Woody & My IBF

I did not have it but I could have.

After dealing with snippy young saleswoman in breakfast area talking on her cell phone for hours and the breakfast room itself which was completely shut down and all the lights turned off exactly at the end of complementary breakfast but I usually type there until 11:30 or so, ready to hit the most boring day of the trip. I will be driving the I-whatevers like a banshee because I want to get to Unclaimed Baggage before the nuts begin. Nuts in question are people who camp overnight on a line to buy stuff (which I must admit I have done from time to time) in this case at Ski Weekend. Ski Weekend is when they have been saving up all the gear and cold weather stuff and put it on sale. I do not ski or anything else that remotely looks like hurling myself down a hill while courting frostbite. Go just to apres.

Anyhow, consult Roadfoad for lunch and dinner stops to break up tedium. There is nothing anywhere near Jackson Mississippi which is lunch time. There is something in Tuscaloosa but that is too early for dinner. Decide to wing lunch and make Montgomery Alabama for dinner. Vaguely remember Rosa Parks thing and wonder if I should see a museum or something but I had enough emotional turmoil at that MLK shooting thing in Memphis last February. Hit Mississippi Welcome Center and get official map from lady with long red fingernails who looks like she thinks she should be working someplace else and she should because she is only partially Welcoming. Ask about alternate routes that will be more scenic. There are none. Seriously. There are no scenic routes in Mississippi except at the, well, Mississippi. Get back on I-whatever. Note to self: write Mississippi and tell them to get scenic routes.

Get into groove behind red Tyson's truck. He drives just like I do and is not afraid to pass when he needs to. I think he has cruise control. Sadly, need to exit because hungry because lady who turned light out at breakfast was also too lazy to put out half the food. Make some town. Have to look it up in my notes. Drive past fast food galore and figured I'd go up to the nice little road which is usually there from before they built the I-whatever. Didn't need to. Saw this. Merited a u-turn. This is Budgey's. I love this pickup. It is old and perfect. Unbelievably enough, see it at 8 o'clock tonight on I-whatever about 200 miles from lunch.

Go in Budgey's for what I hope will be home cooking. There is a back-lit plastic menu over the counter that looks almost like MacDonald's but it is older. Shit. I ask for buffet. You know, home cooking? Plate lunch? Around the corner wall to other room. Heaven. This is my plate from Budgey's. The "fried white fish" which I think is catfish is clean and light and perfectly corn-mealed. This is one of two things I have not had on this trip and want. The other is a good Southern breakfast with grits. I love grits. On my plate is also a sweet potato thing with raisins. I also love raisins. There are those great cooked-until-they're-sorta-olive drab great beans boiled with bacon or fatback or whatever. And cabbage that isn't gross and macaroni and cheese. Also fried chicken. They must change their oil very frequently at Budgey's because you can't smell the fish in the place or taste it in the chicken. Not sure where they get the chicken to fry but it sure isn't Costco. All I can say is that I would have loved to have more but was truly embarrassed to get another plate. It's lunch for heaven's sake. Budgey's also has assorted puddings. This is pineapple. Remember that? Just barely but yum.

Always watch other people eating so I can figure out what the protocol is. Realized that I was supposed to have paid first which I didn't do at the Colonial Inn and it is pretty much the same kind of place. Also note that the lunch buffet is available from 10 to 3. Dinner seafood buffet is 3 to 10. They are very busy in the kitchen at Budgey's. Girl in magenta pants suit puts face into adorable black infant's face and does the aren't we a big girl stuff. Also says boys are nothing but trouble you hear me boys are nothing but trouble you stay away from those boys. I am feeling very out of place here. A stranger and a Yankee one to boot. I want someone to tell me boys are nothing but trouble. Go out to car. Magenta pant-suited girl comes out to look at Woody. Ice broken. Also a handsome silver-haired man who I think has the cool pickup but I'm not sure. We all introduce ourselves. This is Sheila. I don't remember the guy's name but he is here to work for a month and was just in Natchez for two. I have no idea why he brought this up. He didn't know whether to eat here or not because there are no cop cars and he always eats where the cops do because they know where the best food is. Then he saw Woody. Sheila should give me a cut.

Turns out that Sheila is Sheila Budgey. I thought Budgey was one of those Southern nicknames like Bubba but no it is a last name. Sheila was married to one of the Budgey brothers. Later find out he has passed. Anyhow, the two brothers had Dogs 'N Suds have I heard of it? There apparently were quite a lot of Dogs 'N Suds. This building has been here since 1967 and was the first restaurant in Lincoln County and originally had a butterfly roof. Can't you just picture that? It was the hangout. Sheila wants me to know that they don't bring in any food that they cook it all from scratch including peeling the potatoes. Sweets too. Hit road and try to remember road and/or exit number. Think Route 41 and Exit 40 but it could have been the other way. Consider posting to roadfood.com because they have nothing listed for that I-whatever drive from Jackson to Montgomery. Note to self: find out how to post on roadfood.com and post Budgey's. Budgey's does not have a web site.

Drive drive drive. Pass billboard in Tuscaloosa: Don't You Buy No Ugly Tractor. Pass exit for Aliceville and Eutaw. They like Gulliver-like towns and homonyns in the South. Also Philadelphia! Did I miss Sewanee. Delaware Avenue. I go on that all the time. Fernwood Industrial Park. Well not quite right but almost. Stop for gas. Really awesome black girl with huge butt wearing grey tights riding red motorcycle that you lean forward on and terrorize motorists. I like here and she likes me. Think that she looks like one of those paintings from the son of Mr. Green in Angola.

Flatheads are not made for sustained driving. They get hot and their lubrication sort of melts down. Woody is getting hot and cranky and I am getting hot and cranky. And tired. Seriously tired. Pull in Wal-Mart to use restroom when notice cheap gas. This is the first of many Wal-Mart gas stops I will make. Park way far away from anybody else. Take off sneakers and put feet on dashboard before planning to stretch out and take a nap. Well now I know how celebrities feel. Every one wants to look at Woody. Everyone wants to talk about Woody. There is an old weirdly enthusiastic guy with one of those jackets with patches are checkered flags and STP. He goes to Talledega. I want to go to sleep. Put shoes back on and pray for rest stop to, well, rest. Watching little car on GPS go painfully slow to the Meridian which is not too too far from the Alabama state line where there is bound to be a Welcome Center. Struggle to keep eyes open. Eat three more pralines and get sugared up enough to propel me to welcome Welcome Center. Get official Alabama map which has exactly no notation of scenic routes on the key. I can't find any dotted lines. I can't find any green highlights. I know there must be something scenic in Alabama. Ask welcome lady who really is welcoming. I tell her I am going to Scottsboro and would like an alternate route. She shows me beautiful one over and around a whole lake system and yet more or less direct to Unclaimed Baggage. She suggests I stay in Bessemer which is this side of Montgomery where there is lots of chain hotels and a Cracker Barrel. I do not want a Cracker Barrel. I want to go to the place in Montgomery that is near the produce depot. She raises an eyebrow. Home cooking, I say. Her face lights up. Niki's West! Yes that is the one. She wishes she were going with me. The with was sorta a cross between the vernacular wich and with and I don't know how to spell it so you can get it but it was like a classy lady who can get down with the other side. Like Jenny from the block. Get detailed map with directions. We are talking the same language now. 

Go outside, take sneakers off and put feet on dashboard. We have to cool down. Pull maps off seat (I don't know why they don't slide right off while I'm driving but they don't) and thumb through trying to get a bigger picture of where I'm going and if I should go to Kentucky or directly to Virginia and figuring out how to squeeze in the side trip to Nashville for old guy's ham. Flip through pages some more. Map falls onto steering wheel as I drift into a little sleep. Grab map sorta instinctively. HOLY SHIT! Grabbed a bee. I mean really almost smushed into the palm of my hand and that is where it stung me. I grabbed it so hard that the stinger was attached to a glob of yellow stuff that must have been part of the bee. I have never been in so much pain and I am cancer girl and I know my pain although I may not have known all of it because I popped morphine like Tic Tacs. It really hurt. It really really hurt. It really really really hurt. You cannot put enough reallys on this hurt. It hurt so much that I knew I should scrape the thing out with a credit card but it was just fight or flight and in this case it was flight and for whatever reason I grabbed my wallet (not my whole purse) and ran down the path to the Welcome Center yelling inside my head fuck fuck Fuck FUCK this hurts. Finally kicked in that I couldn't make it to the Welcome Center without getting the stinger out. Spilled contents of wallet on stone wall, grabbed credit card and held breath. I don't know what I was thinking but I just couldn't do it. Really had to force myself. Scraped stinger out. It was a mother, big as a thorn. In incredible fucking pain. Not little weeny pain but great big ginormous pain. To the googleth power (remember when google was a number and not the source of global domination?). 

Run into Welcome Center. Hold throbbing swelling hand and ask if they have anything for a bee sting. Did I mention that I am in fucking pain? Nice Niki's West lady runs and gets two first aid kits. We looked for anything that might possibly do anything. Selected white first aid cream your mother used (your grandmother still used hydrogen peroxide). Does nothing but am feeling calmer. Told lady that it is just the idea of doing something about it. She said yes like children. I did not take offense. Other lady said it was the heat that's bringing out all the bees. First lady apologizes to me for Alabama bees. Pouted I just wanted my mommy. I did. Aloud. And I did want my mommy. 

No nap but definitely not falling asleep any more. Start Woody up and head to Montgomery with game plan. Hand swelling and a bit numb but not really because it hurts like hell. Fortunately it is my left hand. GPS successfully gets me to Niki's West.

Niki's West is in a dicey part of town near a bunch trains and warehouses and stuff. The parking lot or should I say parking lots hold an awful lot of cars. Part of the reason they hold an awful lot of cars is that the spaces are awfully small. The lot that I can see is all one way the wrong way so drive around front of building to get back there and find parking "space" across from door. I am very good at parking Woody and just barely got into it. I am not sure how the guys on either side of me are going to get in their cars and they don't even have SUVs. Get out and make sure I picked an actual parking space. I have and they are all that size. Door says you must be Properly Attired. No Tank Tops. No Bare Feet. No Curlers On Head. Gotta love that last one.

Right when you walk in there is a massive meat and three stainless steel cafeteria line. I do not see anyone to pay in advance so maybe I pay it at the end of the line like at Attractions. Today they have blackened catfish, lemon pepper catfish, breaded veal and fried pork chops and I think something else. I have a pork chop because pork chops are really good in the South and I haven't had any yet. It is huge and breaded and fried and great. But the vegetables appear to be the reason to come to Niki's West. There are so many I cannot count and they pile the dishes so high they almost spill onto your tray. The guy in front of me has cabbage and something else. I have fried okra (of course) and, uh, the thing right there with the beans in it. It is succotash and it is fabulous. Where I'm from, succotash is limas and corn. Period. Here it is a bunch of different beans and corn and tomatoes and who knows what special stuff. Also want pie so ask nice very tall black server (I think he has this job so he can see over the pies) what he likes. I have the lemon icebox pie which is probably 90 percent sweetened condensed milk like real key lime pie. Get wallet out to pay. You do not pay at the end of the line you dumbshit. She actually said No, honey you pay later but she really meant what I said. You get a ticket. When you sit down the sweet tea lady puts her number on it and says that's how the government gets their part. After supper cannot figure out how to actually pay. My sweet tea lady is nowhere to be found even though she has been bring the pitcher over every 30 seconds. Maybe she is on break. This is my supper. And this is the pie. Use the size of the place mat to understand how bit the pork chop is.

Finally find out that you pay on your way out. Notice that everyone has had dessert. And a go box. I am the only idiot to eat her whole meal. Try to figure out if I am supposed to leave a tip. Not sure. Leave one at risk of being vulgar rather than cheap. Ask cashier how long they have been there. 1957. How many people do they serve? About 1000 a day. A thousand! I cannot even get my head around that. Also she was very mean in a I'm-better-than-you-are way. Then I notice that all the women here have perfect make up and coiffures. I have jeans and sneakers and a headband holding back the tangled stuff that, honest, can be really pretty when I am not driving in a wind tunnel. I am in the part of the South that is not rural. Want to say that I really am a nice Yankee.

Get back out to parking lot. It is dark but still very busy. There is a security guard there validating my feeling that this is a dicey neighborhood. He has decided to stand near Woody because that is a brand new house. I explained that I got a good deal on it because a lot of wives tell their husbands they need to quit that hobby Right Now. They have bills to pay. Maybe the mortgage. Turns out security guy's wife told him to get rid of his impressively outfitted Corvette. He is a drag racer. Talked about engine performance for a while and that's not even with nitro. Pulled out of space painfully aware that because the woodster has been on the I-whatever all day he is shuddering a little and it looks like I am a really crappy driver.

Head north to whatever Holiday Inn Express I have programmed in my GPS. Can't close fist but now can't open fingers all the way either. Good thing I don't wear rings because then I'd have a purple ring finger that just might make it fall off. Didn't steer real well and it was a good thing that I was more or less the only one on the road. I-whatever is now two lanes total. It does not have any lights or any shoulder and has one of those concrete barrier systems so there is also no buffer on the left. You must steer very precisely and this was getting to be a real issue but there is no option as this is a Limited Access road except they don't call it Limited Access outside of Kentucky. Luckily had programmed in address for suitably located Holiday Inn Express. See one coming up but that is not the one I want yet and I really want to get further down the road so justify not getting off because there weren't a lot of lights and I need a pharmacy real bad. Get to right one. Pass right one as looking for pharmacy. There is a WalMart and they have a pharmacy. Had greeter look at my hand and see if she thinks I should go to the hospital. It has been five hours since it happened and it is getting bigger and bigger. She thinks I should go right away. Go to pharmacy department. Shutters are closed but it is five to nine and they are not supposed to close until nine. Young pharmacist says he will help me. Showed him my hand. Take an antihistamine or maybe you need a steroid. They do not stock steroids. Get Benadryl which I do not want to take because I am still driving, more Advil because I can't find mine and did I say it hurts like hell?, and some hydrogen peroxide just because my grandmother used to use it on anything involving a break in the skin. Also ice packs that you squish and shake and they get slushy and cold. I know about these because my kid was a lacrosse goalie. If you are a goalie mom too you will understand. 

Dying. Go back to Holiday Inn Express. They do not have a room. The Holiday Inn Express does not have a room. Well they do but it is a Smoking Room which I do not do under any circumstances. I am dying and they do not have a single fucking room. Ask desk lady where hospital is. It is next door. Also ask for reservation at nearest Holiday Inn Express like maybe the one in Ft. Payne. This is Ft. Payne. My GPS says the one on Airport Road. This is Airport Road. But my GPS says it is 38 miles away. Well there is one on Airport Road but it is waaaaay down there. I don't care. Make me a reservation. She does which I didn't think they could do because the Holiday Inn Express system will not let them do that. She uses the telephone. She is British and sounds very official. I must pick up the receiver and give him my Priority Club number. I am fucking dying but I deal pretty well with pain and I think because I am not crying they don't get it. Cannot hold receiver and get Priority Club card out of wallet at same time. Put receiver down and get card out. Pick up receiver. They will use my American Express on file to guarantee my reservation. I figure this 38 mile extension will get me 38 miles closer to Unclaimed Baggage. Go back to Woody. Dying. Hoping ice pack will help. Cannot break the insides with one hand. Put it on ground and stamp on it. Put it on hand. Well put it on hand for like one second because it is leaking everywhere which is a bigger problem than first appears because this is my last pair of jeans and my favorite ones too and I think the chemicals might bleach them in little (or big) dots. Dying. Take second ice pack from two-pack and take it to British counter lady. She does it in a rather nervous way. Put ice on hand. Helps. Take four Advil. Pain is going up to elbow. Mull over what will happen if I have to lose my hand or maybe my arm. I will not be able to drive and driving is what I do. I'll have to put one of those stupid crank things on the wheel. Ironically someone chipped one off Woody's steering wheel so I guess someone put one on in the first place. I will not be able to drive my new Rolls Royce or my new Bentley. At all. Imagine life not worth living.

 Now have to drive with ice pack on hand. Learned right quick how to open the car door and reach around with my right hand to release the parking brake which is on the left side then close the door with foot on brake so don't hit something. Also learned how to wrap ice pack around steering wheel and hold onto it with hand-of-torture. Drive 38 miles through windy windey roads with wet leaves everywhere. Pitch dark except when asshole with xenon lights rides my bumper. Jerked rear view mirror to side so don't have to deal with lights. Get to scary gas station which I swore was lit but then the lights went off and there are two cars there in sort of random non-parking places. Check GPS. Zoom in and out. I do not see any civilization out the window but the GPS says I am there. Fuck. Get phone number of Ft.Payne Holiday Inn Express from iPad (don't ask me how, must have been a real-life miracle) and call British lady. Ask for address of other HIE. She doesn't know it because the hotel is brand new and isn't in the directory. I am on I-59, right? No, I am 38 miles off I-59. She was sending me back to the one I passed because it didn't seem to have a pharmacy. Now here's the problem. I need to drive back the 38 miles and then go 51 miles back toward Montgomery. No fucking way. Even if I weren't dying, no fucking way. I never, ever go backwards and make it a real point to organize my errands in the most efficient way possible. No going back. 

Sorta remember an intersection maybe 15 miles back that had a Super 8 or something on it. This will kill me but I am dying. It will kill me because I have to go backwards plus it is a Super 8 of which I am scared. Go back anyway. In hysterics. See alternate to Super 8. It is a Comfort Inn and looks brand new. Problem is I can't get there from here. It is right next to the WalMart (a different one) but WalMart never gives anyone an outlet from their lots. Go around through the fast food. Dead end. I can taste this place. Consider leaving Woody at WalMart and running over. Go through Home Depot. Close but no cigar. Try another road. Maybe. It is! See that I could have gone through Home Depot parking lot because they are nicer than WalMart. Praying the Comfort Inn has a room. They do! And the place is gorgeous. 

Fly up to room and see wet bar sorta and fling all my possible bee sting remedies on the counter. This is not staged. In retrospect not sure I know how I took this picture because you need both hands to take a picture. Grab tasteful ice bucket and head to ice machine. I have never used ice but boy do I need it now that my ice pack has gotten all warm. Fill bucket and stick hand in. Take three more Advil and two Benadryls. I know, I know. I am experiencing temporary insanity and don't give a fuck if I OD as long as this agony will end.

Here is my hand. Also not sure how I took this. I have very big hands to start with and you know how you can't really tell if you have a fever if no one else feels your forehead so I had to take a picture to see if my hand was swollen. It is. In fact, you can't even see my calluses (at least too much) because everything is so puffed out. I am not imagining it.

Call Holiday Inn Express central booking to canal reservation. Take time to explain why even though I have never done that before because they don't care. Told him twice. I must hold. Comes back on line. There will be no charge for my cancellation. Uh-huh. And the hotel in wherever gives me their apologies. I'm guessing they will get dinged by corporate. Tell the guy it was not their fault it was the British lady in Ft. Payne. I don't think he changed it.

Draw bath. Put ice bucket on floor next to bath. Needed to wash hair as am (hopefully) seeing kid tomorrow and I always needle at him for not washing his hair. In my case, though, if I go to sleep with it wet it is still wet in the morning because I have a lot of hair. Cannot wash hair with one hand. Rinse off instead. Take sleeping pill and pray it will be better in the a.m.

Here are things you cannot do without both hands: