Way down south

It was at a Waffle House in North Carolina when I realized the South is a foreign country.

Now, lest the Dixies among you feel like chucking boiled peanuts at my head, I should note that I don’t say this disparagingly. It was actually an endearing dose of Southern hospitality that threw the region’s relative strangeness into stark relief; most service industries in the North are dripping with the kind of weary cynicism that could kill a litter of kittens on impact. Beyond the Mason-Dixon line, not so much.

A friend of mine who lives in Asheville insisted I make a stop at the iconic breakfast eatery, since it’s a deeply-embedded Southern institution, like peach pie and racism. Our server, Scott, had an accent dripping in drawl, such that I envision his abode awash in the smell of pig farts.

“Welcome to the Waaaaafle Hooouuuuuse,” said Scott, placing our menus before us. “Tell all your friends: Best foooood, best serrrrrver!”

Any Northerner who’s plopped into a booth at an analogous eatery knows how starkly different this interaction is from the typical Yankee greeting: “Welcome to Joe’s Grease Pit. Whatya want?”
It was my first intimation that I had ventured into a vastly different land, one of cheeriness and aw-shucks affability. This isn’t news to some, and on some level, I guess I should have been expecting it; whether Southern friendliness is a cliché or not, it’s a trait they seem to have gladly adopted as their identity. I promptly ordered a dish involving grits, partly to do in Rome as the Romans do, and partly because it seemed wise to vary my food intake from the usual diet of Raisin Bran and Pabst Blue Ribbon.

On that first creamy bite, I knew the trip was a good move.

And really, any kind of trip is a good idea, if we can finagle it. This is the part where I spout off a bunch of trite bromides about expanding vistas and broadening horizons, which, while sickening, are absolutely true; sometimes the only way we gain a cohesive view of the world is by getting the heck out of Dodge and seeing it for ourselves. How else would I have discovered that North Carolina is home to a tiny town called Bat Cave? For a guy who grew up reading Batman comics, visiting an actual place called Bat Cave ranks up there as one of life’s more bizarrely cool experiences. It’s like a history buff visiting the birthplace of Jefferson, only Jefferson never roundhouse-kicked The Riddler in his solar plexus.

At this point, I had already visited Florida on several occasions, mostly to see family, who long ago decided there weren’t enough hurricanes and Disney characters in their lives. But as interesting as those experiences were, Florida doesn’t really qualify as the South. Crammed to its sandbars with cold-weather refugees, Florida is a Northern state that took a vacation to Georgia once and then just stayed there. It’s an odd mix of young Latinos and old white people from Connecticut, which doesn’t exactly constitute an accurate cross-section of Southern culture; it’s more like a reality show in which disparate groups are forced to live together in a tiny house so the home audience can make bets on which faction snaps the soonest.

The little town of Bat Cave, by contrast, was a mircocosm of all that I had hoped to see. Driving through it on our way back from a state park, a friend and I noticed a man sitting on the front porch of a lonely house by the side of the road, sandwiched someplace between East and West Nowhere. Flanked by a prominently-placed Conferedate flag (of course), the man was hunched over in his rocking chair, busily re-stringing a rustic-looking banjo. On his front lawn, placed by the side of the road, was a large sign proclaiming, “Meet Jim, the original North Carolina hillbilly! Have your picture taken!” Legend has it, said my friend, that Jim the Hillbilly spends all of his waking hours on that very porch, engaged in various Southern-type activities, which I took to mean pastimes involving shotguns and tobacco. Sure enough, as we made a second pass to get a glimpse of this living tourist attraction, Hillbilly Jim flashed a tooth-bereft smile at us, and filled his mouth with a wad of dip that could have patched a hole in the International Space Station. It was kind of awesome, unless you were his lone incisor, in which case it was the equivalent of getting your face pounded by a mafia thug with lardy beef hands.

We toil to fill our vacations with grand, sweeping crescendos, but it’s oftentimes those smaller happenings that make a trip worth it; glimpses of lives lived elsewhere, of micro moments in a macro world. Somehow, in the midst of a whirlwind week, I found what I was looking for in the seemingly insignificant (and admittedly gross) personage of Hillbilly Jim, in the charm of a restaurant server, and in a ridiculous amount of peach pie, which made me walk like a man who just sat the wrong way on a fence post.

A stranger in a foreign land, I couldn’t help but wonder if I’d ever be there again, or what moments may await.

Tell you what, though: My first stop’ll be at a Waffle House.

Pat-down party

TSA stole my shaving cream.

Maybe that elicits chuckles from the more travel-tested veterans of the airways, and maybe I deserve it. I was, after all, foolishly trying to sneak a canister of Edge Pro Gel onto my flight, which violates the first rule of air travel: No fluids, no almost-fluids, and nothing that hangs out with fluids on the playground. Fluids are a bad influence. That’s why coffee beans are such shiftless punks.

It was something I tossed into my suitcase without thinking, and I’ll take credit for the mental lapse; the list if items you can take on a plane has been whittled down to pillowcases and those foam bats they give to anger management patients. That makes it difficult to condense your life into a collection of appropriate travel items, since even the most innocuous products can be used to cause a terrorist-related kerfuffle. You never know when an al Quaida operative will hijack a plane and start shaving everyone.

Oh, I’m sure that shaving cream components can be used to make some sort of bomb or something. That’s why I didn’t complain when the TSA dude came over and told me that I should either check my carry-on bag (for an additional 30 clams, of course), or just chuck the shaving cream and bring the bag on board. Since waiting around at a luggage carousel is an experience about as gratifying as picking the spinach from one’s teeth, I took the hit and tossed the Edge. But I noticed something interesting about the TSA screener guy: As he was giving me my options, he had an almost apologetic look on his face, and a resigned tone of voice, as if what he was really saying was, “Look, I know this is silly. I can see my reflection in your head, so it’s obvious you plan on using the shaving cream for its intended purpose. But this is my job. So just toss the cream and we can go on with our day. Plus, I’m jealous of your muscles.” I may have been imagining that last part.

It was a minor hiccup in an otherwise smooth security screening, but it still underscores the level of paranoia that permeates the process. In addition to prohibiting liquids, kitchen utensils, Pokemon dolls and life-sized busts of Richard Nixon, they also make you remove a great deal more clothing than I’m strictly comfortable with. The list is currently confined to belts and shoes, but both of these items are necessary components in the precarious smoke-and-mirror show that barely conceals my scrubbiness.

I can almost understand the hubbub over shoes – would-be terrorists have been caught trying to sneak bomb components in their Reeboks before, and they’re a natural place of concealment for shameful items, like membership cards to the Pauly Shore Fan Club. Belts, however, are another story. If anyone wanted to bring a knife or a gun on board an airplane, a belt would be about the worst means of conveyance possible; it would require the kind of high-tech utility belt favored by Harlem cops and Batman. The focus on belts takes attention away from far more likely hiding places, almost all of which are hilarious noise-making bodily orifices.

It’s tough knowing how to feel about these screenings. When they were first implemented after the 9/11 attacks, everyone started quoting Benjamin Franklin, the founding father whose head most closely resembles a sock puppet. “They that can give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety,” said Franklin, right before electrocuting himself with his kite. It’s an elegant turn of phrase, and has the ring of truth; but whether that truth is as relevant today as it was in the 1700s is debatable – especially considering that, in Franklin’s day, the very idea of passenger airlplanes would have been a preposterous fantasy. Americans are quick to credit the founders as having an infallible, clairvoyant wisdom, but they were prone to err as is any other human being. The safety purchased by the screenings is only as temporary as the airline industry itself; and for all this talk of rights, a curious few defend the right to visit Aunt Ester in Soux Falls without meeting a violent death. That doesn’t mean it makes sense to ban shaving cream and oggle belts, necessarily, but they’re precautions that should be judged on their own merits, not uniformly disparaged as an affront to liberty.

Here’s a hot tip, though, for any travelers: Don’t wear loose pants.

That was a lesson I learned the hard way. Because I have the fashion sense of a third-world refugee, I still wear pants that were a snugger fit in my heavier days. So when the screener people in Charlotte told me to remove my belt and raise my hands in the air, I naturally felt that bad things would ensue. It’s one thing to tell people you wear sky-blue underwear; it’s quite another to show them.

Luckily, the guy on pat-down duty showed me some much-needed mercy. As my cargo shorts slowly started their shameful journey south, the gentleman stopped them, and said to me, smiling, “You can hold these up, you know.” An act of ocular self-preservation on his part, I’m sure, but a gesture I nevertheless appreciated.

It’s a credit to good fortune that they don’t confiscate our belts outright. With loose pants and no shaving cream, I’d have spent my whole vacation as a stubbly, pantsless malcontent, scratching my beard with one hand and blocking the view with the other – a victim of airline security, doomed to ponder the price of freedom.

Cereal killer

In the entire supermarket, there is no aisle more wondrous, more whimsical and magical, than the cereal aisle.

That fantastical corridor, brimming with smiling chocolate vampires and mischievous rabbits, has actually resuscitated some of my crabbier moods. When I die, there would be a thousand worse fates than to have my ashes sprinkled somewhere between a box of Fruity Pebbles and those wheat squares stuffed with fake fruit goo.

From time to time, I’ve been known to rail against the evils of processed foods, which generally possess all the chemical integrity of a beaker filled with anthrax. Cereal’s really no different, when you break it down. Even the healthier brands, the ones supposedly made with bran and wheat and the sweat of angels, are loaded with the kinds of additives that ancient Egyptians used to mummify their pharaohs. And thank goodness for that, because if you’ve ever had a spoonful of the “natural” fare that’s made without high-fructose corn syrup, then you know what it’s like to eat a cardboard box wrapped in an old pair of sweatpants.

So sure, I feel a bit hypocritical. But that’s only because I’m a hypocrite.

In all of my newfound efforts to adopt a more natural diet, exceptions are routinely made for Raisin Bran and Rice Krispies, Cheerios and Cocoa Puffs. At their best, they contain a sprinkling of healthful ingredients, buried under an avalanche of synthetic muck that makes Mother Nature weep into her cabbage patch; stuff like lecithin, which could be the name of an evil wizard in a series of fantasy novels, and tripotassium phosphate, which sounds like it could power a jet engine. At their worst, they could eat a hole through a cinderblock on a hot day.

And yet there I am, week after week, standing in that glorious aisle and grinning like a dunce at cartoon bears and elves. There’s something about a pantry stocked with silly cereals that allows one to retain a sense of childhood amidst the worries and responsibilities of adulthood; it’s hard to be concerned about the electric bill when you’re mowing down on little puffs shaped like rocketships, or guiding Tucan Sam through a maze on the back of a box of Fruit Loops.

Even the crummy cereals are redemptive in their way. When I was a kid, the video game giant Nintendo got into the cereal business (an odd pivot to be sure), and introduced a variety in which half the box was filled with pieces that looked vaguely like Super Mario Bros. characters, and the other half with the Legend of Zelda. As far as actual food went, it was pretty bad. Basically a low-rent Lucky Charms, a medium-sized bowl of it would coat your mouth in a film of wax so formidable, it would ensure that your teeth and tongue could survive a nuclear bomb explosion. Since it was mostly sugar, anything greater than the suggested serving amount could blur one’s vision, which I’m pretty sure doesn’t happen when you start your day with a glass of orange juice and half a grapefruit. I can’t even count the number of times I cheated death by pouring a bowl of that uninspired science experiment.

But I’d keep begging for it. Because as terrible as it was, it tickled my imagination. Cereal 1, oatmeal 0. That’s the magic of it, I think: Each variety is a unique concoction, a creative and original work of art. Sure, the creators are men and women in labcoats, trying to find just the right blend of petri dish detritus to get us addicted to nutritionless junk; sure, the artists are painting with preservatives that could fossilize a badger. Take a look, though, at other processed foods. You don’t get overtaken by whimsy staring at a Lean Cuisine. You don’t stand in front of a freezer filled with pre-made pizzas and feel like you’ve just stepped onto a ride at Universal Studios. If you do, then it may be time to review your whiskey intake.

So many varieties, each with the tantalizing promise of a gleeful dopamine blast. In an ongoing effort to trick myself into thinking I’m eating a food more nutritious than cake, I tend to gravitate toward the cereals with nuts and dried fruits; it probably takes a box and a half to ingest the same vitamins and minerals found in a single wedge of orange, but doing the math would destroy my fragile fantasy. Better to think I’m doing good by my vital organs, instead of armoring them under a scrim of toxic waste.

Every once in a while, though, the mental gymnast in me finds an excuse to indulge in the super-sweet, ridiculous sludge that honors the memory of that now-defunct Nintendo cereal. And really, as indulgences go, a sweet cereal isn’t that bad. There are worse things I could be doing to my body, like dousing it in lighter fluid and doing long-jumps over a campfire.

I talk the talk, but I don’t walk the walk. I’m the first to shake my head judgmentally at the prevalence of boxed meals and synthetic foodstuffs; I’m also the first to grab a box splattered with primary colors and sporting a frog wearing a baseball cap. Maybe it’s an addiction. I wouldn’t rule it out.

I mean, have you ever had Cinnamon Toast Crunch? It’s the stuff dreams are made of.

Battle royale

We really shouldn’t care.

There’s a faction that thinks we should. In the past few weeks they’ve taken to the airwaves, print and the Internet with the breathless excitement of a small child racing to tell his parents about the frog he caught in a mason jar. The difference is that a kid catching a frog, quaint and ultimately inconsequential as it is, has the benefit of being somewhat interesting. Especially if you’re the frog, which you’re probably not, since frogs can’t read.

But a baby? Well, those are born every day.

In all due respect to William and Kate, I don’t mean to suggest that the birth of a human being is a trivial event. Heck, I was born once. I suspect most of us were. I rather like that I was born, since in the intervening years I’ve had the opportunity to ride a camel, go to Disney World, and master “Yankee Doodle Dandy” on a plastic kazoo, none of which would have been possible if my parents hadn’t split a six-pack one cold December evening and thrown caution to the wind. Things haven’t all been roses – I’ve had the unfortunate experience of seeing Justin Bieber pee into a mop bucket (thanks, YouTube!) – but all things considered, my birth was one of the most important events of my life, second only to the time I broke a personal record by stuffing half a bag of marshmallows into my mouth. College, am I right? Good times.

So yes, the birth of the royal baby (which I refuse to capitalize) is a happy event, in the sense that it’s always a happy event when a baby is born healthy, and without that freakish sixth finger that makes it difficult to find a practical set of gloves. It’s nice to think of the young couple contentedly doting on the rosy-cheeked little tyke, especially since, while they do it, I’m thousands of miles away, safely buffered from the scent of the royal poop.

Just don’t ask me to don a party hat and celebrate. We are, after all, talking about one of thousands of babies who are born every day, none of whom are likely to enjoy the international attention received by the brand-new Brit. At this point, the only child likely to garner such media coverage is whichever one emerges from the womb scratching a tiny goatee and postulating solutions to the world’s energy crisis. And, unlike the heir to the throne, Goatee Boy will have done something to deserve it.

“But wait!” you say. “The royal family is a treasure, and this birth is a monumental event!”

 To which I respond: “Bollocks!”

Before I rip into the British for worshipping a family that’s done nothing to earn its wealth, I should note that we do the exact same thing in this country – and I’m not talking about the baby fever of the past few weeks. In the United States, we obsess over reality “stars” that essentially contribute bupkis to society, save for crappy TV shows that serve as nothing more than placeholders for Sham-Wow commercials. These celebrities – a term I use loosely – make oodles of money for the sole act of inviting cameras into their homes, shamelessly stimulating our voyeuristic impulses and acting all the while like their newfound fame is a birthright. They’re the winners of a warped karmic lottery, but by the viewing public’s own consent, see themselves not as lucky, but entitled; benefactors of their own perceived awesomeness. They think they’re royalty, and who can blame them? We do nothing to convince them otherwise.

In all fairness to the royal family, there’s a pretty wide gulf between them and Honey Boo Boo. They host charitable events, hold meetings with foreign dignitaries, and draw tourists to the British isles, which is a considerably larger contribution to their country’s economy than simply hawking laundry detergent and nose-wrinkling body spray. Although I’d love to see Prince William in a Snuggie commercial, sipping wine and twirling his feet around in a pair of Cookie Monster slippers.

But is all that worth the expense? I’ve been doing a little digging. I hesitate to use as strong a word as “research,” since that implies things like effort, and giving a hoot. But by snooping around, I turned up a recent article by Olga Khazan, global editor for The Atlantic, which estimates the cost of subsidizing the royal family at about $51 million annually – before factoring in things such as security detail, and the cost of preparing for royal visits. That swells the price tag to something in the vicinity of $307 million, according to Khazan. It’s a hefty price to pay for British citizens, and all for the privilege of watching the Queen wave to a crowd from a parade float shaped like an anthropomorphic teapot.

At least we don’t pay a tax to watch Honey Boo Boo. Imagine if we did. I picture legions of anti-tax patriots, clad in frilly petticoats, chucking televisions into Boston Harbor.

I get that it’s a tradition, this royal nonsense. But so was witch-burning, slavery, and dropping acid at Phish concerts, none of which did a damn bit of good for anyone. (Well, aside from making Phish tolerable.) The royal family isn’t an inherently evil or immoral institution, but it is outdated. Shame it can’t be dissolved with the ease of an antacid tablet.

I wish young Prince George a healthy and happy life. Beyond that, I simply can’t muster the strength to care.