On The Road Again

A gentle handshake from a bushy haired indie rock dude is my official welcome to Brooklyn. Skip Skipowski* and his wife Shelly were supposed to come to pick Boom and I up at Port Authority but we got the call while on the Greyhound from Hartford that they were running behind schedule and we'd have to catch a cab to their place. We load up our stuff in the Suburban and pile in the back seat which will be our living quarters for the next 48 hours. We meet the slightly shy Shelly and her extremely shy puppy and hit the road as promo small talk breaks the ice.

Yes it seems as though I am on the road on another promotional tour. We are headed to Panama City Beach, FL where we will delight spring breakers from around the country with deliciously minty samplings of a popular brand of chewing gum. If I was pushing the limits of ridiculousness by my mere presense in PCB in 2002, I am not even close enough to fake my way through fitting in with these drunken screwballs this time around. When the company that put us up last time around, in what was my official introduction to the life of a brand ambassador, went belly up a short time later I was sure that my days of getting a paid vacay on the beach were over like an Indianapolis Colts playoff run.

We're barely into Jersey when Skip hit us with it. He had already delayed the departure one full day due to some unexplained circumstance. Then he hit us with the dog joining the crew the night before we left. "Hope you guys aren't alergic to dogs," was I believe how he phrased it. That's right up there with the classic "You don't mind if I smoke," line....which came soon after our second toll booth. Smoke and dog farts are one thing but this one took Boom and I by suprise.


"Yeah guys....I just remembered that it's my mom's birthday tomorrow and she lives in Memphis. I don't know how you guys feel about it but it's on the way to Florida. I don't know, if you guys are determined to get to Florida we can do that but.....whatever, think about it."

Chip kind of spoke from behind some sort of invisible haze. Kind of slow and deliberate. He also has a way of making things seem to have a looseness about them, as if he doesn't really care either way. You know like, whatever guys, whatever is best is best for me. That sort of vibe. But the thing is that we usually are left with little choice but to be on board with what he pitches.

Boom and I look at each other squinting and scowling. We ponder internally 1)Is this geographicaly logical [not really] 2)Would we get in hot water with the home office [probably not but who knows] and 3)Do we want to go to Memphis [undecided]. I speak first.

"Are you sure Memphis is on the way to Panama City?!?! It seems like it's more to the west?!?!"

Skip: "No it's right on the way, I drove it before."

Boom: "Do you have an atlas?"

Skip: "Uhhhh, I think we used to have one in here. I think we lost it."

We sort of agree to think about it for a bit, we don't have to decide until we get to the D.C. area when we can choose between staying on 95 S or jumping on 81 towards Tennessee.

It seems strange to both of us, as we would discuss later on at the Bristol, TN Hampton Inn, that someone would embark on a 1,000 mile road trek without the use of an atlas. But Skip, as he would tell us two nights later, preferred to do the trip on "stamina and memory."

These are the thoughts that, along with a delightful montage of classic rock and a teeth rattling glass pillow, eased ole Boomie and I off to a half mad form of semi sleep. When I woke up either 12 minutes or 9 hours later I had a strange sensation of misdirection. The sun was nearly set. The highway didn't offer anything in the way of telling signs of direction. It just felt wrong to me somehow. I peered up at the rearview mirror compass and two digital figures spelling SW looked back. When it didn't change for about 10 minutes I didn't need to see a blue intestate sign with 81 in the center. I repositioned myself for another neckwarping nap and tried to think of something positive to focus on......hmmmmmmm......got it! Shrimp shimp shrimp shrimp shrimp.


*Names changed to protect the riddy-diddy-diculous.