Adventure in Pontiac

Hey, look, it's my FIFTIETH BLOG! Oh, keep the applause down... no, really, you're too kind. That's fine. Ok, on with business at hand. I have gotten a little lazy lately and haven't really done a decent blog in a good long while, so we'll make this particular one shine with all the pomp and circumstance you'd come to expect from the quality of a fiftieth blog. That is to say it's gonna be slightly less shitty than my usual crap. So I go on this road trip with my buddy, Rusty, on Tuesday to this little backwater shithole called Pontiac. No, not the relatively-well know Pontiac, Michigan, but the far more obscure and Twilight Zone-y Pontiac Illinois. Long story short: we had to go because, during a bank robbery gone painfully awry, my buddy was arrested for trying to flee dressed as a woman. It got pretty messy, and, well, he had to go back and have some stuff sorted out. I'm kidding: it was just about as stupid though. As he and his family were migrating from Arizona back to Michigan, Rusty was pulled over for doing slightly more than the posted speed limit and while assisting the police officer with everything shy of a wicked hum job, he honestly told him that he was packing heat in the form of two loaded guns that were licensed but were none the less on board the moving van. The cop was cool but the law is the law, regardless of how completely inane and asinine and Rusty was hauled in cuffed to the nines and told to return, after paying the fine, for his repetitive court dates. Anyway, this was the last one and I was asked to go along. Like I was gonna say no to a gay-fest manly road trip? Yeah, right. So we get to this spooky little town that sort of reminded me of a bunch of other equally ass creepy places I'd been to, and the first thing we did was seek out this Chinese eatery joint that evidently looked good the last time he was there. Ever hear the phrase: looks can be deceiving? Well, the sure as shit can. Yes, it was a 'buffet' if by 'buffet' you mean 6 chafing trays filled with what might have once been classified barely as 'food'. I had an 'egg fu yung' that had about the same consistency as a coaster, and some 'sweet and sour chicken' that might as well have been deep fried cotton balls for all the flavor and texture they offered. Well we ate, for lack of a better term. We tried in vein to at least appear like we were enjoying the hours-old, tepid filth that was actually stuck to the bottom of the serving trays and served to us by the lovely wait staff who was nattily dressed in SWEAT SUITS. But, we failed and on the way out I released some butt fumes to really tell the joint how I felt. Speaking of farting fully and completely, we weren't allowed to by orders of the queen of Rusty's family. That is to say, his loving and adoring (*GULP*) wife, Beth. i kid, it's entirely my fault that these two are together in the first place and I will remain the soul recipient of said incident for my entire life. Again, I kid. So instead of gassing up the ride, we decided to go walk off our 'meal' at the local Super WAL-MART. It turned out to be quite the attractive place as big box stores go, and we could tell it was new. Also, I think I saw a few tumble weeds bounding down the aisles and some crickets chirping in the distance. The damn place was desolate and gave me just a little bit of a disconcerted feeling like you get when you're about to get to the really scary, jumpy-outy part in a horror movie. I just had this image of some maniacal loony running around the store wielding a machete from aisle 9: Camping Equipment. Oh, so back to the farting that I did a lot of while in the place. Rusty, too. If those poor shlubs didn't fumigate the toy and electronic sections after we were through with them, I can easily see some structural damage going on. As we left it occurred to me that no matter what small town I'm in within whichever state it happens to reside, somehow the mysterious disease of NASCAR and Country Music has enveloped the atmosphere. It's like the further you are removed from big society, the less intelligent you become. After WAL-MART fart fest we went to the courthouse in the 'real' towny town part of Pontiac. It was quaint, reminded me of towns around here, and had a really nifty little Christmas hovel in which is housed Santa on specific days over the Holiday. I thought that was really cool and i need to find a way to get that cottage down here. Mostly just for me. The Courthouse itself was older than the Spanish Inquisition and every square inch of the flooring echoed with squeaks and squeals loud enough to safely signal serious joisting issues. Especially when big people strolled the grounds and we two sufficiently fit that bill. Oh, and Rusty's lawyer was a whole lot of law serving lad as well. Well, all ended as well as could be expected and Rusty will be cleaning roughly 65 miles of I-94 for the better part of the next 20 years in a fine orange jump suit. Or he has to pay a fine. I forgot which, that damn Chinese food fucked up my brain. See ya Stew