so, as with any trip for work, there are delays upon delays…
so we WERE gonna leave at 9:30, and left at about 10:30 (pretty damn close, for my company). then we had lunch in waco (the only burger king i know of who still has cheese-stuffed jalapenos), and it was off to dallas…drop randy at the dallas office (after going through the biggest construction zone/speed trap i’ve EVER seen), then made a VERY brief stop to see my friend miraya. told several friends i’d see them when i was in dallas; due to time constraints they ALL got cancelled, but since she works one stop light off the road to tulsa, there was no getting around saying hi to her (i assure you, NOT the chore i’m making it out to be…or so i thought).
i’ve known miraya for about 11 years now, and we’ve never been more than friends. don’t get me wrong; in the beginning, i wanted more out of it, but after seeing the way she is in a lot of her relationships, i’m REALLY glad she and i are just friends (shit, i hope i forgot to give her this url…) she works for a “design firm” in dallas called cierra. they do “southwestern rustic decor”…which means that the old jesus paintings you see in flea markets for $12 are $98 there. and there are dead animal hides EVERYWHERE. kinda like the wet-dream store for the grandpa off of the movie, “the lost boys”. except there stuff goes for four digits. that day they were taking applications for new delivery drivers….she had seen so many file in that day that when i walked in through the side door (where applicants were supposed to come in), given my build, the poor lighting, and the fact that miraya hasn’t seen me in about a year, she just looked up at me blankly and said, “fill out one of these”, shoving an application in my direction. when i just cleared my throat at her, she snapped to who was there, jumped up and gave me a big hug. “sorry, honey…she said….when i looked up, you might as well have been one of the cattle heads on the wall for all i knew…”
WHAT?!?!? cattle head? maybe i’ll wait another year before i see her again…this is a “friend”?
then it was time to make a run for the border….which i never really enjoy. it’s an odd thing…you know that verizon commercial where the guy takes two steps through the swamp, then says, “can you still hear me?”, then they show him going through a mountain doing the same thing? know why you never see him in oklafuckinhoma? ’cause there, they CAN’T hear you if you’re on a verizon phone. AND they still have slow gas pumps where the numbers roll by you instead of digital…scary. then on top of that, in savanah, ok, i saw something REALLY scary. a little beer joint, which was purple, and smaller than your average urban convenience store, named “wayne’s”…and there was a big sign in the parking lot that said, “TOPLESS…wednesdays” which made me wonder…..was this place ONLY open on wednesdays? or was it topless only on wednesdays? savannah IS the home to the us army ammunition plant; which has churned out every round of army ammo since the korean days, i figure…so maybe the factory workers give wayne’s enough money on wednesday to justify a one day work week. good for wayne.
got to tulsa about two hours later (7:15 pm). on the way to the ballpark, i drove past oral roberts university and gave it the finger (for shits and giggles) then headed off to work for a couple of hours, dinner, a good cigar, and passed out by about 11:30 or so….next day? next entry….