Reality Checkpoint (Cigar Smoke 6-19-08)

The first day on the road was pretty dang good. Just drove through the desert, had a BLT at Denny’s and got to Phoenix in six hours of fulfilling anticipatory delight. We got settled in our Holiday Inn room (please, stop the envious looks) and we rested for a couple of hours, and then some of the anticipation started to hit the fan.

We were deciding to eat at either Chili’s or The Cracker Barrel. Marge didn’t really have a strong hankering for either one, so I made the decision to go to The Cracker Barrel. Mainly because I like cookie-cutter fake-antique places that are exactly the same either in South Carolina or Albuquerque and serve food you need help with lifting to your mouth.

We’re looking at the menu and Marge says, with clenched little feminine teeth, “They don’t serve wine here.” And I know she wanted to add, “comma, Dumb-ass.” But she didn’t. Because she has two things I sometimes dream about having — class and restraint.

So, throughout the entire meal of consuming dumplings with white gravy that you could mortar a house with, she didn’t speak to me. And I didn’t talk to her either, because I was enjoying my mashed potatoes that were making the table tilt towards Tucson.

We got back to the hotel room. She still wouldn’t talk to me. We went to bed. I cooed, yes cooed, to her, “You want me to go to a liquor store and buy you some Annie Green Springs and pour it on your Cracker Barrel body and then slurp the little puddle out of your navel.” She did not respond.

The next morning I get up at 5:30 because Hadley the Airedale has to take a whiz. I got out of bed, put on my sweat pants, threw on my SC T-shirt, slid into my sandals and took him out to the parking lot to consummate his urinary desires.

Well, Hadley did fine. And then I reach into my sweat pants pocket to get my hotel key to slide into the door to gain entry into such hotel. And, yup, no key.

So I walk around to the front entrance and walk back to our room and knock on the door. No response. I knock again, really loudly. Nothing. I start yelling, “Marge! Marge!” I know she can hear me, but I just hear parts of her answer, like “Maybe next time you’ll pick a place that serves wine.” I yell out, “I’m sorry!” The guy in the room next to us opens his door, and says, “You cheat on her?” I said, “No! I took her to a restaurant that didn’t serve wine.” He said, “Dumb shit.” And he closed the door.

So I walk Hadley back to the front of the hotel and we walk up to the desk clerk, and I say, “Uh, I locked myself out of my room. Could I please have another key?” And she looks at me and my hair is all sleep-matted down to one side with the top of my hair sticking straight up like I’ve just been hit by lightning and there is dry spittle on my chin and crusty eye deposits on the corners of my crusty eyes. And the clerk says, “Can I see some identification?” And, or course, my wallet is in the room, next to my key. You talk about anticipation not meeting expectations, baby. They were strangers.

Eventually I get back into my room (they got tired of me scaring their guests with my crying) and after not speaking with Marge for an hour I dropped her off at her son’s house, and Hadley and I went on our way to Colorado, the land of anticipation.

Then about four hours into the day’s drive, I stopped for lunch at a McDonald’s in Kayenta, Ariz. I got a Big Mac and Cheeseburger for Hadley, and I got a Fish Sandwich for myself, because I get sleepy after eating beef, and I was driving, so I wanted to be responsible and alert and mature. Yes, I am wonderful. By the way, how does McDonald’s find all those perfectly square fish for their sandwiches?

After we finish off the sandwiches, I go back in and order a large soft-serve ice cream cone. When I get it, it is indeed large. Probably six inches of ice cream on this tiny cone base. It was scarier than false anticipation. The ice cream just tottered there waiting for its fate. And then it happens. The entire tower of ice cream breaks off. It does not fall off, or topple over. The ice cream doesn’t separate where it meets the cone. No. It breaks off in the middle of the dinky-ass cone it’s heaped onto!

What I’m trying to say is that it wasn’t my fault it fell. My alternative-side-licking was good. No, McDonald’s had engineered a faulty cone! Those commies. Really, the cone was so damn small it couldn’t hold the weight of the ice cream, so it snapped off. That’s just not right.

And here I had a giant glob of ice cream in my hand and I tried to eat as much as I could until my fingers froze and then I got pissed off and just dropped the glob on purpose and let it plop on the pavement. I’m still irritated. I think we have a class action suit.

Anticipation, meet reality. The sound of that plop was just, as my friend Fred Bankston always says, “So life.”