Tuesday, October 12, 2004
(Sub)Urban Planning
Yesterday my friend and I decided to use our day off from work for an amazing road trip to the suburbs. It was about as meticulously planned as the invasion of Normandy, or at the very least a carefully-crafted History Channel documentary about the invasion of Normandy. We left at 9:30 AM, which was a bit of a challenge for those of us who had ill-advisedly spent Sunday night at a keg party doing body shots off of strangers. We lunched at a mall food court at precisely 11:30 AM so as to avoid the inevitable onslaught of unwashed masses at the Great Steak 'N Potato Co. And by 2:30 PM we had made ourselves sick experimenting with different fragrances at the Marshall Field's, stocked up on goldfish crackers and cheap plastic "home accents" at the Target, and were back on the road to the city, just beating traffic.
Which is not to say that everything went perfectly. First of all, we noticed a disturbing preponderance of Cosby-type sweaters at several major fashion retailers. It's bad enough that Raven Simone once again has a television show; let's not bring back everything associated with our favorite Jell-O pitchman. Secondly, a "shortcut" we took across the city ended up involving the parking lot of what appeared to be a steel mill, a brief encounter with a panhandler unable to spell "please," and about fifteen minutes stuck in traffic near the Bed, Bath, and Beyond. And finally, perhaps most importantly, our Grammy Winners 2003 CD kept skipping in the CD player, resulting in about a thousand choruses of Missy Elliot's "Work It." Work it indeed.
But all in all, I thought it was an excellent way to honor the intrepid voyager who "discovered" our country. I'm pretty sure he was hungover when he started his trip, too.
Yesterday my friend and I decided to use our day off from work for an amazing road trip to the suburbs. It was about as meticulously planned as the invasion of Normandy, or at the very least a carefully-crafted History Channel documentary about the invasion of Normandy. We left at 9:30 AM, which was a bit of a challenge for those of us who had ill-advisedly spent Sunday night at a keg party doing body shots off of strangers. We lunched at a mall food court at precisely 11:30 AM so as to avoid the inevitable onslaught of unwashed masses at the Great Steak 'N Potato Co. And by 2:30 PM we had made ourselves sick experimenting with different fragrances at the Marshall Field's, stocked up on goldfish crackers and cheap plastic "home accents" at the Target, and were back on the road to the city, just beating traffic.
Which is not to say that everything went perfectly. First of all, we noticed a disturbing preponderance of Cosby-type sweaters at several major fashion retailers. It's bad enough that Raven Simone once again has a television show; let's not bring back everything associated with our favorite Jell-O pitchman. Secondly, a "shortcut" we took across the city ended up involving the parking lot of what appeared to be a steel mill, a brief encounter with a panhandler unable to spell "please," and about fifteen minutes stuck in traffic near the Bed, Bath, and Beyond. And finally, perhaps most importantly, our Grammy Winners 2003 CD kept skipping in the CD player, resulting in about a thousand choruses of Missy Elliot's "Work It." Work it indeed.
But all in all, I thought it was an excellent way to honor the intrepid voyager who "discovered" our country. I'm pretty sure he was hungover when he started his trip, too.
