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Dateline: 07/01/99
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It's easy to get to our new house in the country. Just go to the old place. Take the Interstate until it expires into a 4-lane state highway. Continue as the road becomes a 2-lane blacktop, then a single-lane meandrous gravel car carpet, and an all-bumpy-hilly-narrow-potholed-jackleg-deathtrap trail, overgrown, strangling, and prickly.
At the salamander, hang a left. That's our driveway.
Or, if these directions are confusing, simply find civilization's last chance Rhumba Frappuccino and drive north 60 miles.
Oh, yes, I know about the gourmet coffees. Frequent 170-mile round trips to and from the Big City for business and family practically require intravenous doses of caffeine.
Without a buzz, the monotony of long distance driving makes me resort to stay-awake trickery, including massive eye-bulging facial contortions, monster-decibel yawns, and chirping "When the Red Red Robin Goes Bob Bob Bobbin' Along" in every musical style known to The Man. (I haven't tackled it in Hip Hop, yet.)
I don't like fighting fatigue; so I turn to coffee. In town, there's a Starbucks on every corner. In the country, well, no one's invented the corner.
I improvise to survive on the road. By May 15th, our moving day, I realized I'd transformed into a caf-fiend.
Leaving the empty carcass of our former homestead, we motored toward the new mortgage. At the expressway, I gassed up the car with unleaded and tanked myself with a tepid tumbler of service station House Blend. I always drink leaded. My car's a wimp.
I keyed the engine. The open road beckoned. We buckled up. Our journey began in earnest. I gulped down coffee and drove, wide-eyed, fast, and non-stop to the first exit ramp and zipped into an Amoco to -- how should I put this? -- commune with porcelain.
After my mystical trance, hygienic grooming and hot air blower blast, I breezed by the drink fountains and thought to myself, "Oh, goody! I'm gonna have me some more mocha java."
Slurping brew behind the steering wheel, I again directed the auto through traffic. My mind wandered into a blissful internal monologue. "Mmmm, it's a puzzlement how coffee can keep a person alert -- tasty, too!"
I took the second exit ramp.
"I'm beginning to see a pattern," my wife said, as I parked next to the gaseous convenience store.
"What d'ya mean? This is a BP," I snapped, hustling to the -- how should I put this? -- toilet.
Women! Always trying to make something out of nothing. There was no pattern. I didn't stop at an Amoco or BP again until Exits 11 and 24. And, trust me, I remember those. I was wide awake.
At the intervening exits, I was more likely to frequent Texacos and Shells because their hot air blasts seemed less scorching. My hands were getting blistery.
I also preferred their stir sticks. They were colorful and required less of my precious travel time reading the directions.
By the way, Big Charlene at Exit 18 says, "Y'all come see us. Every day is a 'Slim Jim Sale-a-bration!'" I told her I'd pass it along. Tag, you're it.
City scenery dissipated as we zipped up the highway making horrible time, for some reason. The beauty of nature enveloped us, joining my jittery Paula Abdulish jiving goose flesh and my mellifluous harmonizing.
"Oh, I got no nose! I got no toes! AND THAT IS HOW MY STORY GOES!!" I belted it (my own composition), pumping the floorboard accelerator in rhythm, as I gargled and swallowed another quart of Joe.
"Hey, who the Hell is this Joe guy -- and what am I? A vampire?"
"Mike, you need to cut back on the caffeine," Donna said. "You're wired."
"Think so?" I pondered, biting into another Chunky, as soon as I could stop shaking enough to find my mouth. "Hey, we got any No-Doz? The next exit's not for twenty yards."
"I'll drive," she said.
"Fine with me. I'll run on ahead." I screeched the brakes, popped out, and slammed the door shut in one fluid motion.
I was running on empty, clutching a fresh super-sized coffee, when she finally arrived, cruising the car into the Citgo to fetch me.
"What took you so long?" I smiled affectionately at my beverage, then chug-a-lugged it in one impressive swig.
"Oh, aggghhhhh! Ow! Ooch!" I choked, in severe pain.
"Hot?"
"No, stir stick," I gasped, frantically pointing at my throat.
From Late Show with
David Letterman: Top Ten Signs You've Had Too Much Coffee Top Ten Signs You're Addicted to Caffeine Lite Side of Coffee Koffee Korner Too Much Coffee Man From Teresa's Jokers
Archives: From The Top 5 List: |
Thankfully, our heroic moving truck crew had tailed us. Seeing what happened, they set aside their 23rd cups of coffee (my treat) to jump to the rescue. All four of them squeezed and rattled me hard until I resembled a crushed tube of Crest.
The stir stick was dispatched mere nanoseconds before the lads scrambled off to the restroom.
"I left the s-s-seat up," I stammered helpfully in their direction, "for your p-p-protection." I fell to the concrete like a glop of toothpaste on a sink -- a very alert glop of toothpaste.
Eventually, we arrived at House Sweet House. The guys untrucked the seven rooms of furniture into a big heap inside our kitchen in 12 minutes flat. Apologizing for their sluggishness, someone suggested coffee. They sped off.
"Look at this mess," Donna whined. "We'll never put it all into place."
"It'll be okay," I said, offering spousal comfort as I draped my fidgety arm around her shoulders. "Besides, this'll give me something to do, since I won't be sleeping 'til August."
She moved in for a kiss. I started to get ideas, yearning, savage, and antsy. At the moment of lip impact, I whispered those three little words.
"We buy bathrooms?"
Next on The
Mike Durrett Show, Episode Two Three:
CRITTERS!!!
Maybe.
Go to Clueless in Seclusion, Episode One: Remote Uncontrol
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