Travelogue of my trip to Georgia 10

What is it?
What do you mean, "What is it?"
It's a box full of motherf***ing machetes is what it is! What do you think it is!?

Here we are visiting the Dirt Mall again. I say again in the sense that you and I are revisiting my visit to the Dirt Mall again, not that I am visiting the Dirt Mall again.
For those of you who don't know or who may have forgotten, which, I guess, is the same as don't know, Dirt Mall is what my lovely sister Renee' and her lovely husband Jake call their local flea market.
I was going to talk more about the flea market last time I was talking about the flea market, but got all caught up talking about my fried Twinkie and how much I loved my fried Twinkie, but I won't make that mistake again.
At the Dirt Mall, you can buy all kinds of things, including, if you were so inclined, a whole box of machetes. You could also purchase some mace or a stun gun.
Sadly, not THIS stun gun:

THAT is a stun gun embedded in a set of smash you in the face knuckles. I would purchase such a combination. You know. As art.
Although you could not purchase this most awesome amalgam of hurting things, you could purchase a stun gun, as noted, and one of a selection of hundreds of brass knuckles. You could then also purchase a package of 15 rolls of duct tape and slap the two things together to make your own.
One thing you could not purchase, however, no matter how much you wanted to, was counterfeit products. They just did not sell counterfeit products there. There were signs everywhere that proved the fact.
WE BETTER NOT SEE ANY COUNTERFEIT PRODUCTS HERE AT OUR FLEA MARKET! WE WILL JUST NOT ABIDE THE SELLING OF ITEMS THAT COULD BE DESCRIBED AS OR REFERRED TO, IN ANY WAY, AS COUNTERFEIT AT ALL! NO! NO SIR!!
But, what is "counterfeit" anyway? Isn't it kind gray term? Sort of open to interpretation?
Actually it isn't at all, however, it turns out it is!
At the Dirt Mall you could by sneakers that look like this:

But with names like Coverse, Ale Stair, ConAir, Airverse, All Air Constar and Conallstarverseall.
You could by electronic products by SQNY and pants made by LEV15.
But nothing counterfeit.
And in case you missed it, you could buy box full of motherf***ing machetes.

Travelogue of my trip to Georgia 9

Niece was complaining about how many signs we saw for McDonald's on the way down to Georgia. She just couldn't believe it. She was so offended.
Then we pulled in to one...

Travelogue of my trip to Georgia 8

Here I am enjoying South of the Border.

Travelogue of my trip to Georgia 7

That's a nice couch, isn't it? It's lovely. This is the couch in the waiting area at Stranded Tattoo in "The Heart Of historic Downtown Savannah." There's is a fine tattooing establishment where I received a tattoo of, in distressed typewriter font, my cat's name.
Yes. I love my cat. Shut up.
This is not a story about my tattoo or my cat. This is a story about the woman who came into the establishment while I was waiting to receive my new cat-name tattoo.
I have a semi-decent selection of tattoos. As such, I have been in quite a few tattoo parlor waiting rooms. I have heard exchanges similar to the one I am about to recount several times. So many times I can't believe it.
Woman walks in with her husband and asks to see the catalog. When the fellow at the desk didn't know what she was talking about she explained that she wanted to see the catalog of tattoos that could be done.
He asked her what she was looking for and explained that they didn't have any flash there, that it was all original art. She looked at him with a face that said, "You are talking but you're not saying words I understand."
He further explained that there were no stencils.
That didn't seem to make an impression on the woman, either.
She said, "Look. What can you put on me fast and cheap?"
Fast and cheap. Hey. That's great. Actually that would be a great tattoo, I think, one that said in nice lettering Fast and Cheap, but that's not what this woman wanted.
She just wanted something slapped on her. Quickly. For little money.
The dude behind the desk continued to flounder his way through the conversation until the owner called over to her and asked her if she had anything in mind.
Clearly, she didn't have anything in mind. She didn't have anything in her mind. He mind was empty. She was a big, stupid cow.
She said, "Oh. I don't know. Maybe my grandchildren's names...?"
...
"Okay," said the owner, "And those are...?"
"Oh." said the dumb cow, "Uh. MaryLouiseAnn, AnnMaryLouise, LouiseAnnMary, RebeccaAnnLinda and Epaphroditus."
"And you want that in a small tattoo?"
"Yes."
"That's not going to be a small tattoo."
"Oh."
"All those names and those are long names, that would be a big tattoo."
"Ok."
"What would you want with the names?"
"Nothing. Just the names."
"Just the names written down your arm or something?"
"Yes.
"You know that's going to look like a grocery list, right?"
"No. What?"
"If you just run a series of text down you arm... You need to have something with it or around it or something. Not just a list of names."
"Oh. Will that be fast and cheap?"
"No. Not really. Not really either of those things."
"Hmmm. Maybe just a flower then. Can I see the catalog?"

Please. If you're thinking about a tattoo, have some idea of something you want. At least an idea. If it doesn't come out well, at least it was your idea. Don't walk into a tattoo place looking to have something slapped on your for the hell of it.
It's a bad idea.
You dumb cow.

But if you're going to Georgia and you want a tattoo while you're there, I recommend these guys. Nice fellows. Nice storefront. Cool area. Good work. Clean. They were playing a little to death-y thrash-y metal for my taste, but that's the only downside I can think of.
Very cool guys.

http://www.strandedtattoo.info/

Travelogue of my trip to Georgia 6

This is my fried Twinkie. There are many like it, but this one is mine.

I went to a quaint collection of outdoor merchants I thought of as a flea market, but that my sister and her husband referred to as The Dirt Mall. You can get a lot of things at the dirt mall and I will talk about some of the other things later. Right now, I only wanna talk about the fried Twinkie.
One of the great things about The Dirt Mall is the extensive PA system set up to allow friendly reminders of things, like how it's the birthday of some person you never heard of, when the next session of Mumbletypeg would start and what food stuffs were available for consumption throughout the compound.
During one of these latter type announcements, the woman on the speaker said the magical words, fried Twinkie. A fried Twinkie is one of those things I've seen on food and travel networks as a culinary oddity. I thought it sounded disgusting. So, when I heard over the PA that they were available, I immediately had to have one.
Actually, I didn't immediately had to have one. I wanted to have one while we were there, but my sister was trying hard to do whatever she could to make me happy. As soon as I mentioned that I wanted to try one, that was it. We were on a mission.
We stopped at I think five different food dispersal units, all of them offering to deep fry one thing or another, but not Twinkies. We kept getting re-directed to the next food dispersal unit.
Eventually we stumbled across the right booth. I asked the lady for a fried Twinkie and a couple of drinks. She scuttled off, then showed up again and got the drinks. I paid, and she took care of the next two parties who wanted drinks. I was like, "When are you gonna fry mah damned Twinkie!?"
What I didn't know is that mah damned Twinkie was being fried the entire time. Some amount of minutes soaking up that good wholesome liquid greasefat had passed.
She fished it out of the bubbling grease and coated the top with powdered sugar, just in case a deep fried Twinkie was not as bad for me as I had been hoping for.
I picked it up by it's hot stick and experienced some trepidation. But not a lot. I fully expected it to be horrible and was looking forward to really not liking it, then being able to write about how much I didn't like it.
Hoo, boy. Sometimes, I just don't know what I'm talking about at all. Sometimes I am wrong, but other times I am so amazingly wrong that I don't know how I ever manage to be right ever.
A deep fried Twinkie is one of the best tasting things I have ever had. It was thoroughly awesome and I ate the crap outta it. While I was eating it I was going, "Yum! Oh my GOD! Oh, this is so good! Mmmmmm! Yummmy! Yum yum for my tum tum!"
Maybe I wasn't saying all of those things. I'm not sure. I got a little blurry with love. I may be mis-remembering. I may have asked the fried Twinkie to move in with me. I'm not sure.
I know I loved that damned fried Twinkie and while I wouldn't recommend having one more than say, once between leap years, I do recommend having one at least once.
Get it somewhere in the south though. During the summer. It's more pleasant to eat while sweating into your eyeballs.

Travelogue of my trip to Georgia 5

We stopped in Washington, D.C. on the way home. I have never been there before. My awe was inspired by the sight of the capital building and stuff. Although I do not understand politics a lot, I am ridiculously patriotic.
Perhaps I am ridiculously patriotic because I do not understand politics a lot.
I was disappointed by The Reflecting Pool.
It should have been filled with reflecting water, not dirt that was hardly reflective at all.

Travelogue of my trip to Georgia (break)

It should be noted, before I go any further, that none of my bitching should reflect negatively on either my lovely sister Renee' or her lovely new husband Jake. They were very gracious hosts and my sister went out of her way to try and line up stuff that I wanted to do while I was down there.
I casually tossed out how I would like to shoot a gun, since I've never done that. I figured, "While I'm in the South..." They are big on shooting guns in the South, in case you were not aware.
Everyone is aware that people in the South like to shoot guns, fine. But were you aware that they liked it enough to support shooting ranges in shopping plazas? Right next door to the Piggly Wiggly? Were you? I was not. But they are and do and am.
Anyway, my sister was like, "Oh. You wanna shoot a gun? Hold on. Let me figure that out for you while I am in the process of getting married and trying to visit with people and be a new bride."
I didn't ask her to try to figure it out, but she did anyway. She is awesome.
I was not able to shoot a gun, though. Not her fault at all. I have some leftover... issues... on my record and they don't let people like me touch guns. Not legally anyway.
But, it's the thought that counts and she tried.
This is just a small example of how my sister is awesome. Pictured here is another example. Go, new married people! GO!

Travelogue of my trip to Georgia 4

As you travel either up or down 95 through the Carolinas you will bombarded by billboards and you will be thankful for them because there is not a lot of anything else to look at. A great many of these billboards will be for South of the Border, which I will discuss in an upcoming post, and a great many will be for J*R Outlets.
J*R Outlets have ingenious billboards that say things like, "Are you tired of paying through the NOSE?" with a big picture of a nose. Clever, right?
Also advertised is the fact that along with J*R Outlets which promises to have items of every kind imaginable at insanely discounted prices, there is also a Carhart outlet.
I am a fan of Carhart and need to replace one of my 17 black zip up sweatshirts. I thought, "An outlet? Perfect! I can buy one of those things that I want there!"
Mostly, I think, it was the survival mechanism of my brain kicking in and saying find a reason, ANY reason, to get out of the car.
So we went there. I did not find a replacement Carhart black sweatshirt, but I did find a large black sweatshirt with a cartoon skull and crossbones on the front. It's neat.
This is not a story about my new sweatshirt. This is a story about J*R Outlet or Outlets or whatever.
J*R Outlet(s) smells funky. You get hit in the face with this funk as soon as you open the door. It's a warehouse funk. There is an undertone of something else in the funk, but it's not immediately recognizable as it is melange'ed in with the rest of the stinks.
We walked through the aisles of just all kinds of stuff. Like, giant puppets and Tupperware knock-offs and books written by George Foreman.
I went to the bathroom, because they had one. There was a cop sitting in a little cop booth right outside the bathroom, to keep people from shoplifting the George Foreman books, probably.
When I came out of the bathroom, my niece was in a conversation with the police office and someone who worked at the store. Right away it seemed like something was going down, though I could not place what it was.
Then, I noticed my niece had a lit cigarette in her hand, inside the store.
I was just about to say, "Hey. Put out the cigarette, because that's obviously why the store worker and the police officer are looking at you in that way!", when it was explained to me that we had somehow walked into the store with merchandise from some other store and now me and the merchandise had to be walked out of the store by the store worker so no one would think we had shoplifted what ever it was even though it was clearly tagged as having come from Wal-Mart.
I was like, "Fine. Let's go. It's stinky in here anyway."
So the dude walked me out.
On the way out of the store, and mind you this is a large store, so there was more than enough time to have this conversation, I said to the dude, "I thought you were talking to my niece about having that cigarette lit. You can smoke in here?"
He said, "What? Whatchoomean can you smoke in here? You see all the ash tray garbage can things?"
I said, "Well, yeah. I see them. But I thought they were for, like garbage and stuff. Not smoking."
He looked at me like I was a crazy person. "Son", he said (for real he said that)"Don't you know what we sell in here?"
"You sell all kinds of cr.... stuff in here."
"Yes, but what do we sell the most of in here?"
I was quickly losing interest in the conversation and really didn't feel like being quizzed any more by this guy. So I didn't say anything. I assumed he would answer his own question.
"Cigars! Cigarettes! Tobacco!", he said, answering his own question. "We sell all that stuff in here so of COURSE you can smoke! HA! Haaaaahaha!"
As we walked along, and like I said this is a really big store so there was time for this too, he kept laughing to himself going, "Can you smoke in here? Oh, ho ho! Ha! HAHAAA! Woo! Man."
I wish he had worked in a gun store.

Travelogue of my trip to Georgia 3

Here is a picture I took when we stopped at a Subway for lunch on the way back to Rhode Island. I know this is not a picture of a Subway. When I saw the name of this restaurant, I was using an inappropriate voice to say things like, "Here is your egg roll. Now eat it and get out! How long does it take you to eat General Tso!? Eat faster and get out!"
I did this until my daughter told me I was being "kinda racist". Then I stopped.

Travelogue of my trip to Georgia 2

There isn't going to be any kind of chronology followed for these posts about my trip to Georgia. I'm just going to write about stuff as it occurs to me.
This just occurred to me.
On the way back, we decided to stop for the night in some town in Virginia. I don't know which town it was and it doesn't matter anyway. I'm not sure if even the people who lived there could tell you where it was.
As we were driving up 95, we were looking at the millions of billboards that line the road. We were looking for a hotel with and indoor pool, because indoor pools are relaxing and we all needed to do some of that. We located a Holiday Inn that met the criteria and pulled in for the night.
Bonus! Not only was there an indoor pool, there was also an indoor Jacuzzi. Nice. This would be perfect. I was going to chill in the hot tub and disregard any oxymoron inherent in the statement.
After we checked in, the girls went off to locate the pool only to come back to inform us that they would not be using the pool because it smelled chlorine-y in there. I was like, man, you guys will complain about just anything, won't you? Of course there's going to be a chlorine smell where there's an indoor pool, but you just deal with it. It's not bad and soon you don't even notice it.
If the girls were not going to enjoy the indoor swimming facilities, that wasn't going to stop my wife and I. We headed down and proceeded to relax-ify in the tub of hot.
We relaxed if this is what you look like when you relax:

There was a lot of chlorine in the hot tub. There was a lot of chlorine in the hot tub. Boy. Boy was there a lot of chlorine in the hot tub. There was enough chlorine in the hot tub to dissolve a frying pan. Why a frying pan? You ever try to dissolve a frying pan with chlorine? It takes a lot.
I asked the man at the front desk why there was so much chlorine in the hot tub. He said there had recently been a squirrel gang war in the hot tub and that all the squirrels who had killed each other and bled all over the inside of the hot tub had squirrel AIDS and they were trying to knock it down with chlorine.
I thought that was reasonable.

Some of this might not have happened.

Travelogue of my trip to Georgia

Here I will recount some of the things that happened during my trip to and from Georgia.
My sister got married in Savannah, Georgia. I am a fan of Savannah, Georgia and I will probably talk about it more later. For now, I just want to talk about how we, me and my wife and my 14 year old daughter and my 22 year old niece, got there.
We drove. Well, I drove. In a Mini Cooper.
Now, wait. Before you freak out, you should know that this is not the normal sized Mini, it's actually The Clubman, which is just a whole bunch bigger. Okay. No. Not really. It's very small.
It takes 19 hours, give or take to drive to Georgia. I drove four people back and forth in a Mini Cooper. Sitting here now, writing this and reading it as I am writing it, I feel compelled to slap me silly. Hold on...
Better. I really had that coming. Big, dumb, dork.
It was done in the spirit of economy. That was stupid. I saved no money because we had to stop for more food and for more hotel rooms and pay for gas and bleaghagag.
I'd like to say, well, at least we got to see some neat stuff, but that is almost totally untrue.
I'd like to say, well, at least we got to spend time together as a family, and while that is technically true, the time we were spending was a lot of just barely not killing one another.
One time, when I was twelve, I was at a lake with my parents. At this lake, there were a great many slides into the water and rafts to swim out to and ropes to swing off of and things to jump from. It was awesome. I spotted a platform that I decided looked like it really needed to be cannonballed from. So, I climbed it and looked down into the water. I remember thinking to myself how crystal clear the water was, because I could see the bottom so clearly.
I cannonballed from the platform, that was actually a platform for a life guard to place a chair on, into approximately 10 inches of water and did some fairly significant damage to my legs and ankles and knees. If I had dove, I would be dead.
THAT was a bad idea. The idea of driving back and forth to Georgia in a Mini Cooper Clubman filled with four people and a bunch of luggage ranks just behind it.