At 8 am this morning Christina nervously over filled four bowls with cat food and 3 bowls with water. I stood at the door with a bag on each shoulder and a can of sparkling water in my hands “cmmmon we’re late, let’s go!” I said. “Amy is coming to check on them this afternoon.”
“I know, but I just want to make sure they will be okay in case something happens to Amy and she can’t get here.” She said opening the cabinet to retrieve a fourth water bowl. I suddenly went from feeling completely justified by my impatience to feeling like an insensitive animal owner. We were headed over to Katie and Eliza’s. Eliza was accepted to graduate school in Kalamazoo, MI and she and Katie had packed their entire house worth of belongings into a giant moving truck. They asked if we would follow them with their dogs on the drive to their new home. We decided it would be fun to get out of the city before the summer puts on her sweater and scarf and starts shopping the back to school specials.
As we drive, the green hills are wall papered with neatly combed rows of corn. They follow the contours of the landscape in a striped pattern so that it feels as though we are traversing the side of a Chia pet. The occasional town is decipherable by a lonely square of golden arches or motel 8, which stands like a push pin on what feels like a two dimensional landscape. Wisconsin. Rusty old steel trucks sit like gravestones on the side of the road and our radio crackles threateningly. Snippets of right wing radio shows and classic rock of the 70’s bleed in and out of our music like subliminal messaging. Cheese. Beef. Corn. Custard. Wisconsin is a perpetual state fair. It is a never-ending tailgate party. It is cheap beer and processed food. It is theme parks and tie-dye and the eternally stylish mullet.
We bounced off the wide highway down a dirt and gravel road chasing the promise of a non-fast food lunch at a “family restaurant”. The four of us communed around a square table topped with ketchup, a breakfast menu and.. an ashtray? The walls were decorated with guns held in place by antlers and the adjacent rest stop/gas station had one magazine rack filled entirely with adult magazines. Apparently the “family” this restaurant had in mind when creating their name was of the adult trucker variety. A little old lady in a trucker cap chain-smoked in the adjacent booth.
We all ordered cautiously. My turkey club came in Easter colors, light pink tomato with light green lettuce and light yellow french fries and, of course, mayonnaise. Not only did they put mayo ON my sandwich, but they also delivered a cup smeared with a large side of mayo just in case I needed extra. “My lunch came in pastel” I said smiling sarcastically at the watery vegetables on my plate. “You are such a food snob” Christina said.
Maybe so, but I still (regretfully) ate the sandwich.
Ahh road tripping... sounds delightful. I went to Wisconsin on a fishing trip early this year and because we could not catch anything worth eating we went into the nearest town to eat (with my head down shamefully) fish. It was some sort of walleye that was frozen for ages probably and then fried in pan then placed on my plate next to a pile of yellow fries. The decor of the place is just like the one you had described except it was night time. It was ok but not the fresh out of the lake fish I wanted, and the lack of being able to procure myself, it made it taste even more bitter.
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