XCD Day 4: FNL & Busy OK

I've never watched Friday Night Lights, but Annie swears that we drove through the non-fictional town it was based off.  No, not Odessa, TX.  Panhandle, TX.  One of my closest high school friends now lives there with his wife, his two-year-old, and a baby on the way.  (If you read yesterday's post, you may notice a trend.)  I went to school with only 2 Hispanic families, all of them were close friends, and I just visited them both in the Southwest in consecutive days.  During high school, I had no clue I was 25% Mexican, but it's interesting to think about now.  Apparently I should move to Albuquerque and quickly pop out a toddler and get another one in the oven.

This close friend has two great stories that immediately come to mind:  1) the time that we were hopped up on No-Doz for most of a weekend until I crashed in his car in the driveway of some good friend's clutched furiously to a water dildo, and 2) rolling his drunken ass out of the back of his van and down to the beach at some god-awful hour so that he could continue throwing up, and then leaving him there when it started to rain, convincing myself that I'd be back in an hour or so.  I woke up about 4 hours later and drove down to see if he was alive still.  He was missing.  So I drove to his house where he had apparently ended up.  Some neighbors called the cops thinking that we murdered someone and left the body to float away in Lake Erie.  Turns out that his mother would have been much happier with a drunken mess of a son, as opposed to one brought back by the cops half-dead from being drunk and soaked in rain and left outside.  Not my brightest moment.  (Btw, you still owe me like $70 for all those football tix you ditched on.  And where are my band CDs?)

Day #4

The town of Panhandle, TX, was both comically small and desolate.  There were streamers hanging from store windows celebrating the local high school football team.  It was almost spooky, in a ghost town kind of way.  As far as I can tell, this is the only road aside from the surrounding neighborhood:

Brick road is kind of cool, but that is literally all there is to this town.

When I picture Texas, I picture oil, steer, and San Antonio.  I do not picture cotton agriculture, which is apparently what this region survives on.  Craziness.  It had almost an air of New Mexico to it, but I still felt like some tall, shadowy figure was about to bound around the corner with a giant belt buckle and an even larger cowboy hat.

The rest of that day's drive was uneventful, until we decided to stop.  We typically have an idea in our head where we are going to stop that day.  You have to have some idea in the southwest, or you'll end up driving sleepily in one large span of highway between two 'cities'.  We had decided we would stop in Weatherford, OK.  Not quite to OK City, but close enough.  Plus, I have a good friend from Michigan whose last name is Weatherford.  It seemed like a sign.  Well, Weatherford had one hotel that took dogs, they had only one room left, and it was kind of expensive.  So we pushed on.

But then the next city didn't have anything either.  So we started making phone calls.  Nothing in Bridgeport, Hinton, or Geary.  So we pushed on to El Reno, OK.  As we were driving there, I thought about how I would be able to update my Facebook status with something witty like "Driving for 4 days, still in Reno!".  (There's a Reno, NV, where we started.)  I didn't get the chance to, though, because El Reno was also booked up.  Annie started to freak a little, but I told her that we could just stay in OK City, since I heard it was kind of cool.  I made it up, but it helped a little.

We finally found a place in Yukon, OK.  It is just on the outskirts of Oklahoma City, and we couldn't believe how much further we had traveled than we originally intended.  Just because no rooms were available.  This leads to the biggest question of the whole trip:  why the fuck was Oklahoma so busy?  There's nothing there.  Nothing.  Maybe OK sucks worse than NM.  Fucking Oklahoma.  (Your saving grace is that you have a musical named after you.  Count your blessings.)

And Bdubs (#3 if you're counting) for dinner in Oklahoma City to watch Michigan Basketball,
~RoB

The Handshake

For those ethnically-challenged readers of mine (white suburbanites), you'll agree that we regularly feel out of place when dealing with people from 'downtown'.  [Fuck you, Annie, I'm from a suburb.]  For the rest of you, picture that alienated white town just down the road from Detroit.  They are two worlds apart.  They never give those white kids handshake lessons, and it continues to make my life awkward.

Let us look at an example.  One time, I ran into my Nicaraguan friend at CVS.  I don't use names, so let's just call him 'Mexican'.  (That's how I was raised, after all.)  Here's (sorta) how the incident went:

            “Hey, Mexican!”

            “Rob, what are you doing on this side of town?”  Valid question.  I lived pretty close to downtown L.A..  Mexican had the pleasure of living pretty close to the beach.  “You’d have to pass 5 CVS's to get here.”

            “Oh, I’m heading over to my best friend's [she'll remain nameless] to get some sun.  Thought I’d pick up some snacks.”

            “Cool.  I’m heading over there later.  I’ll see you there!”  Then Mexican stuck out his hand in the standard ‘let’s shake hands’ gesture.  It looked harmless enough.  The only problem: hand shakes were for meeting someone.  This one was for departing.  It’s gonna be one of those handshakes.  What ethnicity was Mexican, again?  Well, he's not from any 'hood, so this could be harmless.  Just go for it.

            I stuck out my hand.  Hands slapped together, it started as expected.  Quickly, Mexican started slipping just his fingers back, while maintaining firm contact.  I knew this one.  Slide back a little, rotate upward slightly, close fingers into a strong C-shape.  Our interlocked fingers locked and pulled back tightly.  Over?  Nope.  Christ, what is this, Cat's Cradle?  Mexican pulled me in for the shoulder bump.  Time had already become painfully slow for me.  Should I throw my other hand around his back for a pat, or is this just a bump?  With my hand awkwardly outstretched in his peripheral blindspot, I could quickly make either move.  It was just a bump.  Whew.  It’s over.  I dropped my hand down to his side.

            Then, I saw it.  Mexican had his hand outstretched in front of him in a firm, sideways fist.  I missed the pound.  We both realized I missed the pound.  Quickly, I pulled out a fist and lightly tapped it a split second before he pulled back.  Why am I such a loser?

            Simultaneously, we said, “Later,” and walked off our separate ways.

            ‘Why do I have to see him later?  Why isn’t there an instruction manual for things like this?’ I thought.  ‘I’m so awkward.’

            “You’re so awkward!”  Oh yeah, Annie was there, and she had just witnessed the whole thing.  “Get in the car.”

Wishes this was the only time this had ever happened to me (and that Annie wasn't there),

~RoB

Racist or Not?

I'm not sure why, but I feel like the word Mexicans is racist, even when I'm using it correctly.  For example, I was watching the Mexican soccer team play on television.  When the announcers referred to the Mexicans, I cringed.  It made me laugh that I was so sensitive to the word, even when it was politically correct.  I think that is where most white people are these days... at least those of us that don't want to offend anyone (blog not included).  "Did I say black?  I meant African American permanent marker...?"  The slightest verbal misstep forces us to write long-winded apologies to coworkers and/or peers.  Does it make me racist that I am uncomfortable with the word Mexicans?

'Midget' and 'handicapped' work the same way, just because I either don't know the more appropriate term, or because I don't find the politically correct term more appropriate.  I can't talk about anyone with those conditions, no matter how careful I'm trying to be, without feeling awful.

I might actually be 1/4 Mexican,
~RoB