Irony

Okay, granted I'm not quite back yet, but I felt this warranted an update.

So I was in Knoxville for most of the break. Now, anyone who's ever driven in Knoxville knows that the roads are basically a labyrinth of Greek proportions, and all the other drivers are the Minotaur. (As Pat likes to say, "Driving in Knoxville is a crime punishable by death.") It is also a given that the wealthy in America are incapable of living in normal neighborhoods like the rest of us. They must instead live in subdivisions less than 10 years old that have been carved out of previously unspoiled wilderness, surrounded by golf courses, and given names like Shady Oaks Glenne when the last oaks were cut down five years ago to make way for the aforementioned subdivision and the only shade is cast by bulldozers that are busy carving up the last remaining nice hillside to put in a new Target / Starbucks / Cold Stone Creamery (Target Creamerybucks?). And all the roads have names like "Sparkling Creek Lane" and "Ivy Cove Drive" and "Rich Protestant Ave."

I decided that I needed some new clothes and, because I hate shopping by myself, I invited Pat to come too. But she had to go see her (rich, Protestant) grandmother first. So, I dropped her off at her grandmother's, which was in a subdivision called Verdant Creek or Glowing Oaks or Shady River or No Black People or something like that, and went off to dick around in Borders for an hour. When it came time to pick her up again, you can probably imagine what happened. I got hellishly lost for a full hour, driving around the artifically winding roads of Farragut, being passed on all sides by a weird mix of Lexuses and pickups that were held together entirely by a mixture of rust and McCain/Palin stickers. I don't know when we decided, as a society, that what really makes a neighborhood look upscale is when the roads meander all over the place for no adequately explained reason other than to make the lives of intruders more difficult, but it probably coincides with what we will later recognize as the downfall of western society and what we now recognize as when useless wicker items got popular as a design scheme.

Anyway, so I was utterly lost in Farragut, and stopped at a red light in preparation for my 5th U-turn of the last 20 minutes, when I happened to look around and noticed, ironically, a building labelled "Attention Deficit Center of Knoxville". I was staring curiously at it, when I noticed that the light ahead of me had changed, and there was now a 50-foot gap between me and the nearest car (rusty McCain pickup). Quickly, I slammed on the accelerator and promptly stalled the car out. Because holding still on the road in Knoxville is a sin punishable by loss of your back bumper to a toothless guy named Junior (why is nobody ever named Senior?), I put the car in gear and quickly drove away. So quickly, in fact, that I managed to squeal the tires in the most assholish way possible. I happened to look back in mid-squeal, and noticed that the car behind me was inhabited by the tiniest old lady I had ever seen, who was wearing the most priceless affronted expression ever. She looked like I was stealing candy from her grandchildren.

I'll be back in the UK on the 10th (roughly), so I'll probably have more tales of exasperation then. Whoo!

Also, I got an iPod Touch for Christmas. I now know the meaning of true happiness.