Tuesday, March 13, 2007

"this ain't gawd danged dairy queen!"

cayce and i made a whirlwind trip to texarkana this weekend, and it did not disappoint! we spent many hours in the car enthralled by prison break, but it helped to pass the time nicely.

texarkana is the kind of place that people seem normal, but then they open their mouths. cayce was buying out the shoe sale at dillard's, and this seemingly normal girl, who looked no different than us, was shopping when her mom ask her a question about the shoes and the girl looks at her and says, "I done been here yesterday!"

you know that when i refer to us at normal, that this place is the kind of place that you have to wonder how anyone makes it out alive and knows how to form a grammatically correct sentence. and more than making it out alive... they go on to lead successful lives. i mean i have three friends who are wildly successful. one owns her own business, one is a successful attorney working for a prestigious judge in austin, and the other is pursuing yet another degree so that i can also be a successful attorney.

while sitting in starbucks, no - this ain't gawd danged dairy queen, the other night i realized that we were sitting in the cultural melting pot of texarkana society. at any other starbucks in the world you'd find predominately affluent people getting their morning fix for their downtown desk job, or the graduate student burning the midnight oil in preparation for their next big test, but not here. on this particular evening we found... the country/western wannabes, the white kids dressed like thugs, the older couple dressed in the kmart finest, the emo couple, and then there was the four of us.

of course i was approached by the kid wearing his swim trunks and a t shirt carrying his nalgene bottle full of red juice, because people in towns like this one have to talk to strangers. he said, "You were a chi o weren't you?" actually, i was. "Yeah, i know how to spot them... i can see a girl and just know - she's a tri delt." ok. "You know chi o was founded at my school, so you owe your entire existence to the university of arkansas." you know, as much as i loved my sorority, i don't think it was or is the cornerstone of my existence. and it's a scary enough thought to think i owe everything to the university of arkansas. "So what do you do now? Manufacture enormous earrings???" without hesitation i pulled my sunglasses down, "that's right, and enormous sunglasses." see - just one more texarkana success story...