Trying to get a pizza in rural Indiana

I bring you a tale of a young man, wise, learned, and . . . and . . . and he knows stuff, who set off on a mighty quest (well he left college and moved two hours away on to his parent’s farm).  But on that sixty-acre piece of land he encountered many trials (can one man actually eat an entire bag of Totino’s pizza rolls without blowing chunks, is it truly possible to watch five hours of the three stooges without poking yourself in the eyes to make it stop?)  And I a lowly writer (really the same guy, and about that pizza roll thing, the answer is no.) have chronicled his story, or at least one night of that story.  I give you . . . 

 

Monday Night at the Farm

Tonight I found myself actually deserving a bit of a rest, as I was employed in real life work, which really means that I have to pay taxes and I only get paid every other week.  Yes, that’s right I finally got the call to be a substitute teacher, and I had a great time in every class that I taught, unfortunately I accidentally drove to the wrong town, confused the hell out of them and ended up being forty minutes late to my first day of work.  I actually misheard the lady on the telephone telling me where to go and I showed up at the wrong school and tried to teach their kids gym.  The real gym teacher of course was not pleased. 

Then, when I went to check my e-mail at home my computer made a errrrrr noise and then came up with the message, error 25sf3td9 in motherboard input reactor. I decided to get on hold again with my favorite customer support people.  I got an Indian man who I had to have repeat himself four hundred times, two hundred because I couldn’t understand his English and the other two hundred because I didn’t understand what it was he wanted me to do, what the hell is a bios intergraded update floppy?  When he told me to change my interface system by rebooting and tapping F2 while singing Abba’s Dancing Queen and praying to Inspiron, the Dell God, I knew he didn’t really know what was wrong either.  However, after breaking it much, much worse over a four hour period suddenly and without any real explanation from Tech Support Unit 17, Handi, who I miraculously not only started to understand but sound like, (“I will nah be toushing the Delee button, ohhh noh”) the computer just started working.

Football was now approaching and I hadn’t eaten, I decided to order a pizza.  (well basically it was either eat bacon and new potatoes or go out and get something)  I had a hankering for butter cheese crust and it just so happens that next to McDonalds, down the road from the first Wal-Mart, which of course is right between the Meijer and the Kmart across the street from the Taco Bell and before the Burger King, Arby’s, and Hot and Now combined Parking area there happens to be a Hungry Howies.  They don’t deliver, however, to BFE, which I think is actually my official street address if anyone would like to send a postcard, so I had to pick it up.  It took me an hour and a half to go pick up the pizza and return home.  An hour and a half.

            Ever get stuck behind a really slow driver, either on the highway where it takes a while to get around them or you have to follow them through town from the Blockbuster to your street?  The farm takes that concept and multiplies it by three.  If you are lucky enough to get stuck behind a car, its going to be a rusted-out pick-up truck and it is going to be bellowing some sort of lethal toxin directly at your vent intake, it takes forever to get around him because the roads are all back country highways that twist with hills and at any moment you could come car to horse with the Amish.  Ah, the Amish, trotting along the side of the road with their beards and their German and their staring, pretending they’ve never seen a car before, or color, or a bath tub, and that’s just the women. 

I had the luck of getting behind a tractor that was towing some sort of harvester that was wider than the road, who either couldn’t see me, couldn’t pull off enough to let me by, or just didn’t care that he was going down the highway at eight miles an hour.  Of course there is more than one road going to Angola, there are two.  So I tried the second.  Just as I was getting to speed I saw an animal enter the road ahead of me.  No problem I thought as I took my foot off the accelerator, it’s just a wild turkey crossing the road.  And though I don’t pretend to know why, that’s just what he did, him and two hundred of his closest friends.  At what pace did they cross the road, you ask me?  A waddle, which is much slower than a lazy stroll but just faster than a cat with no legs . . . who’s dead.  Honking and screaming doesn’t help if anyone wondered. 

It wasn’t even funny when I had to stop for the train.

The pizza was cold, and the idiots forgot the butter cheese crust.

Random thing I’ve noticed about living in the boondocks:

The road kill out here is much larger.  In the city, you’ve got, what? squirrels, maybe a raccoon?  Out here just to start, there squirrels, opossums, raccoons, large birds, but then there is the scary deer carcasses all over the place, along with monster skunks and a ton of ill taken care of house pets.

After all that, when I got home, I was ready for some football.

Unfortunately I was so tired from getting up early and playing kickball with third graders I fell asleep shortly after kickoff.  Ahh farming it.