Some Words on Some Topics

There’s always been a lot of pressure to make it to dinner on time. I’ll leave Park Ridge today at 2:00 PM to go back home to Springfield. It’s a 3-hour drive so, theoretically, I should arrive at 5:00 PM. I like to take frequent stops though, so it could be pushed back as far as an hour or two. In theory, of course.

I’ll stop for gas, food, potty breaks; whatever. Definitely coffee, I get real sleepy driving.

When I told my parents my ETA, all they wanted to know about was what I wanted for dinner. They want to know because the general accepted plan is that I get home, say hi to the dog, my Dad says “Where we going to eat?” I say “Someplace with horseshoes,” and I’m back in the car again. This time it’s my parents’ car though, and I’m sitting in the back wishing I could change the radio or put on my headphones like when I was a teenager because that’s what you did when you were a teenager. So many 10-15 minute car–ride naps when I was younger.

I feel like this almost has to happen, that if it won’t I will be in trouble. I’m entering my mid-20’s and still feel like if I don’t sit down and eat dinner with my family then, I don’t know. I can’t eat for the rest of the night or something and won’t be allowed to go play with my friends.

There are just so many things that I’d like to do. I’d like to stop at ISU, get a caramel latte from the Coffehound (the best), walk around the quad again, go knock on the doors of my old apartments and ask if it’d be OK if I looked around one last time, stop at my grandparents house and say hi, go off script and drive through a town that I always pass on the highway but never enter, or maybe just keep heading south and end up in Venezuela. Become a real fun South-American-guy. I could go north too and see what Canada is like. I want it to snow already.

It’s kind of empowering. If I really wanted I could just go over to the Chipotle across the street from where I work and sit there until they close, ordering burrito after burrito after burrito. I could talk to the employees about mixing the contents of the burrito better; instruct them on the fine art of layering the cheese throughout it so that there’s that nice cooling sensation that follows the initial salsa bite that’s lasts the entirety of the meal.

Am I a foodie for writing that?

I could go anywhere. I could just go back to my apartment and stare at blank walls, wondering if it’s worth hanging anything new up since there’s only four months left on the lease and I will definitely be moving. What does a young man put on walls though? Too old for Adrian Peterson posters, not old enough for paintings, and an ironic poster of something from my childhood would seem like I’m too hung up in the past. I want to move forward into something new that is undetermined and unplanned.

Which is all good and nice to think about, but I’ll probably just drive straight home. Stop for gas in Dwight. Maybe grab a latte if I’m tired. Really could use a horseshoe, and that really trumps everything.