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ornithopter: We're Coming To Your Town. We Can't Keep Our Food Down... |
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Once again, last month Shumai went on our first real tour. Our jaunt took us to various cities and various motel chains up and down the east coast of this land of ours.
Basically, we came away with the following lessons learned:
1. Do not go to the south in early August.
2. Never eat at a place called "Mom's."
3. Never make your drummer laugh after an all you can eat breakfast buffet.
4. AAA membership is a very good idea.
So we're up to Saturday night.
We set off from Philadelphia that night/morning with the plan of staying in a motel in a cluster of cheap ones off of route 95 just over the Maryland border, close to the infamous Giant Pants of North East Maryland.
As usual, I was driving, thanks to the fact that it's almost impossible for me to fall asleep while driving (although, this theory was almost disproven last weekend. Another story for another day.) We arrived at the Motel Six and went up to the clerk who at this hour was now hidden behind a thick plexiglass window. This did not engender confidence in the clientele, but we were too exhausted to worry about this at this point. As we were being waited on, a very drunk man staggered in talking about how he had just been in Atlantic City gambling and had to drive to South Carolina. He kept mumbling about how he had no one waiting for him, but the huge grin on his face seemed to indicate that this was a good thing. We smiled politely and paid the $49 for the room. Turned out it was worth every penny, but not a penny more.
The tiny room had a dingy shower stall, floursecent lighting, the terrible stench of cheap cigarrettes (or maybe crack pipes, who knows?) and polyester bedding. Normally, this would send me running in the other direction since I generally don't sleep on sheets with less than a 400 thread count, but I was so exhausted I didn't even bat an eyelash. What a trooper I am, huh?
The next morning we attempted our first attack on a Waffle House, but the wait was 40 minutes, so we headed across the road to an Iron Skillet which had an all you can eat breakfast buffet. Frankly, I can't eat much of that crap. They served the worst looking scrambled egg-type product I have ever seen. Big chunks of...something vaguely yellow surrounded by cloudy water. Yum! I mostly ate french toast sticks.
Frank, our drummer, on the other hand, ate huge plates of home fries and french toast and god knows what else. He went back at least three times. Finally, he couldn't eat any more and we were off.
Somewhere outside of Baltimore, Erik apparently felt that his eyes were puffy and asked me what I thought. I said they weren't , but if he wanted to, he could dip Frank's balls in ice and have Frank give him Arabian Goggles in the absence of tea bags or cucumbers. Unbeknownst to us up in the front seat, Frank, who was in the back seat with Jeni, began laughing uncontrollably while trying to drink some water. This caused a bit of choking and then, all of a sudden, Bam!
Vomit all over the floor of the van. It being a mini-van, there was no way to open a window in the back seat, so he had no choice but to go for the floor.
Erik, who was driving, asked Jeni, "Is he puking?" She continued to play with her Gameboy and, not looking up, answered nonchalantly, "Yes." Way to help out.
So we pulled over to the side of the road and, once we had established that Frank was ok and not dying, could NOT stop laughing. We laughed for like 10 minutes straight, stopped for a minute, and then laughed for another five. At this point, job one was finding something with which to clean up the puke which was stinking up the van something fierce. Turns out, Simple Green does a great job, even if it does leave things smelling like a gas station bathroom for a few hours. I'll await the free case of the stuff which will undoubtedly arrive at my door soon after my endorsement hits the interweb.
I swear I'll get to DC next time.
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