Tennessee

Inspiration - "Tennessee" Arrested Development - I know you're supposed to be my steering wheel/Not just my spare tire (home)/But lord I ask you (home)/To be my guiding force and truth (home)/For some strange reason it had to be (home)/He guided me to Tennessee (home)

What I'm Listening To - "Aint Nobody Worrying" - Anthony Hamilton

Question(s) I Asked Myself Today - "Can the police use their radar guns at night?" I wondered this as I was driving 95 mph trying to get home.

This weekend I went to Tennessee to see my friend Tweety. She is 8 months pregnant and I missed her baby shower last month because of the whole pink eye fiasco. I'm trying to be godfather to her daughter. I got her this crib/bed from her baby registry at Bab.ies R Us. Now, it wouldn't be a T blog story if something didn't go wrong, so here it is:

I left work Friday to pick up the crib. Shipping was like an extra 100 bucks so I decided to just buy it at the store and drive it up there. I gets to the store, plop down my $392.74 and expect to get a normal sized box to put in the trunk. It had to be assembled so I didn't expect to get a box the size of the space shuttle. Needless to say, it wouldnt fit in my trunk or backseat. I didn't know what I was gonna do, so I left the crib at the store and searched for someone with an SUV to pick it up for me. After a couple of calls, my homey Collipark came through with her SUV. I still didnt know how I was going to get it to TN, but at least I could take it home. We rolled back to the store and the box wouldn't fit in her truck either. Finally, I ask the stock guy, if I can just take it out of the box and put it in the car. This mumbling negro says, "I was gonna suggest that the first time." Well, why didn't you? Anyway, we put all the pieces in the SUV and drove back to my crib.

I started putting the pieces in my trunk, when I realized that the sideboard still wont fit in my car. We tried manuevering it in the back seat and the front seat, before finally getting in diagonally between the passenger side front seat and the driver side back seat. The only problem was the large piece was sitting on top of my my gear shift, and I couldn't get the car in drive. I just gave up and decided to figure it out on Saturday.

Now, I've told you that I'm the worlds biggest procrastinator right? Well Saturday comes and while I should be on the road, I'm sitting around the crib watching World Cup Soccer. (Shout out to Ghana for beating the Czech Republic) I finally get my shit together and leave at around 2:30. The ride takes about 3 hours normally. I basically wasted the whole day away doing nothing, plus I still have to figure out how I'm going to drive with this monstrosity in the car. I nigga-rigged it so I could lift the crib up and put the car in gear and got on the highway. There was a lot of traffic but it was moving smoothly. Just as I put the cruise control on to relax, I see nothing but brake lights. Apparently, the Georgia D.O.T. thought it was a good idea to shut down 2 lanes of I 75 at the same time to widen the highway. Traffic came to a standstill and I already was later than I wanted to be. The 3 hour drive came out to be 4 1/2 hours.

Now, Tweety doesn't live in a major metropolitain city. If she lived in Nashville, I could just take 75 to 24. She lives in the middle of nowhere, in Hanganiggaville, TN. I've taken the drive many times, but it never ceases to amaze me how remote it is. There is a section of the highway that cuts through the mountains and blocks all cell phone service. I think that they should change the state motto to "Tennessee - Come dump your dead bodies here!" There is no one around for a good stretch of the road and it would serve as a perfect environment for concealing a murder. (Not that I thought of that - LOL.) This highway is also the perfect setting for a horror movie. My overactive imagination kept me thinking about that movie "Jee.pers Cree.pers" where they were driving down a deserted stretch of road and were attacked by a whatever the fuck it was. But I made it without incident and watched 4 episodes of SVU with Tweety for the rest of the day.

Sunday, we went to IHOP for breakfast and were the only Black people in the restaurant. There weren't even any brothers working in the back. There was one Mexican, but the rest were all White. Later we drove an hour up the road to Nashville, to do some more shopping at Bab.ies R US, Target and Walmart. I was relieved to see some color there. I kept joking with Tweety that she better not go into labor while I was there. She would be on her own. I mean I would call an ambulance, but don't expect me to be calm about it. So, when she started having pains while I was driving, I was extra nervous. Everything was cool though. To top it off, there was a torrential downpour on the way back to Hanganiggaville. I could barely see the highway, but I did notice Noah pass us in his ark. When we got back, I loaded up my stuff and made the trip back to Atlanta. It was so much easier coming home than going there. There was no construction and I was doing 90 -95 most of the way. That was my weekend, what about your? Did you do anything exciting? Anything boring? Anything at all?

It was written...