Ah, yes. The beautiful “south”. Hello again there Fujupz Friendz and welcome to the latest edition of Plonker Sez. This one’s a long one. Boy, if I had a nickel for every time I have heard that…
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So Hoff and I were off on another adventure, this time to the great “south”. Plans included a road trip to Charlotte to see Here Come the Mummies and eat BBQ.
…yep. That was basically it. And thank God because that’s basically all we did. Wait, we saw that movie My Friend Dahmer, too! Kinda creepy, but probably only because I knew going in who Dahmer was and what he did…for the most ntsrt. I remembered vaguely, about halfway into the movie, that he lived not far from us in Ohio at one point, but mostly I remember the necrophilia and cannibalism. I also remembered him being in the South Park song Christmas Time in Hell, so the whole fucking movie I’m waiting for him to kill someone or eat a face or something, but it never happened. Oh, yeah…spoiler alert…he kills a bunch of people, goes to jail, and dies. The end. Anyway, I’m not sure why it’s classified as a horror movie. It’s got its moments, but the worst, or “goriest” part was when he kills a fish that he caught in a pond. The rest of it just made Dahmer seem more like a social outcast than a murdering, fucking, body eating kinda person. Maybe that’s where it starts. …someone better keep an eye on Hoff.
But I need to back up. So the plan was, as usual, to leave early Friday (after taking offspring to Sai at 0900), enjoy the 8-ish hour drive, and then eat some BBQ. I mean, it’s the south, there’s gotta be nice weather and BBQ, right? Whelp…this is fujupz. So it starts with a minor delay in departing. At the end, I didn’t even pack anything. I threw some shirts in a bag and said “fuck it” and left. Hey, there’s always Walmart (more on that later)! So we left around 11:30 or so, I think…might have been noon. Anyway, we left.
About an hour into the trip, I’ve had enough of this driving shit. After being awake all night (I “reverse cycle” a lot…it sucks), I need a nap. We had stopped for caffeine (twice) and it just wasn’t helping, so we swap and Hoff begins to drive. I get him pointed south and recline for a nap. I awake about 20 minutes later feeling great, but knowing that I dare not suggest we switch, because as soon as I sit in the other seat I’m going to be tired again. Luckily I was able to doze for a bit more. When I finally did wake up, I almost shit my pants. No, it wasn’t dinner, or breakfast…it was Hoff! Holy fuck, I mean I know I’m a bad driver (which is odd since I’m a wonderful pilot…I mean….you know…I ain’t dead, right?) but Jesus Hong Christ. Now I know why good old Rootin’ Tootin’ Barry Wooten had a brake on his side of the driver’s ed car. This was my payback for all the times I scared the shit out of my first wife while driving.
I know you’re reading this because I sent you the link and I’m so—sorr—–sorrrr—-… Good God, I can’t even type it. I guess that’s for the best, it wouldn’t be genuine anyway. Where was I? Oh, yeah…in the car headed south…
After a short bit of terror, Hoff asks if I’m good to resume the driving duties and I HAPPILY agree to do so. Ah…properly spaced following distance. Sure, I text and drive from time to time, and who doesn’t check out pornhub when cruise control is on? But at least I keep a proper following distance when I’m actually paying attention.
We head south through West-by-God Virginia and into Virginia where (now it’s night…so it’s sometime after 3pm eastern…) it’s snowing like a motherfucker. I know my tires are due to be changed in about 3000 more miles, so I’m taking it easy. Down some hills and around corners, through the mountains…eventually I decide I’ve GOT to take a piss, so we stop and I got a brief video of how badly it was snowing. I’m not going to say it was the storm of the century (seriously…every fucking winter, Weather Channel?) but it was bad enough that traffic was slowed to 45mph on I-77 in places. Even trucks!
Luckily, being fujupz, we seemed to be dragging the shit with us. The farther south we went, the colder the air temperature (as indicated on my handy-dandy display in the car) got…the harder it snowed…it got foggy, windy, somehow foggy and windy (which my private pilot grounds school instructor said was impossible, so it must’ve been some new phenomena that I discovered *chomp* (only one of you will understand that reference, but whatever)) <–Seriously, Plonker?
Finally we arrive at the hotel late (separate rooms) and I was exhausted. There were a few wrong turns towards the end but we managed to make it. Found a parking spot, went to Walmart so I could buy pants to wear (not that I feel like I need to, but for Hoff’s benefit…) and we’re back to the hotel around 10:30 for bed (did I mention separate rooms? Separate rooms on separate floors). So what did I do? Ordered room service. Salmon and vegetables with rice, and a nice tomato-mozz salad. Quite tasty! Probably microwaved, but tasty…though they did cook the salmon to order, so maybe it wasn’t microwaved. Anyway, the hotel was nice, a typical Embassy Suites, which Hoff seemed to like, though he did confess to some confusion when he first walked in, not realizing the bedroom was a separate room. Hilton does have some nice properties, though Marriott points go farther. If only there was a perfect hybrid…. I was super excited for the Embassy Suites breakfast. Something about an omelet chef cooking my omelet for me (and I have no problem making my own at home, so it’s not like it’s a “treat” I only get when someone else cooks it for me) and some fresh pancakes (same as the omelet) just tickle me pink. I’m not saying I missed breakfast both days, but I missed breakfast both days. Wompwomp.
Before I go on, I feel the need to tell you about Walmart. First, a little background, neither of us ever seems to have cash. If I end up with a few spare singles, I usually end up blowing it on the lotto (it’s a “stupid” tax). Hoff usually ends up at Speedway for a 600oz Dr. Pepper…so we just don’t usually have cash. Okay, onward… So it obviously wasn’t the best neighborhood. We were looking for the Walmart in the smelly part of town (seriously, it was stinky…why was it stinky?) but we found this one instead. It took me 5 minutes to knock an electric trimmer off the shelf so I could buy it, and 3 minutes to find the right size (extra, extra fat) “pants”, and then we were out the door.
Oh, happy day, we can go back and I can sleep. [Chef’s dad’s voice] Well it was about that time… [/Chef’s dad] when someone saw us walking to the car and asked, innocently, “what time is it?” Well…we’re assholes, but we can do simple shit. Almost in unison we answered…and that was the mistake. Now we’re standing in a poorly lit parking lot, of a Walmart, in a bad neighborhood, of a city in which we don’t live, 400 miles from any of my insurance covered network Emergency Rooms (and I am NOT going back to an out of network provider, not after my roofie adventure this summer…though next year I’m probably just going to go without insurance and pay the fine…) and a man is talking to us with his hands in his pockets and mumbling about how blessed we are. Then he gets to the point in the story about how he just got out of prison (did I mention hands in his pockets? I didn’t think he had enough room in there for a gun, so I figured at worst I was going to get a knife to the kidney…) and needed $7 to ride the bus so he could sleep where it was warm. At this point, I extended the “key” part of my fob, figuring I could use that to defend myself…like I’m some sort of Heisenberg-MacGyver hybrid creature…in reality, I’d have probably just thrown the keys and wallet at him and ran away crying if he had pulled a knife. But I digest…
^ Something like that.
Honestly, if he had been looking for a meal, I’d have been happy to meet (not allow him in the car) him at a nearby fast food joint and buy him a meal…like I said, I’m an asshole but I’m not cruel, and it was fucking cold. But we just don’t carry cash. What are we supposed to do? When he stopped mumbling and we finally understood that he was asking for money, we could tell him “no” (because we don’t have any!). He just caught us at the wrong time. Had he caught us going IN, I’d have….paid with my credit card and still not been able to get cash back, but at least I’d have been thinking about it. Anyway, I went to get in the car (as did Hoff) but he went to go around the car on Hoff’s side, so being the good friend, I unlocked only my door so I could get in. I figured I could sacrifice Hoff if the knife did come out without sacrificing the integrity of the car, and still leaving me with a chance to get home on time. Luckily (maybe?) for Hoff, if he had a knife, he didn’t use it. I suspect he didn’t, but maybe Hoff just got “lucky”. As he walks away, I open the door for Hoff, he gets in, looks in his wallet and finds cash….maybe we are just assholes.
Saturday, I sleep in, and when I finally get ready (long story short – the trimmer I bought for my hair sucked and I ended up having to get rid of all of my hair with a single razor blade, what was left from some Shave Butter, shampoo, conditioner, and a little bar soap from the hotel…it took forever…and I cut myself) Hoff is waiting for me in the lobby. We have a “place” now in Charlotte for when we’re in town. Yep, we’re regulars at McKoys. Ever the diligent calorie counters, we placed our order for the biggest thing on the menu. Hey, calories don’t count on “vacation”, right? I ate about 1/3 of mine. Hoff ate 90% of his. The remainder went in boxes which lived in my car for about 30 hours before being forgotten in the hotel fridge as we left Sunday.
At this point we’ve got like six hours to concert time, so we head down to Carowinds to check out WinterFest. It’s 40°, sleeting, windy, just a terrible day in Charlotte. Sorry, Charlotte…it’s our fault. Whelp, I won’t ruin Winterfest by telling you how it was, because it was closed and I didn’t get to experience it. Most likely we’d have walked around eating, which is fine, but I doubt I’d have fit on any rides, nor would I have wanted to ride anything open. You can only tilt-a-whirl so many times in your life (did you know there’s one at the Eastwood Mall? I just learned this today while I went to the BMV. I’d like to Sez about that experience, but surprisingly it was pleasant as fuck! Who knew?!) before you relegate yourself to coasters. And even those aren’t exactly doing it for me anymore. I’m either getting better at the whole height thing, or caring less about whether or not I survive the ride. Either way…
After the enjoyable, and brief, car ride “diversion”, we decided to find the concert venue to scout some parking spots. All said and done, we found a few places, and the venue wasn’t too far from the hotel, though it was quite literally on the other side of town. Anyway, we head back to the hotel kind of absentmindedly and once there we decide maybe we should catch a movie. It’s either that or angry masturbation (separate rooms, folks) and I’m okay with either, but the movie is less effort. Plus they have popcorn, so there’s that. We looked at a few of those “what to do in Charlotte” things (Carowinds was on the top of most lists…go figure) and finally just punted and looked for show times. We went to the movie where we each spent about 2x as much on snacks (I got a large popcorn, large drink, and SnoCaps because #fat, then I ate 1/3 of the popcorn, drank the entire drink, and ate 0 of the SnoCaps because #Stupid) as we did for the tickets. Again, it was a decent flick, but I kept waiting for something to happen. It never did.
But the movie did the trick! Now it was time to head to the concert. So we go over there, hunt down a parking spot, and head over to get in line. We were about 5th in line, and for a GA event, it meant we’d have a great spot by the stage. Holy shit did we ever! Pole’s (bass player) balls were about 8″ from my head the entire night, and that close you can REALLY pick out the different parts everyone plays. It’s, as usual, amazing. Hoff met a cutie (she was 18 but there with her parents…he managed to chat with her a bit, but I think her mom was more interested in him than she was. Go get ’em, Tiger!), some regulars, got our picture taken with a group, had a great time, danced the Fenk Shui, flew my Freak Flag (figuratively…), and did all of the other things you do at a HCTM concert. On our way back to the car, where it was just terribly cold…we made tentative plans for the next one (looks like April, should my schedule work out). I got the car started, went to back up to get us the fuck out of there and…crunch. Yyyyyep. Fucking light fixtures are cracked, bumper scratched, looks like a few clips may have broken. This is going to be expensive. Luckily I have a $500 deductible and about $3 in my checking account…so that’s good. Examining the damage I figured I’d end up getting pulled over, but enough of the red lens cover must still be there to make the light look red, because I drove through 4 states, mostly at night, for something like 11 hours on the way back, and never had an issue. Score one for Plonker.
Our late night food choices in Charlotte have been as consistent as our BBQ. We went, again, with Waffle house. To be fair, we tried Denny’s but two tables were walking out when we got there and told us to leave (slow service) then a very angry cook came out to confront one of the customers so we felt, before we got shot, we should just head to Waffle House. How’s that logic work for you? Read it again. TO AVOID GETTING SHOT WE WENT TO WAFFLE HOUSE. I had a bowl with hash browns and eggs and sausage and gravy and cheese and all sorts of good shit, and I actually got what I ordered this time! So did Hoff! A great way to finish the night. I do enjoy some jalapeños in my taters. Yum city. Back to the hotel and to bed. It took me an hour or so of Netflixing to finally pass out, my ears still ringing from the music, but all in all it was a fun day, even with the crash…and I got to eat gravy!
Waking up on Sunday (yeah, again missing the breakfast I had been so looking forward to), we had to start heading home. Aside from my dumb ass forgetting to reactivate my phone/GPS and missing the turn to US 19, causing us to head through Charleston, WV, and miss our favorite bridge (Hoff…give the people what they want), it was an uneventful drive home. By the end, my back and ass were both hurting from the seat, but I didn’t dare switch driving duties with Hoff this time. I spent the entire time driving, minus the stops, of which I believe we only had 3. We stopped for gas and food (the Denny’s we wanted from the previous night…Hoff can tell you the details but that’s where he learned that you can order ice cream for dessert like he did…or you can order another entree like I did… #Fat), and then one last time for food again, and to take a piss. I guess that’s only twice. Maybe I’ve forgotten one.
So anyway, another fujupz trip in the books. We’re already planning our next adventure out of this frozen shithole of an area in which we live. Hoff keeps mentioning Miami, but meh. I want to do a fujupz cruise (separate rooms).
Thanks for reading this far. If you’re a Plonker “fan”, I’m kind of surprised you can read. Usually the people I spend the most time with stop if the book isn’t fully illustrated, or doesn’t have a pop-up section, or something like that. So good for you! Anyway, coming up in the future, look for some new Youtube videos from us. We’ve got a Sandusky bike trip up but Hoff is going to do some projectz (that he’s tentatively calling “Fujupz Teachez”, and I think that’s a great idea, because I need to be taught… ) and I’m thinking about doing some daily (which means it’ll be lucky to be monthly) “vlogs” so if you care at all about watching me make coffee and scrambled eggs, driving past the gym, or scratching my balls, you’ll enjoy those for sure. I’m really not sure what else I do in a given day, but I’m sure I can find something to bitch about once or twice a day.
I’ve got some projects I’d like to put into video, I just:
- Don’t have money to do them
- Don’t have time to do them
- Don’t want to do them
…so there’s that. Okay, that’s all for now. …bye.
P.S. I killed all the mice.
