we're in florida. it took us about 12 hours to drive from durham. we can usually make the trip in less time than that, but ray was having a weird reaction to one of his contact lenses so we stopped 4 or 5 times while he dealt with that, then another couple of stops for food/pee breaks.
the weird thing is... every time we stopped we encountered someone who was rude to us.
well, it actually started before we even had the chance to stop... when we went to pick up the rental car. we pulled in and didn't know where to park. we were trying to figure it out when one of the employees started shouting "you can't park there! move your car!"
sheesh. it's like we just insulted his mother or something, the way he was talking to us.
then we stopped for a sandwich at a subway along I-95, and the teenager who was making ray's seafood & crab sub was pretty grumpy. as he began telling her what toppings he wanted, she looked away and started gabbing with a co-worker. when ray stopped and waited for her to re-focus on her friggin' job she noticed that he was a little miffed and she said, "i'm sorry [though she clearly wasn't]... i'm in a bad mood." and when ray said, "well i wish you wouldn't take it out on me," she spun around and walked off. lovely.
finally, we were excited to spot a steak'n'shake for dinner, but mid-way through our meal (we both got salads! what's up with that??) ray noticed the floor was totally filthy behind the waitress' station. smashed french fries, used napkins, unidenfied gunk.. it was pretty unappetizing. so ray mentioned it to our server (alas, another teenager) and she offered no apology, but rather a lame excuse about how hrt shift was about to end. whatever.
ray got so miffed at her reply that he actually started scanning the restaurant for a broom so he could clean the mess himself. he was thinking "that'll show 'em!" but you know.... she's a teenager. 'nuff said. her job to her is like a paid social hour. so after a few minutes someone did sweep up, and i'm secretly glad that ray wasn't able to find any cleaning implements... because by this point in the day --being totally fed up with random strangers' rudeness-- he could have totally gone nutso with a dustpan.
i can't figure out what was causing the world to be angry with us today. there was a ton of traffic on the roads, so maybe that had people stressed out. or perhaps the holidays are finally wearing down everyone's pleasantries.
or maybe it was because we were driving a big-ass rented SUV.
i rather suspect it's the latter.
Posted by xta at December 21, 2003 12:56 AM | TrackBack