The Odyssey - Day One

Hours on the Road: 9.5 (4PM - 1:30AM)
States I've Ass-Kicked So Far: NJ, PA, MD, WV, VA
Current Location: Bulls Gap, TN

Sitting in a Best Western here in Bulls Gap. As in the gap between civilization and this hotel is startling. The desk clerk here is either a sweet, lonely guy or a psychopathic child rapist. Either way, he gave me a discount, so he's okay in my book.

I guess I forgot how much rage I suppress and how easily that pops up when I'm driving. I'm pretty lucky I didn't die today, what with all the passing on the right and cutting off semis and threatening the lives of old people and swerving about as I try to figure out the scanner on the radio. That girl is so dangerous, dangerous, that girl is a bad girl... (lyrics from one of three songs that I've heard no less than 400 times today - been making up alternate lyrics - "I kicked a squirrel and I liked it."). It's eerie - every couple hours a Top 40/Oldies/Anything-I-Like-To-Listen-To station disappears and is replaced by either another country station or a "Some Melodramatic Old Dude Bitching Us Out Re: The Bible" station. I'm going to show up in California wearing a cowboy hat and an "I Heart Jesus" T-shirt.

Word to the wise - KFC + Car = No. I've been craving the Colonel for months, so I figured I'd quell the belly beast in private (less embarrassing than tearing into a lard-fried chicken carcass in broad daylight). "I'll just grab it to go and eat it back on I-81. Genius!" Yeah, bad idea, Megan. Somewhere around bite 2 of a crumbly extra-crispy thigh, I realized I need at least one hand to drive. End up dropping most of the food in my crotch area and spilling half a soda on my shirt. Smooth. When I stepped out of the car at the next gas station, bits of dead bird and breading and biscuit fell off of me, and I had a giant stain on the front of my shirt. I had to fight off the man pumping gas adjacent to me, as he could barely control his pure animal lust at such a sexy sight.

Which leads me to the one good thing about West Virginia. Wait, to backpedal here, I'm sure West Virginia is a nice place. It's quite beautiful-looking from the highway... But the fact that there are rest stops every five miles leads me to believe that even they know they're just a stepping stone to other, better states. Anyway, the best thing - in WV, it's like Liz Lemon in Ohio. I was disheveled and oily and sporting bloodshot eyes and frizzy hair, and I still felt like a fucking supermodel. Love it. I know, I know, there are good-looking people there somewhere, but I haven't run into many. Just slack-jawed yokel men who want a piece of the Meg Meat (that phrase sounds so gross. I'm leaving it).

Anyway, I'm signing out now - I shouldn't even be awake at this point - have to get up early so I can get to the Peabody Hotel in Memphis to catch the duck march at 5... Yeah, that's how I roll. I'm from the streets, bitch!