Bike trip into car trip - mistaken identity
My car conveniently finds its way to me in an even exchange. "You get a free ride to Houston just get me the FUCK out of Alabama!" I plead.
I'd had enough of people without teeth, and people who use words like "we's" and "you's-a". I was pikcing up redneck dialect by no choice of my own. I caught myself saying "I reckon" and not as a joke. To add to the list getting called "sir" is certainly not unfamiliar to me, but at least in Florida they get it right 50% of the time. In Alabama I had a growing concern I may get lynched for using the woman's room.
I was about to walk out of one just as an older woman walked in. She stopped quite startked, "Oh my! Am I in the wrong one?!" She asked. "No I just have short hair and dress like a boy." I explained with a shrug.
"Oh thank God!" she exclaimed with her hand over her heart.
For these reasons and many more watching that yellow car pull up was a feeling as exciting as finding out you don't really have a terminal illness, it was a mistake... Unless of course you spent all your savings having thought you only had a few days left to live.
Houston had its perks, but I decided not to rule Memphis out completely. Though maybe I ought to have. I shiver now at a question asked to me, "how much did that breakup have to do with your psychological development as a person?" and the "EVERYTHING." that immediately slipped from my lips without a second thought.
Its like my body is an apartment some asinine tenant used to live in. I evicted that bastard a couple years ago, but people still come knocking for him. "Um no, doesn't live here anymore sorry, but I live here now, nice to meet you."
"You kidder, you!" they say. "We know its still you in there!"
"No its really not, I'm new, but really, nice to meet you. You can get to know me."
"Oh you're just a hoot. We know its the same old you!"
They refuse to believe its someone else.
"This is so unlike you!" they sometimes say.
"Its really not unlike me at all. Its actually just like me. I'm not the person you're talking about."
A lot of the people who think this way don't matter. Old friends from my past who I don't care to keep ties with, family who will never see anything but the old tenant when they look at this old building, but her... It matters. She won't come over. She won't step inside because she doesn't believe he moved out and someone else moved in. She who single handedly typed up the eviction notice won't even peek inside to see the eviction was carried out, she's just set in thinking it wouldn't have been, couldn't have been. From her far away desk she says "I know its the same old you, you're just faking a different voice!" and hangs up the phone.
"but its really not. I don't know that person, and why won't people see that I'm not him?!" just a dial tone.
"just look inside.. all you have to do is look." beep beep beep. "ah fuck it!" I say hanging up.
I'd had enough of people without teeth, and people who use words like "we's" and "you's-a". I was pikcing up redneck dialect by no choice of my own. I caught myself saying "I reckon" and not as a joke. To add to the list getting called "sir" is certainly not unfamiliar to me, but at least in Florida they get it right 50% of the time. In Alabama I had a growing concern I may get lynched for using the woman's room.
I was about to walk out of one just as an older woman walked in. She stopped quite startked, "Oh my! Am I in the wrong one?!" She asked. "No I just have short hair and dress like a boy." I explained with a shrug.
"Oh thank God!" she exclaimed with her hand over her heart.
For these reasons and many more watching that yellow car pull up was a feeling as exciting as finding out you don't really have a terminal illness, it was a mistake... Unless of course you spent all your savings having thought you only had a few days left to live.
Houston had its perks, but I decided not to rule Memphis out completely. Though maybe I ought to have. I shiver now at a question asked to me, "how much did that breakup have to do with your psychological development as a person?" and the "EVERYTHING." that immediately slipped from my lips without a second thought.
Its like my body is an apartment some asinine tenant used to live in. I evicted that bastard a couple years ago, but people still come knocking for him. "Um no, doesn't live here anymore sorry, but I live here now, nice to meet you."
"You kidder, you!" they say. "We know its still you in there!"
"No its really not, I'm new, but really, nice to meet you. You can get to know me."
"Oh you're just a hoot. We know its the same old you!"
They refuse to believe its someone else.
"This is so unlike you!" they sometimes say.
"Its really not unlike me at all. Its actually just like me. I'm not the person you're talking about."
A lot of the people who think this way don't matter. Old friends from my past who I don't care to keep ties with, family who will never see anything but the old tenant when they look at this old building, but her... It matters. She won't come over. She won't step inside because she doesn't believe he moved out and someone else moved in. She who single handedly typed up the eviction notice won't even peek inside to see the eviction was carried out, she's just set in thinking it wouldn't have been, couldn't have been. From her far away desk she says "I know its the same old you, you're just faking a different voice!" and hangs up the phone.
"but its really not. I don't know that person, and why won't people see that I'm not him?!" just a dial tone.
"just look inside.. all you have to do is look." beep beep beep. "ah fuck it!" I say hanging up.