Yesterday, my car’s odometer ticked past the 3,000 mile mark on this trip, which means it needs an oil change. Fortunately, I am in a major American city, where getting my car’s oil changed should simply require locating the nearest chain car maintenance location. Unfortunately, I am in a major American city in the South on a Sunday, which means every place that could change my oil is currently closed for church.
Time for Plan B(eignets), while I contemplate Plan C.
While I eat my sugar bombs, I consider swinging through New Orleans today—I haven’t visited in six years—but aside from possibly eating even more beignets, I have no idea what I’d do there with only a few hours’ time. Instead, I decide to continue straight on to Mobile, Alabama.
Less than 200 miles separate from Baton Rouge to Mobile, and the terrain isn’t particularly difficult. Still, today’s drive will be a mental challenge.
I will cross Mississippi, America’s worst state1.
I know Mississippi. While I’ve never driven a car in the state before, I’ve sat in a car that crossed the state plenty of times. Hell, back in elementary school, I somewhat regularly played sports in Mississippi, though I can’t explain why the Memphis Jewish Community Center youth soccer teams drove all the way to Olive Branch, Mississippi for matches, when it felt like we drove past roughly 9,348 soccer fields on the way there.
I can’t explain a lot of things from my childhood.
In the present, the chiming guitars of the National’s “All the Wine” provide the soundtrack as I cross the border into Mississippi. At a party a few months ago, I described the effect this song had on me a few days prior, as I drove home during a picturesque sunset behind the Seattle skyline: I wished I could sync video of the sunset with the song, and play it whenever someone asks me why I love Seattle so much.
Homesickness rings through my heart as I steer my car along the highway, between the swamps of Mississippi. I hate this feeling, but at least it keeps me from thinking about where I am.
I focus on the music, and the knowledge that I’ll return home in less than a month, as I make the decision to not stop in this state. My car has enough gas, and my bladder accepts my challenge.
When I stop at one of a cluster of hotels off the interstate in Mobile, the sun remains high in the sky. I feel strange stopping with so much daylight left, and I’m tempted to continue on to Montgomery, but my car still needs its oil changed, and I wouldn’t mind calling it quits before dark for a change.
Inside the hotel, I ask the woman at the front desk how much a room costs for tonight, and she quotes me a rate of $119. I ask if they have a AAA discount, and she says they don’t, but taps away at her keyboard and tells me she can give me a rate of $89 instead of $119. I neither understand nor complain.
I grab food and take a nap. When I wake up, I turn on the TV and discover that baseball season started while I slept. A matchup between the Philadelphia Phillies and the Atlanta Braves serves as ESPN’s Opening Night game, and while I’m apathetic about both teams—my loyalties lie with the Red Sox, Mariners, and whoever’s playing the Yankees, in that order—I watch anyway. I know scientists will tell you that spring begins with the vernal equinox, but they are liars—Spring begins with the first pitch of the season, and Fall begins with the first pitch of the playoffs.
I rejoice in the knowledge that spring has finally arrived.
After the game concludes, I walk to a Waffle House up the road. As the waiter/cook prepares my waffle, my pocket vibrates. I pull out my iPhone to see I’ve received a new email.
“Is that one of those iPhones?” the waiter/cook asks with a look on his face like I landed a spaceship on the roof.
I answer affirmatively.
“I want one of those things, but they’re so expensive,” he complains. “$700 to unlock it and use it on T-Mobile?”
I think about suggesting he look for one on eBay, but merely nod. “It’s great, though,” I tell him. “I can’t remember how I got by before it.”
He shrugs and turns his attention back to my waffle.
We live in different worlds, this man and I.
When I return to the hotel, I notice the little market area beside the front desk and decide to grab a bottle of soda for the morning. The front desk agent asks if I want to put it on my room bill, to which I agree. When she asks what room I’m in, I freeze—I’m on my eighth hotel in the last eleven nights, and the room numbers are all blurring together. I give her my last name instead, and she puts the soda on my bill.
Tonight, I do not remember my room number, and tomorrow, that woman will not remember my name. Soon, the man at the Waffle House will forget my iPhone, which he was so mesmerized by minutes ago.
My night in Mobile will be as ephemeral as that perfectly-soundtracked Seattle sunset months ago, a moment that others witnessed, but only I remember.