Monday, August 17, 2009

Yet Another Very Liz Encounter

I went to Taco Bell this weekend because I was running late for a show and needed to grab some lunch. I made my order and the elderly (like fifties) guy behind the counter was staring at my shirt (I hope) but didn't finish the order. Finally he looked at me and pointed towards me and asked
"Have you heard of Black Sabbath."
I wasn't entirely certain what to make of this since I was wearing my Arts and Science t-shirt but I am mostly a nice person so I said yes I had heard of them. Then he told me they were in Taco Bell earlier the same day. I wasn't sure what the appropriate response should have been to that to let him know that was neat and all but I had things to do and we needed to speed up this ordering process. I think I said something about oh they must be traveling between St. Louis and Kansas City. The man proceeded to tell me about when he used to live in Austen and work at a gas station where he met Alabama no fewer than three times.
How do these people find me and why cannot I not find a way to discourage the life story sharing?

Sunday, August 16, 2009

Green Acres Has Never Been the Place I Wanted To Be

Yesterday, I went on an adventure. You may wonder was it the fun sort of adventure where I have fascinating life experiences that will stick with me for years to come because of the poignant lessons they taught me... well the answer to that is no, don't be silly this isn't Saved By the Bell (sadly my life has never been Saved By the Bell no matter how hard I tried. My "timeouts" never really worked). Nope, this one consisted of an old truck, misleading information, treasure, cornfields, and disappointment.
My mother informed me yesterday morning that she needed help picking up some furniture she purchased at an estate sale. She said we had to wait until the afternoon when she could borrow a truck, but it shouldn't take too long. I agreed to help because I am a fantastic daughter (that and since all of my siblings are married with children these sort of jobs naturally fall on me). On the surface all of this may seen fine and dandy. No warning signs of the bed of lies this was built on.
Come one we were on the road driving to the house. Now I should have suspected what I was getting myself into when she handed me the directions on how to get to this house, but how am I supposed to know where Shelbina is. I will admit my Missouri geography was woefully neglected as a kid who always travelled a lot outside of Missouri I never bothered to learn much of what was in my own state if it wasn't along I-70 it simply didn't exist for me. I assumed it was in one of the little towns in the area...well 18 million cornfields later I had learned two things. One, when I look at cornfields I think of psycho, religious killers (thank you Children of the Corn) and snakes (thank you mom). Two, I was wrong. This stupid drive in the beat up old truck we borrowed took closer to two hours to get there. Two hours of tractors, corn, soy, pictures of Deliverance running through my head, and obsessing over the fact that today of all days was the day my old cell phone provider decided to end my service that I clearly stated was supposed to end on the 26th!
With every new small town that I hypothesized had outlawed dancing and was waiting for Kevin Bacon to come and free them I became more perturbed that I didn't have a phone and that we had still not made it to this alleged place called Shelbina. Finally, we pulled up in front of this old tiny house. Mom said no one was home we should just go in and take what she had bought. This seemed like a bad idea to me after all we are in gold ol' boy country and they all have guns. I would not want to be someone expected of looting and thievery. Nevertheless she charged in and I was left with no choice but to follow. We then spent the next hour or so struggling the largest heaviest dining room furniture I have ever moved. Finally when we were working on dismantling the last piece another scarier beat up truck pulled up outside.
Two wall-eyed and possibly toothless men started approaching the house. I looked at the screwdriver in my hand and wondered if the years of horror movie watching training had prepared me for this my greatest battle. I hoped more than believed they wouldn't have a shotgun with them since after all we were trespassing and for all intensive purposes looting. The two guys came into the front door and turned out to be two very nice country boys who were related to the lady the passed away. They helped us dismantle the table, loaded and tied down the truck for us. They even checked the air pressure in one of the tires because they were worried it looked too low (was it the fake country twang I adopted while talking to them... I guess we will never know). All in all they were stand up guys that I may have jumped to conclusion about unfairly.
Anyway we took the long and winding road less travelled by back home at the whopping speed of 45mph. We finally pulled up in front of the house at 7 where I could discover that I had missed the delivery of my new phone and would now have to wait until Monday.
 
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