maybe I’m just really impatient

8/11/99

John finally got home from his trip around 5:30. He was later than he said he’d be, and I was cranky from waiting. He was cranky from riding in a poorly climate-controlled bus for 8 hours.

Why does it take so long to get anywhere in the South? I thought I was going to die on the way down here. I wanted to get out of the stinking Ryder van and lie down in front of it, cat-poopy shorts and everything.

Part of it is in my mind—I used Atlanta as my point of reference for a long time before I moved here. Turned out Atlanta was almost a hundred miles away from where I live. From Michigan, they might as well have been neighbors.

Georgia is long and infuriating. On that hellish trip it was late at night, I was pissed off and tired, we crossed the line into GA and I got all excited. Yay! Almost there!

Three hours later we passed through Atlanta. About FUCK-ing time. My Waffle House salute had dwindled to half-hearted, then to a simple middle finger greeting, then a muttered, “Screw you, Waffle House.” But: Yay! Atlanta! We’re almost there!

Two hours later we reached Warner Robins. It was 1:30 am. I hated the truck, I hated my cat, I hated my life, and I really hated Georgia. John nervously unlocked the door to our apartment. It’s the first place he picked out by himself.

Whatever luxury I might have been (stupidly) expecting, I was faced with a typical bachelor’s apartment. Barren, icky-carpeted, brown GoodWill couch, Nintendo paraphernalia and a TV propped up on a plastic trunk, hair-studded shaving cream blobs on the sink, all edged by a clutter of junk mail.

I tried hard to hold back the tears. John was tired, too, and very worried that I’d be unhappy. He went straight to bed. I looked at his borrowed mattress, box spring, and sheets, covered by a borrowed sleeping bag, and wanted to go home. All of my own things were in the truck, and if I could have found the truck I’d have slept in it.

I did get over all that, and our apartment, while cramped, is nice enough. But three days after that first awful night, we got back in the car and drove to Gatlinburg for the wedding. Squeezed into a car with John’s family was not the problem. And it can’t be that Georgia’s huge, because Michigan’s huger and I never got this crazed, desperate feeling on car trips in Michigan.

Anyway! (Geez, stop me when I get like that.) Last night we were no good for doing anything productive, so we went to see Mystery Men. The movie, while a nice entertaining flick, failed to hold my attention all the way through. It looked like it was a lot of fun for the actors.

And hey! I just want to say, and you are my witnesses: the Waffle House Salute was developed before this movie came out! I thought of it all on my own! Stiller, Macy and Azaria do a slightly modified version of it in one scene. Their execution probably had little to do with Die WaffelHausen.