We started the drive around noon the next day. Drove throughout day without incident (that is actually a mark of good driving…) until late at night.. nineish… when we got splattered by Hurricane Ernesto. The US has an endearing habit of giving its weather names. As if calling a bloody thunderstorm by its first name… ‘hey Ernesto, whatsup man?’.. makes you less wet. Anyway, Ernesto… our good friend made the I80 freeway a lousy place to be.. visibility down to a few feet do not make for good driving conditions. We took an exit and made it to a gas station. Another thing about driving in the US. When one wishes to get gas/eat/take a leak, one finds a suitable exit and then a gas station. The whole concept of pulling the car over and spraying the bushes by the roadside does not exist here. Anyway, this gas station… for some reason had the loo a good fifty feet away from the main station. And the door was jammed so tight that I could not open it. Just could not. Main force did not work… like there was an evil angel hanging around who wanted me do die of a bladder explosion and acidosis. Think I am kidding? Go google these terms above.
And then we wanted to crash for the night. The attendant gave us directions to a motel which took us through a really dark one lane road flanked on both sides by huge trees .. and seemed to go on for ever and ever and ever…. No houses on either side… just this silent road. Not the kind of place one would like to be lost in.. (although, to be accurate, I would not like to be lost at all..).. that was what it was like. Just at the point we were ready to give up and call 911 for help.. we turned onto a larger road and the first thing I saw was a MacDonald’s. Yeah!! Long live generic shitty tastes-like-fertilizer junk food!! And found a motel to crash for the night.
K wanted to check mail. This guy is really into his email accounts (he has more of them than, say, the Secretary of State.) If he is ever about to be hanged/shot/otherwise executed and they ask him what is his last request.. he will want to check email!
Started driving the next day. Made it to Jersey City around.. noon. And then panicked. This is why. We live in a small college town. Very pretty. People here bitch about the government and everything else. But they obey traffic rules!! Drivers at AA are great!! Jersey City (JC) is full of jackarses who believe that they are driving 500 hp cars at the Le Mans tracks. All these losers who think that they make up for their pathetic lives by almost-roadkill every day. And the pedestrians…. They have no regard for inconsequential things like … cross walks. Crossing the street at random points is second nature to these suicidal bastards. Do the math! A 1500 kilo car coming at you at… 50 kph has a bloody lot of momentum! Which is somewhat difficult to bring to a complete halt.. in 2 metres. That is why traffic lights were invented idiot! Oh, and the traffic lights. They make no sense. I swear that I stood at a cross walk for ten minutes watching traffic go in every which direction without the pedestrian walk sign ever come on. And when it did, the lights also let the cars come through. Its as if JC has simply taken a vacation from coherent traffic. Its like its… India! Yes, that was what really hit me… if I had come to the US and stayed at some place like NY or JC, this wouldn’t have happened to me… the one year at AA has spoiled me. And of course, it was raining. Not like the proverbial cats and dogs, but the steady persistent rain which comes down with a fierce and terrible determination.. to utterly destroy your day. I keep expressing my views on rain in almost every other blog, but one of these days I am going to write the definitive treatise on rain. Until then…
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