10 April 2007

Jellybeans

What makes them so darn good? I made the mistake of buying some last night and have eaten, oh, about a quarter of the bag. So far.

Well, the trip to South Carolina was lovely and all-too short. I have only a few minutes (have been at various doctors this morning but have to be at work in the p.m.) so will begin with Thursday and see how far I get.

After considering the rather pathetic state of my '88 Accord, I decided to rent a car for the trip. Since the Enterprise (which I had never seen before) was about a mile from my apartment, I decided to walk over there. Armed with the address, I started out on Broad. I walked and walked and didn't see it, and finally noticed that the block numbers were a bit too low. (In the suburbs, only about one in five businesses have street numbers on them, so this took longer than it should have.) I call the car rental place and get an answering machine. Finally, in despair, I walk to the hoity-toity Volkswagon dealership to ask for help. Turns out the car rental place is behind the dealership, a good five hundred yards behind in fact, and completely invisible from the road. Hmmph.

Anyway, I am eventually given a lovely Chevy Cobalt to drive. It was excellent. The drive down was lovely too - a beautiful spring day, sunny and clear (though a little cool for my taste). The trees with their new leaves were a luminous spring green, lacy clouds of dogwood dotted the woods, and as I went further south, lushly dripping purple wisteria began to appear.

Also of note are the turbo-charged hand dryers I noticed in a few North Carolina gas stations. You know how most hand dryers send an indifferent stream of tepid air out until you give up in despair and wipe your hands on your pants? Not these. It was like holding your hands in a wind tunnel - water was gone within fifteen seconds, but I kept my hands in longer in fascination. The air came out so forcefully that it blew the skin around on your hands and you could see tendons and muscles you don't usually get to see. Like a dog with its head out the window or something. (Yes, I am easily amused, why do you ask?)

More later . . . off to get some jellybeans carrots.

2 comments:

KSG said...

I guess the hand dryers were a cheap thrill.
Love,
Mom

Kenny said...

I remember once, possibly with Christopher Stanley, at the Taco Bell at the Oak Mountain exit being fascinated by the "hands-free" sinks (this is over ten years ago now, so it was sort of a novelty).