Day 1: Traveling to Virginia

Saturday, January 17, 2009

3:14am. Obama should make it illegal to be up this early.

4:34am. We would like to extend a special thank you to our sponsor Bekah Schmidt who kindly woke up from her dream about terrorists to take us to the airport.

5:19am. Its currently a balmy 8 degrees in Virginia! Time to break out the shorts

2:30pm. On connecting flight in atlanta. Just enough time to pee and then we had to board. Bloody hot and hungry. Thank the lord for the apples we packed.

7:40pm. Oh my, what a cultural experience we just had. After picking up our rental car and finding our hotel for the night, we went to dinner because as stated at 2:30, we were famished. We hadn't really eaten since the wee hours of the morning. Not wanting to prolong our stomach pains much longer, we headed for the nearest place-- The Waffle House. We do a drive by to look in the windows and are disheartened by the fact that there is only one pair of customers in the restaurant. Taking that as a bad sign, we drove another block but decided to turn around because while we're in the South, we might as well take advantage of it.

We walk in the doors to an overwhelming stench of cigarettes and puke. For some reason we keep walking to a table and even take a look at the menu. Jess and I keep giving each other the "this-place-smells-like-pee" type of looks and are struggling to figure out if we want to stay. Eventually the waitress comes over to us and we decide to just go for it. We're going to brave the dirty counters, rotting lettuce, and dripping waffle pans we see. Why? I don't know either.

I'm really struggling how to best write this next part because really, I don't wish to be derogatory or mean or superior to anyone. So with that disclaimer, I would like to just say that there is no better way to describe our waitress than to say that she absolutely epitomizes what many people would call the stereotypical Southern redneck. Just to give you a general idea, she looked to be about 17 and wore huge plastic earrings in the shape of a heart with peace signs in the middle. I wish to submit the following evidence for you to ponder:

1) First, in response to Jess' comment that we had never been to Virginia before and certainly never to the Waffle House, she replied proudly, completely mystified by these out of towners, "Oh REALLY? Well, we serve ALL Coke products here."

2) When Jess was served her biscuits and sausage gravy, the sausage was on the side for her to cut up and put in there herself.

3) We overheard the waitress yelling into her cell phone, "I called the jail and he wasn't there". Jess and I turned to each other with wide eyes at that point and the waitress came over to apologize for all the ruckus. I asked her if she was ok and she told us the story about how her fiancee he had disappeared for two days and wouldn't return her calls. Apparently this is something he does somewhat frequently. I told her in no uncertain terms that she needs to get out of that relationship because she deserved someone who would treat her better.

4) And I am sorry, but no matter what way you slice the bread, there was some weird hanky panky going on in her familial life. She kept calling a coworker of hers "Daddy", when he looked to be no older than 20. At one point, he pulled a picture of a baby out of his wallet and the waitress took it to show someone else what her new baby brother looked like. There is no way that this guy actually fathered this waitress at 3 years of age.

Seriously, this was definitely a night of culture for us.