Super Nerd Sundays Presents: Off the Path Again!

When we depart from the path laid out for us we encounter trouble.

I’m writing this from a coffee shop in Matowac, a small town on the western edge of Lake Michigan. It is purportedly blanketed in Wi-Fi. It has a pair of attractions – a ferry and a maritime museum. There are two, that’s right two, bike stores. There’s a home brew store and something like five bars on the main drag. There’s a library that shames most of the public libraries I visited in Portland, a massive two level affair impeccably maintained by an impressive staff. This is just in the section I walked through, too. There are a staggering number attractive young college students in the coffee shop I’m in, and the couple (I assume they’re a couple) who run the shop would be perfectly at home in Portland. This place is strange, and I would never have discovered it if the ferry I’d tried to ride in Milwaukie had been operational.

My path was set. Of the two paths recommended to me by the internet for each leg of my journey I chose the more remote one, the one that would show me unexplored territory. I wanted to see more of the country, new places I’d yet to visit. I was excited at the prospect of exploring South Dakota, never having to visit Wyoming again, and seeing Michigan fading into the sunset.

Instead I’m sleeping on a ferry and driving from five in the AM until I collapse tomorrow. Maybe I’ll stay in a shit motel in upstate New York because I’m just too tired to drive a full fifteen hours. Maybe I’ll be cavity searched while entering or exiting Ontario and will, as a result, be detained for a full day, rectum distended, stuck in Canadian jail where I understand you are all too politely raped by very nice people. Maybe I’ll make it back to Massachusetts in one good run, one long trip interrupted only by the occasional tollbooth and brief, uneventful border crossings.

But none of this would’ve happened if I’d stuck to the path I knew, the journey that had been selected for me the first time I crossed the country.

Turns out there’s a consensus on how to generally get from place to place in America. The interstate highway system mostly asks people to stay within the country and drive through the same shitty parts of the world as everyone else. It sets up regular little places to resupply, which in turn dot the highway with insultingly great frequency. It guides you through towns that seemingly exist solely to serve those poor fools stuck on the highway strip. It moves you along the same trails, time and time again, the same ugly settings littered with people who want easy trips along pre-determined routes.

The end result is a gray, polluted slog occasionally broken up by bits of beauty. Northern Wisconsin and Montana, for example, are beautiful beyond belief. Northern Idaho would be a perfect place if not for the bulk of people who live there. But Indiana, Ohio, eastern Washington and North Dakota are all depleted repositories of nature left out to dry by the side of our interstate highways. They’re drab, dying places strewn along the roadside.

The first leg of my journey focused primarily on the prettier parts of that previous trip: mostly Montana and Idaho. When the time came for me to enter North Dakota I decided I’d change my route up and run along highway 212, a lovely, if desolate, strip of road running through the center of South Dakota. It treated me to some breathtaking visages, some amazing little towns cut off from the rest of the world, some surprisingly racism and a handful of surreal sights. For example, I saw a tractor parade holding up traffic just outside of Watertown, South Dakota. I have no idea what it was for, but the lead tractor had an American flag on his helm, so I can only assume it was general patriotism.

I ran into a snag when I was around one hundred miles from Minneapolis. A detour side-tracked me for a whole half an hour. In a ten hour day of travelling a half an hour might not seem like a lot, but it’s absolutely infuriating when you’re making your last big push for a particular leg of your journey and it comes out of nowhere. But it’s nothing compared to a ferry shutdown adding what could be an entire day to your travel time during the home stretch of your trip.

That’s exactly what my current diversion has done. But in addition to that I’ve found a really cool little coffee shop, a place that might as well have come out of a Charles Baxter novel. I’ve found a wonderful main street with all of the comforts of any big town, thrift stores and bars abounding. I’ve found a maritime museum I probably should visit that I definitely won’t. I’ve found a small town the like of which I never would’ve dreamed, filled with small town hippy kids and businesses that are closed on Monday. I’ve found pockets of culture that seem out of place, sights that make me think I’m still in St. Paul. I’ve found a place and had experiences I won’t forget.

I’ve driven a piddling seven hours today, which seems like an absurdly long period of time to any rational human being. But I’ve had to wait in this town for a total of eight hours just to catch my ferry, to put it all in perspective. That’s eight hours where I have to stay awake and stay occupied, eight hours where I smell like I’ve been driving for four days straight and eight hours where I’m walking around town smelling like I slept in a heat wave for the last two nights without air conditioning.

If I’d stuck to the interstate I’d be passing Chicago now. I’d likely be settling into a motel in Indiana or Ohio in a few hours, exhausted and cursing my luck to be stuck in such a shithole state. Instead I’m watching a psychosexual drama play out a few tables away between a group of college kids (who ostensibly aren’t fucking) hell-bent on reading each other’s text messages. I’m decompressing and taking in the middle of the country after a four day tear across the United States.

And I wouldn’t have found any of this if I hadn’t tried to wander off the path. If I hadn’t responded to each hurdle by wandering a little bit farther off each time. If I’d stuck to the trail set for me I’d be bored out of my skull, perfectly calm and collected and well on my way home. Instead I’m kind of a little lost, ostensibly still on the right track and planning to do some truly horrible shit to myself the next day. I’ve been enjoying my surreal journey, my trials and tribulations, and I’ve been appreciating Planes, Trains and Automobiles a little more with each passing hour. And I wouldn’t trade it for anything.

Does this relate to video games? Does it relate to stories? Of course. Stories are most interesting when they veer off the rails, when they enter unexpected territory and revel in it. Sometimes they don’t end up at their destination. Those are the best times, when stories come to new conclusions that we’d never dreamed of, conclusions we were completely unprepared for. I don’t think that’ll be happening to me. Maybe this will be my last will and testament, a document that will somehow survive my brutal murder by Canadian hill people and/or Mounties tomorrow. More likely I’ll just get home a little later than I would’ve liked. I might be tweaking a little when it happens, too.

For now this essay is just an aside, a cop out piece to fill in a weekend while I’m driving across the country. It’s a missive on just how strange and wonderful the middle of this country is, how fantastic it can be to get off the beaten path and how important it is to roll with life’s punches. Never step back from a side trail when it takes you off the path. No matter how it ends, you’ll never regret taking it after it’s happened. Or, if you do, at least you’ll have a good story.

Congratulations on Rewiring Your Bedroom!

You’re a big DIY guy. So when your house has wiring issues you don’t even think to get an electrician to come help you. You just grab your tools, Google around a bit and then get to work.

It’ll start off pretty innocuously. You’ll begin by ripping through the wall in your bedroom to fix the loose wiring near the dimmer switch. It’ll seem straightforward at first, but after two hours and a total of seventy three mumbled “motherfuckers” you’ll be ready to give up, but not before dragging the woman you convinced to marry you into the whole sordid affair.

“Fuck,” you’ll shout at the top of your lungs. “Karen, get in here!”

Your wife will obediently appear, looking like she’s already exhausted by whatever you’re going to ask her.

“Hold these wires, damnit!” you’ll shout, ramming two stripped wires into her hands. She’ll shrug and take them, but she won’t grasp the rubber parts. Instead she’ll take a hold of the exposed copper. The light will immediately start working again, though it’ll be extremely dim.

“It’s working!” you’ll shout.

“This kind of hurts,” your wife will mutter.

“Let me see if I can make it brighter,” you’ll mumble, getting down on your knees and unzipping her pants.

Twenty five minutes and one tired tongue later you’ll have made the lights much, much brighter for a short time, and then suddenly made them all but explode for a five second period before making them basically go out.

“I think I’ve got this figured out,” you’ll beam up at her from your position on the floor.

“I think I’d let to let go of these,” she’ll say, still shivering from coming all over your face.

Congratulations on Rewiring Your Bedroom!

Congratulations on Making the Most Awkward Toast at the Wedding!

“…and may the Holocaust never come to your wedding. Or the planet again. Or any other planet. Mentioned in this toast. Or in any other toast.”

You’ll wipe the sweat from your brow and smile awkwardly at the bride and groom, raising your glass before ramming it into your own mouth and chipping one of your teeth.

“Fugh,” you’ll mumble as you try to reach into the gum between your lips and teeth and grab a hold of the shard of glass. Your fingers will slip as you try to pull it out while blood pours from your mouth on to the ground as the rest of the wedding party stands in silence and just watches as you struggle on your knees.

“Doth abyove hab pliers?” you’ll shout, at which the crowd will shake their collective heads and look collectively down at the ground, giving you a moment’s relief from your shame.

Congratulations on Making the Most Awkward Toast at the Wedding!

Congratulations Swimsuit Assessor!

Many people wear shirts that say “Swimsuit Inspector” in big block letters or, if they’re less specific, “female body inspector.” These people are almost all douchebags, and should be universally reviled. But did you know that these are actually real occupations filled by real people, and that you’re actually one of them?

Your day will begin with a quick jaunt down to Falmouth beach, where you’ll approach a number of young women with your clip board, ticking off boxes as merited. Then you’ll ask them questions about religion, politics, humor and popular culture. Their answers will be mostly unacceptable, but that’s the norm for your day.

Then you’ll be flown by super secret supersonic jet to a college campus in the Midwest. In the midst of downtown St. Paul young women will be splayed out on a lawn, covered by little more than swimsuits. You’ll apply your exam to each of them in turn. Eventually you’ll come upon a young woman who is reading a massive textbook on civil rights and liberties in her swimsuit. She’ll be wearing light carbon glasses frames and staring intently at the words, so intently she won’t notice when your gaze lingers a bit longer than is necessarily professional over here ass.

“Hello miss,” you’ll begin your quiz, at which point she’ll look up and acknowledge your presence.

She’ll hop up to her feet and extend her hand, pulling her i-pod buds out of her ears.

“Oh hi!” she’ll beam at you. “I didn’t notice you there. How’s it going?”

You won’t know how to respond. Her smile, the question, her energy… It’ll all be so new to you.

“I’ve got questions,” you’ll stammer at her, and her smile won’t skip a beat.

She’ll keep it up as she answers each of your questions. At one point she’ll unselfconsciously tuck her i-pod into her bra, placing the device in one cup and the balled up headphones in the other.

“That looks uncomfortable,” you’ll say, and she’ll shrug.

“Gotta put ‘em to use, right?”

After twenty five minutes you’ll have the survey completed and you’ll simply stand there, staring at her, as you detach her carbon copy from your clipboard.

“Congratulations, madam,” you’ll mumble towards your feet. “You’re the perfect woman.”

She’ll laugh, then look at the form, where you’ll have actually scored her responses to every single question. She’ll look at you as if she’s offended for a moment, until she reaches the part of the form detailing her stance on social issues, her capacity for human compassion and her easygoing nature and approach to sex.

Then she’ll smile, scribble something down at the bottom of the paper, and hand it back to you.

“Thanks,” she’ll say. “But I’ve got to study.”

Then she’ll hunker down on the lawn again, the grass pressing into her perfect thighs. She’ll sit facing you, her shoulders hunched over so that you’re given a spectacular view of her cleavage. After a few seconds of staring at her chest you’ll look up and see her face, smiling at you. You’ll turn away, red in the face, and look down at the paper. Her phone number will be scribbled down there, along with her name.

You’ll mumble it to yourself as you stumble towards your rental car, searching for excuses to stay in town another night.

Congratulations Swimsuit Assessor!

Congratulations Super Hot Lady Bassist!

Most bassists are dudes with beards. These beards cover slightly ugly faces that lead these men to become bassists so that women will touch them and potentially even fuck them. But you’re not like that at all.

First of all, you’re a lady. You’re one hell of a lady. You’ve got the uh and the ah and the UH goin’ AWN. To look upon you on the street is to look upon the face of love and to know for one moment peace in all the world. You get a lot of young men quietly staring at you at your shows.

But today things are going to get dicey. A boy is going to ask you to go out and you, against your better judgment, are going to say yes. The boy will be pretty, and he’ll be from another band. Your lead singer, who moves from man to man easily, will say he’s “alright, not great,” and shrug when questioned on his nature. Your guitarist will shrug and your drummer, being a drummer, will not be asked for his opinion and will instead quietly sit at home with his wife and watch NBC sitcoms.

Once you reach the bar you’ll immediately know something is wrong. It’ll be a trendy place, filled with pretty young people avoiding looking at one another. They’ll be drinking small drinks, wearing t-shirts from bands from the seventies and none of them will be talking about a single interesting thing.

“Sup babe,” the young man will nod at you as you enter the bar.

“Hi,” you’ll say, your muscles screaming at you to leave.

“Waddya drinkin’?” he’ll ask mystifyingly. After a few seconds you’ll figure out what he means and nod.

“I guess a beer?” you’ll respond.

He’ll laugh at you as loud as he can.

“You’ll have to be more obscure if you wanna get inside these jeans,” he’ll reply before pointing at his groin, unimpressive beneath a pair of extremely tight pants.

At this point you’ll just lose it and punch him right in the mouth with your big bassy fist. Blood will fly up from between his teeth and he’ll drop to the ground, blood flooding his mouth from the stump of his tongue, foaming up between his teeth.

You’ll walk outside and leave him there on the floor, where the other hipsters will ignore him. You’ll light a cigarette as you walk to your car, your knuckles bleeding from the force of your blow. A young man in a flannel shirt will look at you and nod.

“I’d hate to see the other guy.”

You’ll smile at him, crack the door to your Prius, and roll down your window so you can smoke while you drive.

Congratulations Super Hot Lady Bassist!

Congratulations on Amazing Us With Your Parlor Tricks!

Today you’re going to take a bunch of apples and juggle them.

“Oooh!” we’ll all cry in amazement as we watch you juggle apples.

“Thank you,” you’ll say before bowing and beginning your text trick.

Next you’ll take some coins and make them appear from behind someone’s ear.

“Oooooooh!” they’ll ululate, louder this time.

You’ll pause for applause before showering the audience with pennies, injuring one young man and then making everyone else overjoyed as they’re showered with hard, dirty, almost worthless money.

Then you’ll summon a young man named James to the stage. James will hail from South Carolina. He’ll be dressed in a suit and tie and he’ll look kind of sullen.

After they get a few seconds to catch just how sad James is you’ll begin the trick, tearing off James clothing to reveal a pink tank top and bright blue running shorts underneath, leading down to flawlessly shaved legs and a meticulously manicured pair of feet. You’ll give James a big old kiss on the mouth and he’ll light up, laughing in joy and holding on to your shoulder.

“I’m gay,” you’ll shout to your mom, who will be sitting in the back row, watching your show with increasing mystification.

The crowd will explode in joy.

Congratulations on Amazing Us With Your Parlor Tricks!

Congratulations Ice Cream Kid!

You’re a kid and you hate ice cream. Fucking hate it. It hurts your teeth, makes you poop funny and it’s cold. Horribly, horribly cold. But everyone expects you to love ice cream. If you exclude yourself from the culture surrounding ice cream you’ll find yourself a social pariah. So what’s a boy to do?

You’ve spent months pondering this question. Moving towards the seemingly inevitable conclusion that you might have to live out your days as an outcast, a poor wretch for whom the world is simply a string of increasingly hurtful rejections that eventually will push you inside yourself. But you won’t give up. You’ll think and think and think and then you’ll come up with a solution.

You’ll start making ice cream. You’ll steal your mom’s credit card when she’s insensate in a haze of weed smoke one night and order it off the internet, and it’ll arrive a week later.

Like a brewer who hates beer, you’ll approach the entire process with a coolly detatched mindset. You’ll begin by learning the basics, testing them on your little brother, who is a normal fucking kid and likes ice cream just fine.

“This is good!” he’ll cry as he samples your vanilla, and you’ll nod your approval. He’ll respond similarly to all your basics, made simply by googling recipes that people have come up with on the internet and putting them to use in your ice cream making kit.

Once you start to understand how and why these recipes work you’ll begin to work on improving them. It’ll be rocky at first. Your chocolate will taste chalky, you’re strawberry flat and flavorless after one particularly poor attempt. But eventually you’ll find perfection and your little brother will briefly lose consciousness.

This will begin the fourth phase of your plan: advanced experiments.

You always recognized ice cream’s potential for exploratory flavorings. From strange berry combinations to grown-up blends that embody everything most people hate about each flavoring class, ice cream has always seemed to be wasted on those who love it for you. So you’ll begin experimenting with things like marijuana infused vanilla (your mother will love it) and whiskey infused coffee ice cream (which you’ll call Aunt Molly’s Secret). These flavors will pick up buzz around your house, and before long you’ll find yourself the toast of each family dinner, which will begin phase five.

Acquiring funding.

Your rich uncle Carl who doesn’t have any kids will be alone in his apartment when you knock on his door. And when you drop your proposal on his coffee table he’ll actually look impressed as you flip through it.

“Your cost-benefit projections are pretty air tight, kid,” he’ll say with approval. He’ll agree to fund you, but he’ll insist on maintaining majority ownership in the resulting business until such a time as you reach the age of majority. You more or less expected this (Carl is kind of a dick) but you’ll still feel a little disappointed that he didn’t just agree to put the money into a blind trust that you could access once you turned 18.

The business that emerges will be a huge success. You’ll make Ben and Jerry look like two dudes blowing each other. You’ll rake in money hand over fist, establishing factories in America with real benefits and actual compensation for workers. You’ll become a titan of industry, wealthy beyond your wildest dreams before the age of ten. Which means you will no longer have to worry about having friends, because you’ll be richer than god, and people with money don’t need to worry about other people’s opinions.

Congratulations Ice Cream Kid!