Do You Have a Pen: Georgia

Georgia

Georgia Isn’t bad,  but it isn’t that great either.  It’s a state that I don’t mind driving through,  but I could care less about staying there for the most part.

Everyone I know bitches about Atlanta traffic.  While driving through one night,  I figured out what the problem with it actually is.  They do this weird thing where,  if you’re all the way left as far as you can be without being in the HOV lane,  they add a lane on that side eventually,  but the lane all the way right becomes an exit lane.  In essence,  everyone needs to keep merging left one lane every couple miles and that causes backups.  When its the normal busy Atlanta traffic,  no one notices because you’re too busy dealing with some asshole merging in front of you without his damn blinker.  I have taken the bus a few times to Atlanta because the airport there us usually cheap to fly out of and its not a bad ride from either Jacksonville or Charlotte,  so long as you’re on MegaBus,  both of which are expensive airports to fly out of.  I can routinely find flights out of Atlanta for  $50 or  $70 to Chicago.  The bus station is right across the street from Magic City Gentleman’s Club.  With the hip-hop fame of that strip club,  I expected it to not be a shithole.  I had to order an Uber from there one time and I walked just so I was in the shadow of a building so I could see the screen of my phone and the girl came to get me and thought I was just getting out of the strip club at ten o’clock in the morning.  While I appreciate her thinking I was that much of a high end player that I would be leaving a strip club at that time of the morning,  no I was not,  in fact,  doing so.  Also the convenience store across the street from the bus station has some wannabe thugs out front asking for cigarettes from everyone who walks out of the place.  (Bum etiquette tip:  don’t ask for a cigarette before the person that bought them has opened the pack and lite his first one.)  The train system is good and efficient.  Most cities have conductors that kick you off the train once it reaches its final destination.  That is not the case in Atlanta.  So one time I got on the train to the airport and fell asleep.  Robert called me on my cell and woke me up and asked me where I was and I told him I was six stops from the airport—but it seemed strange.  Something was wrong.  I felt like I was going backwards.  I was. I fell asleep and went to the airport,  then slept through everyone detraining,  then continued to sleep through people getting back on the train,  and finally I slept through six stops going the opposite direction.  Why did my phone wake me up?  Because I keep it in my shirt pocket and I woke up to it vibrating over my heart—thinking I was having a heart attack.  That was one hell of a way to wake up,  but effective.  I got off the train and waited for one going the opposite direction,  you know, towards the airport again.  Hartsfield–Jackson Atlanta International Airport  (ATL)  has one of the best waiting areas of any airport before TSA checkpoints so if you have to wait for a flight,  it is a decent place to wait for one for an extended period of time.  Because of that and low city train costs,  the homeless have figured that out too.  One night while napping there before an early morning flight,  I had a large man wake me up by hitting a clipboard with a pen hard.  He then asked me if I was homeless.  I said  “no.”  He then asked if I was sure.  I didn’t say a word.  He asked again and I still stood mute.  He asked why I wasn’t talking and I politely said,  “I don’t answer the same question more than once.”  Keep in mind,  I was sitting with an empty food tray in front of me and my iPad.  Nothing about me said I was homeless.  He left and a little weaselly guy came and sat down with me to explain they are with some city-based homeless outreach program and they had to ask everyone if they ask one person.  I said  “or you could have just left me sleep.”  He then asked me for my boarding pass.  I asked him if he was with TSA.  He was not.  I asked him if he was with American Airlines.  He was not.  I asked him if he was with airport police.  Again,  he was not.  So now I less-than-politely told him that he could not see my boarding pass.  At this point I believe I seemed to be more trouble than I was worth because I was getting really pissed and he got up and left me alone while apologizing for disturbing me.  People of supposed authority hate being told  “no.”  If it had been a cop,  sure, I’ll show him.  That’s his job to determine if I’m trespassing or not.  Beyond that,  it’s no ones business and the cops could tell I was waiting on a flight because they aren’t idiots. 

I love crappy strip clubs and there is one I went to in Byron,  Georgia.  It’s called Strippers Gentleman’s Club.  You know it’s gotta be classy with a name like that!  It was the obvious train wreck that a strip club in a two-store strip mall sharing a wall with a convenience store looks to probably be.  It was the shithole you are imagining in your head right now.  I wanted a dance from a girl that as just on stage and most dancers just go get the girl because the favor will eventually be returned.  The girl asked me for a tip to go get the other dancer.  This is what happens when a club has no competition.  

If you are into antiques,  right after you cross from Tennessee into Georgia on Interstate 24,  you will find some really good ones in and around Ringgold,  Georgia.  All the way down south on Interstate 75,  almost to the Florida state line is Valdosta,  Georgia.  Though I have not had any issues there,  I know them to have the lowest cost of living in the country,  which usually means a low tax-base and dilapidated area,  much like Michigan City,  Indiana has.  Living in the same county as Michigan City,  I have become acquainted with Valdosta simply because  “were not the bottom!”

When you hit the rest areas of Georgia along Interstate 75,  they all or most all have a neon—rutabaga.  Ok,  I think it’s supposed to be a peach,  but I ain’t never seen no peach look like that!