State by State: Pennsylvania

At just shy of 2 in the morning on July 30th, I find myself relaxing in my childhood home. Rested, with a beverage and a whole lot of ease, I’ve had more than a few moments to reflect on the whirlwind of a trip it was just to get back here. As there was at least one story to go with every state line my travel partner (who gets as much anonymity as I can offer her, so as not to be called upon to point out the holes in my increasingly-spotty memory), I figured I’d go state-by-state with the blog entries.

As this is the first, there aren’t any links to be found: read this one a bit, and if it sucks, there’s nothing else I’ll be trying to compel you to do. Future states are future stories, though, so if you see some italicized shit in those, and there’s a link that looks particularly juicy, click it; it’ll be part 2 or part 37 of this. I’ll see if I can make an order of that.

In the meantime, here’s this.

***

 

Sure, we’d packed the night before, but I think that it’s particularly special that we were on the road within an hour of waking up in the first place. Garbage out, clothes and animals packed, luggage stowed away, and we were embarking upon our journey with vigor and zeal. That’s how all of these things start.

Desi Chaat House. It’s a day-glo little spot in West Philly, University City, that’s been there for a little over a year. My travel partner would always express a great desire to go there, and I’d usually grumble, or have some senseless excuse for why anything else would be better. Typically, the parking argument would be best, as it’s widely known that I’m still a bit of a wimpy bitch when it comes to parallel parking. If the spot doesn’t feel right, comfortable and large, I won’t risk it.

Like I said, “wimpy bitch.”

The stars aligned a few weeks back, however, and we made it into Desi Chaat House, which is simple and humble beyond the “fucking check this out, yo!” exterior. Inside, a very sweet guy who owns a great Indian restaurant down the street sells all sorts of chaat varieties, which are a sort of condimented Indian street food-type of situation, alongside great stuff like mango lassi and chicken biryani. And Indian Sprite. It’s tasty, it’s cheap and going just one time makes anyone a regular there.

The plan had been that we’d get all suited up for travel, get packed away and then grab one of the tables outside and eat some samosas or something before we hit the road. Top a couple of veggie samosas with the yogurt sauce, the cucumber sauce, some chickpeas, spices and such? Oh, Hell yeah…it would surely wreak havoc on the bowels of a couple of travelers upon a long and fateful trip, but the people I love are strong and brave. I can make it, she can make it. We can all make it.

Beebo, our cat, was going to be placed in her little kitty harness, where she could enjoy a little cup of yogurt beneath the shade of the patio table. I was going to have an Indian Sprite…a full belly…a smile on my face…a moment of happiness in an ever-darkening little life of mine.

Desi Chaat’s on 43rd, I think, and Baltimore Ave., and only offers street parking to its patrons. That’s fine, because most people just walk up to the joint, grab a bite and get on with their days. We needed the street parking, and found a great spot nearby. This spot held no such grudges as parking fees. It was wide open, free and clear. The spot was born, not created by man, and it was born to love us, embrace us. There would be no bitching about spots today.

OK, well, I wasn’t going to bitch. We were figuring out the Beebo situation as we began to exit the truck. Naturally, as I am a man born of the solid state, I have to open the door of my truck to exit the vehicle, and this caused great distress to a passing bicyclist.

She wore clothes that hugged her, though I doubt they were happy about the embrace. Red top, black pants, brown hair, dumb face. And she was not pleased about my door being ajar.

“Excuse me, but your door is open, and that could cause a potential fatality. You see, this is the bike lane, so could you go ahead and make sure that you shut your door? Because it’s really dangerous.”

I put quotes on that, but I don’t remember if that’s exactly what she said. That’s primarily because she was an asshole and I don’t care to remember the words she used. They were awful, poorly-chosen and spoken without stylish inflection or grace. They were flat, terse; “a potential fatality” were the only ones that stuck.

Later, my traveling associate and I opined on just what constituted a “potential fatality” in this situation. My door was open for all of about 5 seconds, and I was actually accosted by this hooker on a bike as I was getting out of my truck. After leaving my seat, I would have closed the door, possibly eating up another 2-3 seconds. This would’ve meant that this complete fucking bitch, or a dumbfuck bicyclist of her ilk, would have had to have been riding blithely for at least a good 200-300 feet before slamming into my truck door, thus completing the circle of “a potential fatality.”

All right, so this absolute cunt used her mouth to say things that made her feel great and strong, or had completed trying out her Nancy Pelosi impression on me, and I was absolutely dumbfounded.

Completely disregarding the fact that her weight (not that it was great; she was a fit asshole, after all) added to that of her bicycle and the speed at which she was traveling would have probably damaged my truck door more than her or her bike, she made sure to give me a stern look to confirm that I understood her words, the only words in an entire verbal/literary/spiritual lexicon that had ever mattered. I stared back like I had just been told my dick was made of a deep-fried girdle.

The command: shut your truck door, now and forever, because it briefly enters the space of the bike lane. There’s street parking and I’m allowed to be there and I’m not causing a nuisance and it’s America and all of that, but shut the door. Want to get out of your truck? Figure another way.

The response. “No. No, I can’t do that.”

I immediately got so angry with that woman’s face, her hair, her furled little brow, that I lost my appetite, got back into the truck and slammed the door. The window was still open, so Ms. Lance Armstrong got a good earful of me calling her a “piece of shit” at the top of my lungs…then again, my head was out the window, and I was yelling right at her. I guess it would’ve been tough to miss that.

And that’s it. We didn’t get any Desi Chaat. I could barely remember my own name for a second as I tried to wrap my head around my bicycling legislator’s completely asinine demands, but I knew I was too furious to simply sit and eat.

I got a really nice charge out of the fact that she really hated being called a “piece of shit,” as if no one had ever spoken to her in such a way. I guess people don’t say cool things like that in liberal circles anymore…I don’t know…

…what I do know is that I could barely shut up about this dumb asshole on the bike for over 1,000 miles, and she’s still on my mind. I can’t remember her face, but I sure do hope she forgets mine and tries to legislate my life again. I would love to knock out a couple of her teeth. Even if it’s not her, even if she becomes a big man with a really dumb idea which he thinks should wrap my life like a fire blanket, I’d like to knock out a couple of her teeth.

Yeah, she’s still with me, over 1,000 miles later. But at the time she tried to kill my vacation, we were only about 7 blocks from my house. And so it began.

I hope her Hell is an eternity of open doors.