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!