After asking around, it seems that someone cleaned his whiteboard and the after-smell left by the cleaner apparently smells like vomit.  Did this product not undergo some kind of testing?  Ick!  For the entire afternoon!  But, that does perhaps give an alternate explanation of why my local library often smells like vomit.  Or urine…

People who sing in public bathrooms kind of weird me out.

Thursday, i attended an informational meeting about a program i signed up for at work, called The Leanest Loser.  Kind of like The Biggest Loser (which i’ve never watched), but a more healthy, sane approach.  It starts in February and will last four months, and we have a team and a trainer and everything.  I am energized about being exercised!

Today (Friday) i went to work and found a little aromatic sachet packet sitting on my keyboard.  It smells nice.  I have no idea who it came from or why.  Hopefully the gifter will reveal themselves so i can thank them.

No one seems to know what to expect from the big winter storm that’s  headed this way tonight.  Forecasts are all over the place, from two inches to thirteen inches (heard at lunchtime today).  I guess we’ll all know for sure in about 36 hours.  Unfortunately, i need to go to the grocery store.  I wonder how long the checkout lines will be?

After a month or more of no actual blog content, i’m getting back to posting more.  Coming up: some book reviews, letters from Nathan, bridge commentary and my usual ramblings. (-:

This week, Lance’s mom celebrated her 60th birthday.  The family was gathering in Columbus, OH to celebrate.  Lance and i were going to drive up for the weekend and make a “surprise” appearance.  A grand plan, until a snowstorm was forecast for the exact time we would be driving (Friday night).

I came up with the idea that i could use my last vacation day of the year and instead we could drive up in the morning.  We would easily head off the storm, and make it into Ohio for the party.  Ohio looked like it would get some snow, but was not forecast to get hit hard.  We left at 9:30 Friday morning.

It was a great idea, until…

To get to Ohio from Raleigh, you take 40 to Winston-Salem.  Then take 52 north to I-77, which goes almost to Columbus.  We followed this plan brilliantly and made it onto 77 until Wytheville, VA.  We were in Wytheville at 12:30.

We saw some flurries, but not much else.  Once we got onto 77, i relaxed - we would be on this road for a long time.  Lance and i started talking about bridge stuff.  The flurries turned into rain, and i felt confidant we were ahead of the storm.

Until we got to Tennessee.  Um… are we supposed to be in Tennessee?

It turns out that i needed to take an exit in order to stay on 77 North, an exit near Wytheville, VA.  But i had tuned out once i thought i was on the right road, and wasn’t looking at the street signs.  I drove a full 70 miles SOUTH on the wrong road, I-81.  I am such a fucking idiot.

We turned around.  It had taken approximately one hour to get from Wytheville to
Tennessee.  It took two and a half hours to get back.  The storm had come.  What a huge difference an hour or so made.  What had formerly been rain was snow snow snow.  The roads were already caking up with snow, and traffic moved at about 20 miles per hour.  [In retrospect, we probably could have avoided the storm by driving further west into Tennessee and coming up into Ohio from the southwest.  Oh well.]

We FINALLY got back to Wytheville around 4ish.  I got off of the stupid-ass wrong road i had been on and got onto 77 North.  Yes!

As we began to merge onto 77, it was apparent that none of the cars were moving.  Everyone was at a dead standstill.  People were out of the cars and walking around.  Dogs were playing in the snow.

So we sat.  We found out from someone stretching his legs that a tunnel five miles ahead had been blocked by a jack-knifed 18-wheeler.  We sat some more.  Called the parents.  Sat.  Moved a few feet.  Sat.  Got out to stretch the legs, brush off the car, de-ice the windshield wipers.  Watched little snow drifts form around the tires of the car in front of me.  Watched the snow come down while it got dark.

Around 6:30, the guy in front of me started walking from car to car.  He came to us and asked for jumper cables.  He had turned his car off to save gas and now couldn’t start it again.  As it happens, i had some cables in my trunk.  He borrowed them, and the people around us played musical cars in order to get another guy close enough to him to jump him.

There was an exit close enough to us that i thought i could get to it.  Musical cars had rearranged the cars on the road such that i thought i could squeeze through and get over to the off-ramp.  It wasn’t possible before or we would have done it.  (Plus at this point we had given up hope of getting to Ohio.)  I asked the cars nearby to let me try, and they did.  Score!  We made it off the godforsaken highway.

Let me just take a moment to say, i had done an excellent job driving, if i do say so myself.

The signs on the exit ramp showed a TON of hotels on this exit.  Score again!  We stopped at the first one we found.  No rooms.  Went to the next one.  No rooms.  And the next and the next.  A half dozen hotels were full.  Plus, the conditions were getting much worse.  Now i had to brush off the car and de-ice the wipers at every hotel stop, and drive with the windows down in order to see.

So we resigned ourselves to the fact that we might be sleeping in the car.  We pulled into a big truck stop.  It was so big it was almost a mall.  Several restaurants.  We sat down and ate some food, and (thankfully) used the restrooms.  I made friends with someone who worked there who tried to find me a room at one of the hotels.  Alas, no luck.

I got my parents looking for us also.  They were snowed-in in Asheville and had no power, but they were still trying to help us.  Dad was suggesting we drive south for like 30 miles and he knew we’d find some places.  Um, yeah, if we make it that far.  My mom finally found a neat service, called Virgina Hotels.  Apparently you just call them up and they will find you the nearest hotel and make a reservation for you.  Mom had talked to them and found a hotel room for us that was supposedly just a mile down the highway, at a Best Western.  She didn’t make the reservation for us, but encouraged me to call back and talk to them myself.

We had some frustration at this point.  Lance was pretty against going back out on the roads.  I was hating the idea of staying at the truck stop, which didn’t have any place to just SIT.  Sleeping in the car sounded awful to me.  But staying safe and not getting in a wreck were also important points.

We had been at the truck stop for almost 2 hours by this time.  It was a veritable blizzard out there.  I stared out the window and watched a few cars pull in.  I watched while another guy as he brushed off his car and pulled away.  Someone took his spot.  People were driving out there!  I reasoned to myself that i had been very careful, driving in the lowest gear, and goddammit i could get us to a hotel safely if there was a reasonably close room.

I called the Virgina Hotels service to see what they had.  I don’t think Lance was particularly happy about it, but i figured hey, it’s at least another data point.  We can see what’s available, and if we can get there, it would be better than the truck stop.

I spoke with a very efficient representative with a very annoying voice.  But she got the job done.  She said she had several rooms available.  I told her the address of where we were and had her find the closest room.  It was at that Best Western my mom had found earlier.  I booked it.  Sunk cost of only $80 if we couldn’t get there or decided not to go.

Called the Best Western and spoke to a very friendly and helpful person at the hotel who is from Wytheville and knew exactly where i was.  She gave me “female” directions, which means she gave me landmarks instead of street names.  But frankly, i don’t think we could have read the street signs in this blizzard!  It wasn’t far, less than two miles.  I also made sure to confirm my reservation with her before we got in the car.

I saw hope in Lance’s eyes.  Or at least, he was willing to let me try.  We went out to the car and stared in amazement at the blob of white where my car used to be.  At least 4 inches had fallen since we’d been at the truck stop.  We commenced brushing off the car, both of us getting soaking wet.  Then came the difficult task of getting out of my parking space, since i was sort of in a snow drift and my tires were spinning.  I employed the “rocking” technique of moving forward then back.  Lance pushed.  The car eventually slipped out of the spot, and we were back on the road!

We drove slowly and carefully, following the landmarks that we had been given.  The hotel was really not far from the highway, but was somewhat hidden down a back road and behind some other hotels, which is i guess why the other stranded travelers hadn’t found it.  We got there safely, and checked in 12 hours after we left Raleigh.  As a bonus after all this, they offered free Wi-Fi.  Finally, a break!  Lance was extremely pleased about that.

So, we’re not going to make it to Ohio.  I’m sorry, Mom!  We did want to be there for your birthday dinner.  If i wasn’t such an idiot, if only i had noticed we were going the wrong way… but, i didn’t.  We went on a little adventure, instead.  I’m just glad we’re safe.

We might wait it out here for another day, too.  There is at least a foot of snow on the ground, and it’s still blizzarding out there.

If you stuck around this long, thanks for reading.  It’s been a helluva day.

I encountered an article from Time magazine discussing when and if parents in America are talking to their children about sex.

By the end of the study, more than half of the parents reported that they had not discussed 14 of the 24 sex-related topics by the time their adolescents had begun genital touching or oral sex with partners. Forty-two percent of girls reported that they had not discussed the effectiveness of birth control and 40% admitted they had not talked with their parents about how to refuse sex before engaging in genital touching. Nearly 70% of boys said they had not discussed how to use a condom or other birth-control methods with their parents before having intercourse. Yet only half of the boys’ parents, by contrast, said they had not discussed condom use or birth control with their sons.

That difference highlights a primary problem in the parent-child dialogue about sex. “A lot of parents think they had a conversation, and the kids don’t remember it at all,” says Dr. Karen Soren, director of adolescent medicine at New York Presbyterian Morgan Stanley Children’s Hospital. “Parents sometimes say things more vaguely because they are uncomfortable and they think they’ve addressed something, but the kids don’t hear the topic at all.”

One thing this highlights is that sex should be an ongoing topic in order for things to sink in, not just one or two instances of The Talk.  The conversations will naturally change as the children get older and start thinking about it differently.

I remember two specific “sex” conversations with my parents.

1. When i got my period at age 13, my mom talked with me about what was happening in my body.  I had some basic knowledge already, from 6th grade biology and gym class sex education.  She alluded to the fact that now i could have babies, but that’s the closest we got to actually talking about sex itself.
2. When i started dating, my dad had a conversation with me about how to injure a guy who was trying to take advantage of me.  In case you’re wondering, nose, throat, eyes and groin are all very vulnerable places.  Hit them in one of those places and you have time to extract yourself.

Actually, i am quite sure that both of those conversations included discussions of waiting to have sex.  I don’t specifically remember those parts of the conversation (i remember the part about gouging my boyfriend’s eyes out), but they were there.  It was an assumption throughout my upbringing that you do not have sex until marriage because that’s not part of God’s plan.

Birth control was never discussed - i learned about that at school and from my friends.  Some girls were on the pill because they had bad acne and it helped.  Others were on the pill because it helped with really bad cramps.  I found myself being jealous of serious acne and bad cramps when i became sexually active at 16.  I wanted to be responsible, but i was terrified of telling my parents because sex was simply not allowed.   So i relied on condoms until i went to college, where i promptly went to the student clinic and got a prescription, desperately hoping that my parents didn’t receive an itemized bill of services rendered.

Often i wonder what would have happened if i had been open about it.  There likely would have been lectures about abstinence and the sacredness of marriage.  Would my dating privileges have been curtailed?  Would they have done the prudent thing and let me get birth control?  Or would they hope that a close watch and the risk of pregnancy would be enough of a deterrent?

Sex is a weird thing.  Everyone is doing it, yet it’s also private.  I can recognize that it would be a tough thing to have it be an open topic and yet also try to deter your kids from engaging in it too soon.  I thought the article was interesting, though, putting real numbers on the effect of talking about it with your kids.

I don’t have children, and the jury is out on if that will happen.  But i have read a little about having babies and raising children.  I have a few ideas about how i want to do things.  In the course of my reading, i stumbled onto the idea that vaccinations are not something you should blindly succumb to.  “Vaccinations are risky…the big medical companies are just out to make a profit…” etc, etc.

These are easy things to believe because there’s a big bad guy out there that you can point a finger at, and you can save yourself by taking action, or in this case, not taking action (not getting vaccinated, or not having your children vaccinated).  My mind was open to this line of thinking.

Not anymore.  An article from Wired Magazine called An Epidemic of Fear: How Panicked Parents Skipping Shots Endangers Us All really got through and changed my mind.  (It’s not a short article, so be prepared for a lengthy read.)  Their most convincing argument was simply to make me realize that i have no idea what i am talking about.  I am not a doctor, nor are the parents who want to end mandatory vaccinations.  The second most powerful argument comes from a psychology perspective - the idea that we are or should be or can be in control of our own safety, and how that idea affects us.

Ah, risk. It is the idea that fuels the anti-vaccine movement — that parents should be allowed to opt out, because it is their right to evaluate risk for their own children. It is also the idea that underlies the CDC’s vaccination schedule — that the risk to public health is too great to allow individuals, one by one, to make decisions that will impact their communities. (The concept of herd immunity is key here: It holds that, in diseases passed from person to person, it is more difficult to maintain a chain of infection when large numbers of a population are immune.)

That actually makes sense to me.  I’m all for individual power, but the idea that individual persons may end up jeopardizing the community at-large is a little bit scary.  To be a part of a community, i think we have to allow certain decisions to be made for us that are in the best interests of all.

In 2005, a 17-year-old Indiana girl got infected on a trip to Bucharest, Romania. On the return flight home, she was congested, coughing, and feverish but had no rash. The next day, without realizing she was contagious, she went to a church gathering of 500 people. She was there just a few hours. Of the 500 people present, about 450 had either been vaccinated or had developed a natural immunity. Two people in that group had vaccination failure and got measles. Thirty-two people who had not been vaccinated and therefore had no resistance to measles also got sick. Did the girl encounter each of these people face-to-face in her brief visit to the picnic? No. All you have to do to get the measles is to inhabit the airspace of a contagious person within two hours of them being there.

OK - that’s a lot scary.  Who wants to volunteer to forgo the measles vaccine after reading that?

The article anchors itself around Paul Offit, a pediatrician and a proponent for vaccinations who has even developed a vaccine himself.  He’s taking a very public stand in what has become a controversial debate about whether vaccines can cause autism.  He adamantly says no.

And he <Paul Offit> wants Americans to be fully educated about risk and not hoodwinked into thinking that dropping vaccines keeps their children safe. “The choice not to get a vaccine is not a choice to take no risk,” he says. “It’s just a choice to take a different risk, and we need to be better about saying, ‘Here’s what that different risk looks like.’ Dying of Hib meningitis is a horrible, ugly way to die.”

That’s an important point.  Is it possible that we are forgetting how awful these diseases are?

…by a 2002 study published in The Journal of Infectious Diseases. Looking at 3,292 cases of measles in the Netherlands, the study found that the risk of contracting the disease was lower if you were completely unvaccinated and living in a highly vaccinated community than if you were completely vaccinated and living in a relatively unvaccinated community. Why? Because vaccines don’t always take. What does that mean? You can’t minimize your individual risk unless your herd, your friends and neighbors, also buy in.

Perceived risk — our changing relationship to it and our increasing intolerance of it — is at the crux of vaccine safety concerns, not to mention related fears of pesticides, genetically modified food, and cloning. Sharon Kaufman, a medical anthropologist at UC San Francisco, observes that our concept of risk has evolved from an external threat that’s out of our control (think: statistical probability of a plane crash) to something that can be managed and controlled if we just make the right decisions (eat less fat and you’ll live longer). Improved diagnostic tests, a change in consumer awareness, an aging society determined to stay youthful — all have contributed to the growing perception that risk (of death, illness, accident) is our responsibility to reduce or eliminate. In the old order, risk management was in the hands of your doctor — or God. Under the new dispensation, it’s all up to you.

That last paragraph is something that really hit home for me.  I am a bit of a control freak (Lance is nodding his head at that!), and i do tend to think that i can become informed about the choices i have to make and thus make better ones.  To a degree, this is true.  But at some point i have to stop and admit that i can’t out-think people who have made a life’s work out of something i’m trying to google in 15 minutes.

It’s a very interesting article, and i would encourage reading it if you have the time.  Share with me what you think.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Christmas music has been playing in stores and on the radio for weeks, and if you haven’t already, you’ll soon be bombarded with Christmas advertising.  It is how things work - big companies try to appeal to their consumers in order to get them to make purchases.

However, some people think that one company went too far in its latest ad - Best Buy ran an ad wishing people a Happy Thanksgiving and Eid Al Adha, which is a Muslim celebration that is also taking place this week.  I’m not sure what is offensive about acknowledging the existence of other religions in our great country (which was, by the way, founded on the idea of freedom of religion), but one commenter has a big problem with it:

Among my major purchases from BB over the years were a plasma big screen, a fridge and a laptop. No more. In 2006 you discontinued the use of ‘ Merry Christmas’ in your “holiday” messages.

Yet one of your ad inserts wishes your customers a happy “Eid Al Aldha” ( a Muslim goat throat slitting festivity) . Clearly the liberal/ PC culture in your corporate offices is biased against Christians and traditional American values. So, in 2009 I discontinue Best Buy. Good riddance.

Hello A m a z o n

- A proud patriotic Christian American.

Honestly, the amount of knowledge i possess about Eid Al Adha is very little.  The animal sacrifice sounds awful, if that’s true.  But is it any worse than the Christian traditions celebrating the birth of a human sacrifice, symbolically eating human flesh and drinking human blood?

Just sayin’.

It’s Friday afternoon, and the week is finally over.  I’m all packed and ready to go - I’m heading to the beach for the weekend, where i’ll meet some new friends and run a new race.  I kiss the boyfriend and the pupton goodbye and get on the road.

Usually when i’m driving on the highway, especially when the traffic is sparse, i’ll turn on the cruise control.  I think this is fairly common.  My speed is constant, and others’ speeds are fairly constant.  So i pass people, or others pass me.  Completely normal.

I was about 90 minutes into my drive when i noticed some headlights coming up behind me.  This is nothing unusual.  I’m pretty much alone on the road, but this guy’s just going faster than me.  Whatever.  He starts to pass me on the left, but when he pulls even with me he stops passing.  Now he’s right next to me and going the exact same speed.

I glance over and note it’s a red SUV.  I can’t see the driver.  He appears to be alone.  I’m quite sure it’s a “he”, for some reason.

I’m uncomfortable with this.  If we’re going to go the same speed, let’s just play follow the leader, ok?  I’ve done this before, just found someone to follow, and i’ve been the one who has been the leader also.  But driving side-by-side is freaking me out.

The speed limit is 70 and we’re going about 72.  First i decide to slow down a bit and let him pass me.  He slows down, too, and we’re still side-by-side.  So i think, OK, i’ll go faster - i nudge the cruise control up to about 74.  He keeps pace.  I nudge it up to 76.  He still keeps pace.  Then he flashes his brights.  I don’t know what that means.  I nudge it up to 78, and i still can’t pass him.  Now we’re going faster than i want, so i slow way back down to 70.  He flies ahead.

I let him go a little bit, then reset my cruise back to my normal cruising speed of 72.  I see him merge back into the right lane.  OK that’s better.

Before i know it, though, i’m coming up on him; he has slowed down again.  I switch to the left lane to pass him, thinking, OK he must have decided that was too fast.  As i’m passing, again he speeds up to about 75 as i’m passing, so i have to go even faster in order to pass him.  We travel for about a mile where he’s 3/4 car length behind me.  This is RIDICULOUS, and i’m getting pissed off.  I kick it up so i can really leave him behind me, and i do.

He flashes his lights at me again after i’m in front of him.  I still don’t know what this means.  When he comes up behind me yet again, and draws abreast with me, and flashes his lights, i have had it.  I don’t know what to do.  And then he swerved.  Ever so slightly,  but in my direction.  Maybe it was an accident.  But i was completely freaked.  I was convinced there was a crazy red SUV stalker that i hadn’t heard about, and if only i’d turn on my radio i would hear the news.  Except then i think to myself “in the movies, whenever people in cars get ambushed, they are always listening to the radio.”  So i don’t turn the radio on.

I slowed down a lot.  He slowed down a bit with me, but as i was now traveling significantly under the speed limit, he went ahead.  He was only a few hundred yards in front of me when i noticed my exit was coming up.  I made sure he was in front of me a good ways before i took my exit, lest he veer at the last second to follow me.  But it seems we have parted ways.

There is another vehicle behind me at this point.  He sticks to me like glue.  This is more normal - lots of cars are “followers” where they just want someone to follow.  He stays with me through several changes of the speed limit, always adjusting to my speed.  I have to admit, i was keeping my eye on him after the red SUV incident, but he was following at a normal distance most of the time.  And no weird flashing of lights.

Then i saw something weird ahead.  I was coming up quickly on an odd sight and at first i couldn’t tell what it was.  It turns out it was someone on a scooter driving like 30 mph.  The speed limit was 55 and i was going 60, so i quickly halved my pace.  The car behind me did too.  I was “stuck” in between the car behind me and the scooter; i was afraid to pass the scooter, because so often in those situations, the cars behind you will veer around you quickly.  But this car just stayed behind me while we went 30 mph.

Now i started to think that maybe the car behind me was the red SUV after all.  Who wouldn’t go around a car that was only going 30 mph in a 55 mph zone?  Why wasn’t he passing me?  Did a different car pass me before, and the red SUV followed me all this way?  I think i would have noticed, but i started to second guess myself.

When it became clear the car behind me was just going to follow me, i passed the scooter and sped back up, with my tail doing the same.  Within two miles i saw a Bojangles, and thought “ah, i actually am kind of hungry.”  And besides, it should get this guy off my back.  As i am turning in, i swear he starts to follow me, but then changes his mind.  I have no idea if the two police cars in the parking lot have anything to do with it, but am gratified to see them.  It was not the red SUV, at least.

Once inside of Bojangles, i realize this is a poor choice of restaurants since everything they have contains meat, and we are experimenting with a meatless diet.  But i finally find the one thing on their menu that was somewhat vegetarian and order an egg-and-cheese biscuit.  Waiting for my food, i can see the cook making my biscuit.  He isn’t wearing gloves.  I start to wonder if he is sick and if he is going to give me swine flu.  I wonder what county i am in and if they have a high incident of the swine flu here.  I try to rationalize that it is OK; after all, when i worked at McDonald’s 15 years ago i never wore gloves.  I convince myself it’s going to be okay.

I take my biscuit back into the car and get on my way.  No scary SUV’s are following me, for once.  I take a bite of my biscuit and discover that Bojangles food is not nearly as good without the Cajun chicken seasoning.  Then i have a flash of the cook scratching his greasy face with the back of his hand, and decide i’m not really hungry after all.

A few miles later, i stop to get gas.  It is the first gas station i have seen in awhile that is well-lit.  I have passed many poorly lit gas stations (you know, the kind that look like their pumps do not accept credit cards) and have been afraid to stop at them.  But this one looks OK.  I get out the nozzle and notice it is one of the annoying ones that you actually have to hold - it doesn’t click in place.  While i am stuck there holding my nozzle, a middle-aged and perhaps homeless woman comes by asking for money.  Ugh, i hate being in this position.  I just say no, still trapped at the nozzle, when i see a red SUV pull in next to me.  I kind of freak out, but quickly i notice that there is a family in this vehicle.  The dad looks at me funny when he gets out of the car, but that is probably because i was staring at his car oddly when he pulled in.

I go inside and i hear the maybe-homeless woman buying a lottery ticket.  I guess she got someone to give her some money.  I peruse for a few minutes and get a drink and a granola bar (after all, i am still hungry).  As i am headed to the counter to check out, she darts back into the store and cuts in front of me to buy another lottery ticket.  Since i didn’t give her any money, i figure i can at least let her have first place in line.

Nothing too strange happens for the rest of the drive, thankfully.  I arrive at the beach house where i see a car in the driveway.  I can see a 26.2 bumper sticker, so i’m pretty sure i’m in the right place.  I walk up to the front door and knock.  No answer.  I knock again.  Nothing.  I try to peek through the slits of the blinds, and i can barely see inside.  The lights are on, but the place does not seem to be inhabited.  No signs of luggage or any supplies on the tables.

I wonder, are they asleep?  It’s only 9…  and honestly i didn’t think Jeff was the going-to-bed-early type.  Maybe they are in the bedroom and just can’t hear me.  I walk up the steps to the backdoor, in the dark, and i feel completely like a burglar.  I knock again; maybe they will hear me from this side of the house.  No answer.

Am i in the right place?  I think so, but situations like this really make you wonder.  Maybe there’s ANOTHER house with the same number on ANOTHER road of the same name nearby, with ANOTHER car with a marathon bumper sticker on it… Yeah.

I haven’t called Lance to tell him i’m here safe, and since he insisted i do so, that’s the next thing i decide to do.  Maybe i can get him to pull up my email and find Jeff’s phone number for me.  Lance doesn’t answer.  I text him; no answer.  This is strange b/c i know he’s expecting my call.  I completely feel like i am in the twilight zone, and the only thing missing is creepy background music.

Then i remember that even though i was an idiot and didn’t bring Jeff’s phone number with me, thanks to my recent foray into twitter i can tweet at him directly.  Except i’m not sure if i know how to do that, actually.  But, i try to send him a tweet.

I unpack the car and bring all my stuff up next to the door, figuring i’ll hear from someone soon.  I don’t.  It probably hasn’t been that long since i got here, but i’m not sure what i should do.  I stare at my phone and check if i have adequate service.  My phone looks back at me, like “what?”

I load my shit back into the car, just in case this isn’t the right house, and go in search of a bar.  I decide everyone must be at dinner.  And not have their phones on.

I find a nice bar with a chatty bartender a couple of blocks away.  I text Lance again and tell him that i’m fine but still haven’t found anyone.  I work on my crossword puzzle.

At 10 pm the restaurant closes, but no one has called or texted.  The bartender takes pity on me and gives me another drink and says i can stay longer if i want, which was awful nice of her.

Finally at 10:15 Lance calls me.  He was at dinner and had his phone in his coat, so didn’t see my messages.  He’s glad i made it safely.  By this time i’m getting ready to head back to the house and see if the others are back yet.  When i get back to the house, i find it as i left it - no one answering the door.  I’m standing on the porch wondering what i’m supposed to do now when i finally get a tweet from Jeff saying “whoops just got this we’re on our way.”

And with that, i exhaled a little on the inside, because the world had gotten really really weird for a few hours, but was finally returning to normal.

At work on Friday, a co-worker and i somehow got around to musing about the origins of the UNC Tarheels.  Why is their mascot a ram?  Why did a ram make sense to represent a tarheel?  What is a tarheel anyway?

I asked Lance about it and we mused about it, but neither of us knew.

I asked my brother Nathan, who used to volunteer as a tour guide when he was a student at UNC.  He told me it dated back to the Civil War, when the Carolina boys held their ground the best.  Apparently some general said they “dug in their hills as though there was tar on them.”  OK… so UNC takes its mascot from a story in which they were on a losing side of a war, which was being fought over the right to own slaves.  I guess those Carolina boys really wanted to keep their slaves.

I asked my friend Malcolm, who attended UNC in his youth.  His story was that it came from the first UNC student, who walked all the way here from the coast, and did so much walking he had tar stuck to his heels.  OK…

I asked Wikipedia, who told me the etymology was unknown, but historians believe it came from the fact that tar/pitch was a major export in early NC history.  Wikipedia also listed the different legends that had grown around it.  Including the one Nathan told me, which appears to have the most references.

Earlier this week, we broke our coffee pot.  It’s apparently an unusual size, so we weren’t able to quickly replace it at Walmart or Target.  So this week, i’ve been driving through McDonald’s every morning on my way to work to get a large coffee.  I get headaches if i don’t drink a nice big cup, and it’s something i look forward to every morning.  (No, i’m not giving it up!)

McDonald’s has this thing called Priority Parking.  If you get to the second window and your food isn’t quite ready, you might be asked to pull up to the “Priority Parking” spot.

I used to work at McDonald’s.  For two years in high school.  It was hard work, and yes gross at times, but i actually liked that job at the time.  So i know a little something about how things work at ole Micky D’s.  If you’re not aware of this, the drive-thru is timed.  Every store has a goal to minimize average wait times for each car.  They might get in trouble if their average time is too high.

Here’s the thing - the timer is running while you’re sitting at the window, but you come off the queue once you move to Priority Parking.  It’s just a way for them to move the people behind you through the line quicker, thus keeping their average time down.  As a customer, though, i can’t help but feel the opposite of prioritized when i get moved to that spot, as i watch the other happy customers drive past me shoving biscuits or fries or straws into their mouths while i have to wait.

Oddly, during four visits this week, i have been asked to move to Priority Parking twice.  Twice!! All i ordered was coffee!  There is no possible way that it is quicker for anyone if they make me move forward to that stupid Priority spot.  So what’s the deal?  Have they tricked themselves into believing that it’s actually a special parking spot that customers want to move to?