Drowning Backwards Through Babylon - The Haphazard Story of A Return Trip Gone Wrong
If you follow me on twitter, you may have spotted this series of tweets earlier this evening
You may note that these date from 5 hours ago. I assure you that the time I sent out these tweets now feels like another lifetime, long gone and its traces washed off my hands, purged from my mind wholeheartedly. You know how I said driving while sleep deprived at night is a bad combo? Understatement, also, not the full story. My mom also has chronic nerve pain flareups and today her nerves decided to say, collectively, all at once, "hey, fuck your legs in particular". She spent the 5 hours of our drive--a return trip from Ocean City Maryland to our home in Walnutport Pennsylvania a trip that I might add usually doesn't take 5 hours--in excruciating pain, sleep deprived, and barely able to see. This is where I mention that my dear ma is legally considered "night blind" and has had her doctor pester her about getting glasses for years. Her usual excuse is that we cannot afford them.
You know who else was sleep deprived? Me. I have slept for one of the past 36 hours due to a hilariously ill-advised decision to spend all of Sunday browsing /r/UnresolvedMysteries which is chiefly about murders. Somehow this poor decision making did not begin to have consequences until shortly after our 5 hour drive began.
Here then, roughly, is a timeline of our return trip, presented as best I can, in unlabeled bullet points, because I can one-up Cracked at their own game.
- we leave Ocean City Maryland. This is bittersweet as we'd hoped to possibly stay the night but had been unable to find a hotel with cheap enough rooms. This is the most normal part of the trip
- we exit Maryland and enter Delaware. Let me ask you a question dear reader: have you ever been to Delaware at night? It is horrifying. It is Lovecraftian. I don't know how New England has the reputation as the 2creepz area of the US when Delaware exists. Nighttime in Delaware is a near-deserted highway. To your right is a mockery of the phrase 'waves of amber grain'. They are waves of gray weeds, they go on forever. To your left is the yawning black void that we so foolishly call "The Atlantic Ocean", but which I now know is the mouth of the Dark God Reho'boath. Like all dark gods, he has sinister heralds
- Fuck Delaware at night. Have you ever seen The Delaware Memorial Bridge at night? No you have not, because there is no such bridge. There are only Slaughter and Dewey, the electric blue giant krakens that serve as heralds of Reho'boath.
- our family begins talking about Ocean Wheels, certainly not usual subject matter for us.
- we pull into this fucking gas station to get gas. Has anything ever been more obviously haunted? There was no one there, the lights were on, and there was a Help Wanted sign in the window.
- mom stops being tired and starts being Tired, this is an important distinction
- we pull into a McDonald's in order to use the restroom and get some caffeinated beverages to keep ourselves awake on the drive home. The McDonald's literally closes as we pull up.
- we pull into a Wendy's instead. I am still next to the result of this decision. A delicious cup of diet coke. It is the last good thing that will come to me during this trip
- the kids need to use the restroom. Mom tries to pull into a gas station-adjoined convenience chain called Dash-In. Somehow we get lost for two hours in a Target parking lot.
- I stop being tired and start being Tired. Important distinction.
- We cross into Pennsylvania. I fall asleep for two minutes and mom gets lost in King of Prussia for an hour.
- as a result of Being Tired. I come to the conclusion that the song "Cheap Thrills" by Sia is cursed as a result of its opening couplet (something about crashing into walls IIRC. Not a great thing to aspire to when driving) and turn off the radio whenever it or a song that I cannot tell apart from it comes on.
- as a result of Being Tired, I am fairly certain that a Yield sign waved at me
- as a result of Being Tired, I am so freaked the fuck out by my mom's singing along to a specific song that I am nearly driven to tears and beg her to stop (she does)
- we pull into a Wawa to use the restroom and for mom to get a coffee. At some point, Wawa's shipment truck, as a result of its doors being opened just so, has the nonsense phrase "Fresh moo ke Waw" on it. This is quickly declared The Funniest Fucking Thing Of All Time
- billions of years in the future, we make it home to carbon county
- I, realizing I am still not "not Tired" and am still kinda hearing auditory hallucinations at the very least, comfort myself by eating the last two slices of a Pizza Hut pizza. This pizza is a story all its own
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Comments
You want a hug?
I hope you're doing better by the time you read this
Also, is that... a Joan Didion reference in the title?
Was it new-style or old-style?
It was the first thing I formulated a thought about
Well actually the first was wondering what gave Delaware its otherworldliness
I know that. It's just that in this context it reminded me of the Didion book and her penchant for astringent observations and I found the symmetry amusing.
Fuck, I think I know what you're talking about. There are stretches of highway where there are these fields of grass and they're, like, luminous grey at night, because the only light out there is starlight and headlights and the moon. It's really kind of spooky.
(I don't like having to go through West Virginia on the way to UK because it's racist and flares up my allergies and the mountains [while beautiful] grow stale after a while and kill your cell service.)
Anyhow, this was a good story. Someone could make a nice surreal horror piece out of it, probably.