Alabama Mailbox
One day Ross and I decided to go to Florida for a few days. Oh yeah, and we took Bailey (the dog). We got really, really, really exceedingly crappy directions to Destin from yahoo maps and headed on our way. (Note: I have always been partial to mapquest and I had nothing to do with these maps from yahoo - I should’ve realized something was wrong it showed us going through different states on our way back home.)
Eight or so hours into our trip we found ourselves immersed in Alabama. I always thought of Alabama as a place where people sit on the front porch and are friends with their neighbors. Nope. Halfway through the stupid state our highway turned from four beautifully divided lanes to one tiny, shoulderless two-lane traffic way with stop signs and traffic lights, polluted with partially-working pickup trucks. I had a difficult time understanding why so few of the trucks moved quickly in Alabama. Then I figured out that the ones with four tires (matching sizes or not) were the ones that were allowed to drive, and the others with fewer tires were their front yard cars, or lawn ornaments.
Ross was driving at this point in the trip, and his contact suddenly slid to the far corner of his eye, causing temporary blindness. He pulled over at the first point in the road that somewhat resembled a shoulder. There was a mailbox there (check out the picture from the link below) in front of some trees, but nowhere near any houses on that side of the street. I think there may have been a parking lot there, but no houses or buildings around it. It was the ghetto-est mailbox either of us had ever seen: it sat at about a 45 degree angle to its stand, which rotting and full of holes; the mailbox itself was rusty and full of dents. Ironically, the mailbox was in better condition than most homes in Alabama. And that has nothing at all to do with last fall’s storms. They might have actually helped things. Ross pulled up a foot or two from the mailbox and parked the car to fix his contact.
Upon parking the car, Bailey looked out the driver side window and started to go nuts! We looked over and saw a tiny, inbred dog she was barking at and wondered why it was tied to the ground with an enormous chain. Maybe they thought the dog would get bigger. All it did was sit there anyway. I guess its genetic abnormalities impaired it from moving too far. Moments later, a crowd of people nearly as inbred as the dog appeared from what turned out to be houses and trailers in the woods. We thought those houses had been abandoned due to their missing windows, walls, and roofing. There were actually three trailers next to an old pile of sticks (or maybe a house, it was hard to tell), the first two seemed to have been abandoned one after the other until the family was able to move into the third, nicest trailer.
The crowd of people coming out of the housing was unlike anything we thought we would ever encounter in the South: a group of the darkest skinned people (several men and one woman) we had ever seen and a bunch of extremely pale skinheads! They came toward us like a scene straight out of Resident Evil.
The lone black woman moved the fastest, though. She looked like Sideshow Bob, only black and dressed like she was homeless, even though we saw her come out of housing. She crossed the street and we locked the doors and both started to work on Ross’ contact, which would not budge from the corner of his eye. The woman walked in front of the car and stopped. Then she hit the mailbox.
We were so confused. We thought she might pick the mailbox up and smash our windshield with it. Lucky for us, she didn’t do that. She took her mail out of the mailbox, and then inspected the box itself very carefully. She then started to bang on it crazily, as though she was trying to fix it in some sort of insane manner.
Ross finally fixed his contact and we sped off as though we were in a car that actually had some pickup!
Looking back, we realized all those people probably shared the same mailbox, and they probably thought we hit it when we stopped. Eh, it was still a terrifying racial experience.
http://pg.photos.yahoo.com/ph/kmonkeey/album?.dir=c3a0&.src=ph&store=&prodid=&.done=http%3a//photos.yahoo.com/ph//my_photos
Eight or so hours into our trip we found ourselves immersed in Alabama. I always thought of Alabama as a place where people sit on the front porch and are friends with their neighbors. Nope. Halfway through the stupid state our highway turned from four beautifully divided lanes to one tiny, shoulderless two-lane traffic way with stop signs and traffic lights, polluted with partially-working pickup trucks. I had a difficult time understanding why so few of the trucks moved quickly in Alabama. Then I figured out that the ones with four tires (matching sizes or not) were the ones that were allowed to drive, and the others with fewer tires were their front yard cars, or lawn ornaments.
Ross was driving at this point in the trip, and his contact suddenly slid to the far corner of his eye, causing temporary blindness. He pulled over at the first point in the road that somewhat resembled a shoulder. There was a mailbox there (check out the picture from the link below) in front of some trees, but nowhere near any houses on that side of the street. I think there may have been a parking lot there, but no houses or buildings around it. It was the ghetto-est mailbox either of us had ever seen: it sat at about a 45 degree angle to its stand, which rotting and full of holes; the mailbox itself was rusty and full of dents. Ironically, the mailbox was in better condition than most homes in Alabama. And that has nothing at all to do with last fall’s storms. They might have actually helped things. Ross pulled up a foot or two from the mailbox and parked the car to fix his contact.
Upon parking the car, Bailey looked out the driver side window and started to go nuts! We looked over and saw a tiny, inbred dog she was barking at and wondered why it was tied to the ground with an enormous chain. Maybe they thought the dog would get bigger. All it did was sit there anyway. I guess its genetic abnormalities impaired it from moving too far. Moments later, a crowd of people nearly as inbred as the dog appeared from what turned out to be houses and trailers in the woods. We thought those houses had been abandoned due to their missing windows, walls, and roofing. There were actually three trailers next to an old pile of sticks (or maybe a house, it was hard to tell), the first two seemed to have been abandoned one after the other until the family was able to move into the third, nicest trailer.
The crowd of people coming out of the housing was unlike anything we thought we would ever encounter in the South: a group of the darkest skinned people (several men and one woman) we had ever seen and a bunch of extremely pale skinheads! They came toward us like a scene straight out of Resident Evil.
The lone black woman moved the fastest, though. She looked like Sideshow Bob, only black and dressed like she was homeless, even though we saw her come out of housing. She crossed the street and we locked the doors and both started to work on Ross’ contact, which would not budge from the corner of his eye. The woman walked in front of the car and stopped. Then she hit the mailbox.
We were so confused. We thought she might pick the mailbox up and smash our windshield with it. Lucky for us, she didn’t do that. She took her mail out of the mailbox, and then inspected the box itself very carefully. She then started to bang on it crazily, as though she was trying to fix it in some sort of insane manner.
Ross finally fixed his contact and we sped off as though we were in a car that actually had some pickup!
Looking back, we realized all those people probably shared the same mailbox, and they probably thought we hit it when we stopped. Eh, it was still a terrifying racial experience.
http://pg.photos.yahoo.com/ph/kmonkeey/album?.dir=c3a0&.src=ph&store=&prodid=&.done=http%3a//photos.yahoo.com/ph//my_photos