My Folks!

Warning:: This is a long ass post!

We arrived in Atlanta a day early for some plans that didn’t happen. So to relieve the boredom we decided to explore a bit. The first instance was the night we arrived in town. The Wife and I brought three teenagers along for the ride. The kids and their cousin. We got to town late in the morning. We checked in, ordered pizza, ate around noon and crashed. I was the first awake at about 5:00 in the evening. We sat around, watched TV and asked them what they wanted to do. Being teenagers, they of course had no opinion. Several recommendations later, nothing. Later on we encouraged one of the girls to go and explore. The other one of course went with her. The boy on the other hand was experiencing heaven (cable tv) and was not about to unvelcro his butt from the bed. Until I spelled it out for him. "BOY! YOUR SISTER AND FEMALE COUSIN ARE LEAVING THE HOTEL WITHOUT YOU! GET YA DAMN SHOES ON AND TAG ALONG!!!!" Of course my next statement to him would have involved what was going to happen in that room in the next 10 minutes whether he was there or not. Fortunately he ain’t THAT dense!

After a spirited christening of another city we decided to take a stroll ourselves. We took a walk around the 2 blocks that contained the MARTA station. Bending the second corner we found the first Atlanta Starbucks. And more shocking to The Wife, we encountered her first bug. We both happened to look down and saw a big ass bug walking across the sidewalk. She let out a little yelp and asked what the hell that was. I sweetly and diplomatically told her "That is what they call a Palmetto Bug down these parts" I wasn’t gonna tell her that was a cockroach until we were far enough away. I wasn’t carrying her ass back to the hotel! Next intersection we see a couple of clubs, and another Starbucks. Bend the corner to head back toward the hotel. I bet you can guess what was on the next corner! I started to wonder how they stayed in business until I noticed the number of expensive German and Japanese sedans roaming the area. By the time I got back to the hotel, I noticed that somehow I managed to walk uphill almost the whole way…

The next day we got the same "I don’t know" answer when I asked them where they wanted to go. So I decided to show them where I went to school there, a million years ago. This had to be the event of the trip. I had been telling my wife I went to school in the middle of the projects and it was right outside of downtown. Those were only slight exaggerations. After the told me to go anywhere I accessed my old memories and headed for West End. New and vigorous downtown gave way to old and scary. They missed the really good part of the adventure because I missed my turns. When I finally emerged it was at West End Mall. I can’t even describe their reactions. Needless to say I was laughing at them for the next hour or so. Pointed out the colleges of the AUC one by one. As I drove by pointing out all of the changes since I had been down there. Then through the hood. They surprised me by wanting to stop at a store. So I did.

It was almost surreal. Hoodies came out of the woodwork. One dude started wiping of the hubcaps to the car, "out of the goodness of his heart". Another walked up asking for 15 cents! Got out of the car with little cuz, because she wanted to stop. I walked in and saw plexiglass as far as the eye would want to see! And old wood paneling! And that is it! I then heard "I’m straight" and I turned around to see her narrow ass getting back in the car. She just left me standing there y’all! We beat a hasty retreat out of there after that! It would have been hastier but I didn’t wanna run over hubcap man who was still working on the wheels! We laughed about that for the rest of the day. I wonder if any of them will leave it up to me to decide again?