Dispatch from Hwy 280, or, Integration

I ventured to Target today. Down a big wide road I drove, listening to classic rock, and when I saw a Chik-fil-A, I thought, Why not? (Dirty secret: I used to really like Chik-fil-A.)

It was almost 11 a.m., not too far from a reasonable lunchtime. I’d eaten no breakfast. I figured I’d go whole hog on the Southern suburban thing, at least these first few days. I’d eat Chick-fil-A and I’d eat it earlier than anyone should. (I should note that there were several cars queued up at the drive-thru.)

The woman behind the counter pointed out that I could still order from the breakfast menu (that better explains the throngs at the drive-thru), but my order of a #1 lunch combo was fine. But “it’ll be a few minutes for the fries.” OK, no problem. While I waited on those, I realized that it was only 9:45 – we hadn’t set the clock back in the Corolla yet.

But what the hell. A fast-food lunch at 10 a.m. I got back in the car with my bag of fat and started eating deep-fried chicken on a bleached bun, and hot hot waffle fries. I was in sweatpants, covered in greasy crumbs, heading down a big road in search of a Target. And I discovered that they’d packed my sandwich with not one, but TWO pieces of deep-fried Chik.

This is how we live now, I reckon.

The commercial landscape is horrifying: all the sprawl and big-box and parking lots you can conjure so easily, all the wide-open space so cluttered up with ugliness, sameness. Hello, American South. (Hello America, really.) And yet, the big road wound and swooped over lovely hills thick with trees, and I did achieve some kind of autumn-bright vista across these Appalachian wrinkles. I drove, and felt an odd exhilaration: because it was terrible and expected, because it was actually my new life. In some crazy sense, it excited me. I suppose I like a backdrop to pop against.

Update on Chik-fil-A: I am happy to report I won’t be fighting off cravings. This shit tastes incredibly bland to me now.

Next up: Krystal.