The Tory Party

Chicago Road Trip Timeline

2:15 AM: I go to bed. Because I am an idiot. What is a 14 hour road trip

6:00 AM: Alarm goes off. Both of them. Hit snooze at 5 minute intervals for one and 9 minute intervals for the other. Discover superhuman tolerance for doing so.

7:45 AM: Finally get out of bed.

8:20 AM: Finally get on the road. Blue skies, temp in the early 50s. Got three packs of gum, a lumbar pillow and a stack of CDs provided by my love interest. All is well. Take Highway 52.

8:55 AM: Have chewed up all the gum except the cinnamon Cinnaburst, which tasted fine yesterday but now tastes like hideous ass poison. Listen to The Epoxies. Try to sing along. Fail.

9:15 AM: Virginia is pretty. Enjoy scenic overlook. Weave slightly.

10:20 AM: First stop — West Virginia, exit 50-something. Get Subway sandwich for breakfast, take wa-a-ay too long to choose beverage from adjoining food mart. Driving has made me dumb. Take Jake to pee in snow. He is nervous.

10:30 AM: Toll booth collector calls me “Gorgeous.” Must have lower standards in West Virginia, or perhaps he was looking at my puffy eyes and said “Gorges.”

10:45 AM: Listen to David Cross. Snerk out loud frequently.

11:15 AM: Lots of pretty multicolored houses on narrow streets next to the water. Oh, and huge piles of coal. See pro-coal billboards. Have conflicted feelings. Think of Pete Postlethwaite. Then David Cross says something funny; mind goes blank.

12:15 PM: Traffic goes single file around overturned tractor trailer. Rubber-necking offends me in general but good GODDAMN did you see that? Kind of impressed traffic is moving at all.

Will continue. Need tea.

Continuing…

2:30 PM: Visit rest stop in Kentucky. Jake takes huge dump. Coffee machine produces no coffee. Frighten women in rest room with my nazi school teacher haircut.

2:45 PM: Patton Oswalt. Suddenly Lou Ferrigno might not be my favorite thing on “King of Queens.” Enjoy drunk riffing on George Orwell, Fantastic Four, midgets.

3:30 PM: Spending much time in Kentucky. Hwo can you grow so much grass on so little dirt? It’s like, state sod-on-a-rock.

4:30 PM: Louisville, KY. Reflect on being born here.

4:35 PM: Reflect on being born in the land of bad drivers and poor civic planning. Cool skyline, though.

4:45 PM: Indiana. Resolve to stop at next Subway for lunch, `cos that’s the only place I can abide on the road.

5:10 PM: Ain’t no damn Subways on 64.

5:20 PM: “Lion’s Den”? Sounds like some kind of Christian superstore.

5:21 PM: Whoops, no. That would be Adult superstore.

5:22 PM: Oh my god, the logo is two lions humping. Suddenly pine for Bible belt. Also discretion of “Southern X-Posure.”

5:55 PM: Finally give up on finding Subway. Going to die like Tycho Brahe.

5:58 PM: See sign for Subway. SWEET.

6:10 PM: Eat, drink, pee. Feed Jake, water Jake, pee Jake. See Diet Dr. Pepper in local Marathon. Fail to find it. Settle for Coke Zero. Coke Zero is the Laura Linney to DDP’s Joan Allen.

Now I have to go to bed. Too much Sushi Samba, Side Track and Gil’s homemade margaritas have made me placid and sleepy.