Holy
crap in a Bundt pan...
Due to the
recent well-publicized shortage of
amateur websites produced by assholes who consider themselves to be
clever, I
have been called into action. My name is Jeff Kay, and I’m an
Ugly American living
on the cusp of a mid-life crisis, near Scranton, PA. And I’m here to
serve, baby.
The
State of My Fat Ass A journal of
sorts, updated every once in a while.
--
We left early on Wednesday morning, for our big Thanksgiving trip to
West Virginia. Not as early as Toney had hoped, but early nonetheless.
Especially considering the fact I was involved. I think we were
on the road by 7:45, and getting me up and moving in the middle of the
night like that is nothing short of a miracle. She should be commended
on a job well-done.
I had the inside of my car covered, covered, with sheets and old
bedspreads, in anticipation of Andy and his big Freddy Krueger claws. I
had visions of him ripping open the upholstery, and skinning the
pleather off my console like a monkey peeling a banana. But he did OK, I
guess. With Black Lips Houlihan you expect the worst, and hope for the
best. I was pleasantly surprised.
He couldn't sit still, as usual, and kept shuttling between the backseat
and Toney's lap. But he didn't do any permanent damage. He shed all over
everything, which is something that happens when he gets nervous, for
some reason. At one point the sun was shining straight through the car,
and you could see dog hair just swirling around in a huge vortex;
each of us probably has a quarter of a border collie lodged in our
lungs. But at least he didn't tear shit up.
We got through I-81 (the ball-crushing part of the trip) before anything
horrible happened, and stopped in Cumberland, MD. It's almost exactly
the halfway point in our journey, and we had lunch at a fancy new Chick-fil-A
there. Yum. After we polished off our delicious meals, I told Toney I
was going to get a chicken salad sandwich for the road (I'm a man of
size, what of it?), and the youngest Secret wanted one of those terrible
wax novelty brownies they sell. Both trips to the counter combined:
almost $25.
Shit! That's some pricey-ass fast food. Those people have no respect for
the five dollar rule, none whatsoever. What
am I, Ted Turner?!
Somewhere between Cumberland and my parents' house, Andy shifted us into
neutral during one of his neurotic journeys between the front and back
seats. Suddenly there was a loud engine noise, and we started losing
speed. What in the Rowan & Martin hell?! For two or three panicked
seconds I thought the transmission had shit the bed, and we'd be
stranded in Upper Mule Scrotum, WV for the holiday. But it didn't take
long to figure out the problem, and correct it. I then hollered at Andy
for three solid minutes, causing him to eject even more hair,
like a million tiny rockets off his back.
We arrived at Chez Kay around 4:30, and
from there things get kinda blurry. I'm not going to attempt to keep the
rest of this in chronological order. I'll just give you the
"highlights," all willy-nilly. Pass the white gravy.
-- For reasons unknown, my parents have dehumidifiers all over their
house. There's not even a hint of moisture in the air there. Is
that something that happens once you reach the age of 65, a chronic
addiction to dehumidifiers? I'm just not clear on it. But we were all
coughing and creating boogers to beat the band. In the mornings I'd sit
straight up in bed, panicked and stricken with a horrible dryness.
Toney, who normally has curly hair, walked into the room on Thursday
looking like she was sporting a Cher wig. I mean, what the hell, man?
Aren't you supposed to leave just a little water in the air? It
was like the surface of Pluto in that house.
-- On Thanksgiving morning I casually mentioned, over coffee, that I
wanted to wash my car. I had to get rid of all that dog hair, it was
literally attached to the doors. I'm not kidding. I inspected it when we
arrived, and not only was it stuck to any exposed surface of upholstery,
but the inside of the doors were plastered with the essence of Andy as
well. And
I can't have that.
By the time I finished taking a shower, my Dad was already soaping up
the Camry. His ears perk up whenever someone mentions washing a car. He
had some sort of complicated Mr. Clean apparatus out there that
apparently blasts a myriad of cleaning agents. I just don't know.
But together we knocked that baby out in short order. It reminded me of
those car washes in California, where a team of Mexicans converge on
your vehicle while you sip a latte, and the thing is completely detailed
within seconds.
As we worked a man in a pick-up stopped, and greeted my Dad. He jumped
out and ran around to the rear of his truck, and dropped the tailgate.
"Check it out!" he said, proudly, as a bloody deer head with a
pronounced "rack" tumbled out of the darkness. It was (is?)
deer season in WV, and the whole place seemed to be abuzz with
excitement. Men were everywhere, sporting the confusing combination of
camouflage and neon orange (see me! don't see me!), and smiling broadly
through unkempt facial hair.
The guy stood there and talked for a while, and seemed nice enough. But
I noticed he injected an "uh" into his speech, randomly. I've
encountered this before in my travels, and it's fascinating. He asked my
Dad, "So, are you planning uh to go to Florida again this year
uh?" It was an amazing thing to behold. And the next day, the same
guy stopped again, with another deer. He was clearly on a roll
uh.
-- As we washed my car, I noticed that the front passenger-side wheel
cover was all scratched-up. I hit a curb in Philadelphia a couple of
weeks ago, when we went to see the Beautiful South, but hadn't noticed
how badly I'd wrecked the hubcap. Grrrr....
After we finished vacuuming out the interior, with some hilarious R2-D2
deal straight out of the 1950's that my Dad dragged out of his garage,
he asked if I wanted to go look for a wheel cover. On Thanksgiving? He
said he knew a place that was probably open, one of those roadside
hubcap sheds, where the business is also somebody's house. If you know
what I mean.
And sure enough, the place was in full operation, and there were other
folks already " shopping" when we arrived. There were hubcaps everywhere:
hanging from the branches of trees, nailed to the side of a trailer,
lined up in great rows across the lawn. It was nuts. And how in God's
name were we to find the one we were looking for, in that cluster-fuck
of chrome?
We poked around for a while, and finally a man walked over to us and
said, "Hep ya?" He had a protruding forehead and eyes that
were apparently free agents; they seemed to just roll around in their
sockets with no relation to what he was actually looking at.
Banjoes
began playing inside my head.
I told him I needed a hubcap for my Toyota, and pointed it out. He
apparently surveyed my car, even though it appeared he was looking at a
tool shed over in the corner of the yard. Without saying anything he
went inside the trailer, and we could hear a bunch of clanging and
bashing around. Finally, he emerged holding a filthy hubcap that
appeared to have spent considerable time at the bottom of a lake.
"Here it
is," he said, with one eye pointed straight at us, and the other
ratcheted off to the left.
We looked the thing over, and it was in great shape. It just needed to be
scrubbed real well, and it would probably be as good as new. I asked how
much he wanted, and he said, without hesitation, "Twenty."
Holy shit! I asked if he'd take ten, and he looked over at my
Pennsylvania license plate, this time with both eyes at once, and
repeated, "Twenty."
Son of a bitch!!
After hemming and hawing for a few seconds, I reluctantly gave him a
twenty dollar bill. He pocketed it, smiled, and said, "Y'all have a
nice day." And maybe it was just my imagination, but I seemed to
sense a hint of "who's the retard now?" in his voice. As we
drove away I saw him putting another piece of wood on a fire
beneath a mysterious black kettle, and he looked to have a satisfied smirk on his
face.
And I'm all out of time here. I'll have to do part two tomorrow. Did
anything exciting happen on your Thanksgiving holiday? Tell us about it,
won't you?
--
We left early on Wednesday morning, for our big Thanksgiving trip to
West Virginia. Not as early as Toney had hoped, but early nonetheless.
Especially considering the fact I was involved. I think we were
on the road by 7:45, and getting me up and moving in the middle of the
night like that is nothing short of a miracle. She should be commended
on a job well-done.