This past weekend I was in North Carolina for my brother Jeff's wedding. I love to travel, even though I haven't done much of it, and I'm a big fan of my new sister-in-law, so I definitely didn't mind the trip. Plus, I absolutely loved NC. It's beautiful, not that I expected anything else. It reminded me a little bit of home (Seattle) because of the dense trees and abundance of water, but it definitely has a personality of its own. The people are super friendly, and super funny.
The first evening we were there (Friday), we had a dinner with both families at this Texas steakhouse (I'm not sure what a Texas-themed restaurant was doing in North Carolina, but whatever). In the middle of dinner, my mom got up to use the bathroom (I promise this is pertinent), and when she came back she said, "You have to go see the bathroom! Oh my gosh, I could even take you in there and show you, it's so cool." Now, my mom has her quirks, but she's really not obsessed with bathrooms--this was just a little joke at my grandma's expense. Grandma once dragged my mom off to see "the coolest thing" when my parents were visiting her. That "coolest thing" turned out to be the bathroom sinks in the airport. They were the semi-circle kind that had a bar you stepped on to make the water come out. I have to admit, when I first saw these sinks, I thought they were cool too--but I was in kindergarten.
Anyway, I eventually had to go to the bathroom, and so with a little more joking--"Are you sure you don't want to show me yourself? You might miss something cool!"--I went to the bathroom. True, the stalls were all painted like cow hide (the white with black spots kind), which is somewhat unique for bathrooms but not surprising, given the theme of the restaurant. However, my bathroom stall--the large handicapped stall (I promise I'm not a jerk. The other stalls were unusable)--had a little something extra. As I was taking care of business, I happened to look over my shoulder. Instead of more cow hide or just plain bathroom tile, I found a nice large poster of a half-naked male model holding a beer. Now, I don't know much about the south, but I feel that there are some unspoken, universal rules about bathroom decor. One of these is that, no matter the restaurant theme, you will not find a half-naked male in a women's bathroom stall. Something about a the presence of a person, even if just in print, in a bathroom stall with me makes me feel uncomfortable. So I started giggling, probably alarming the mother who was waiting outside the stalls for her little girl to finish going to the bathroom. In that moment, I knew I was going to love the South.
When Jason and I were waiting for our plane to board on the return trip, we were joined by a family of four in the Raleigh airport. Both children were girls, one about twelve and the other about five. The first thing the five-year-old said when she sat down in the seats at the gate was, "Is this the plane?" but her little southern accent dragged out the last vowel, making it sound like, "Is this the playeen?" The combination of the seemingly-silly question with that cute accent made both Jason and me laugh. We turned and grinned at each other, trying to hold in our mirth. But she wasn't done yet.
"Are we on the playeen?" she asked again.
"No sweetie," her mom said.
"Why arn't we ohn the playeen? I wanna get ohn the playeen!"
It was adorable and hilarious to us, but probably less so to her parents. Her dad reacted by burying his head in a camera operating manual. Her mother stood in front of her, helping her out of her jacket and trying to explain to the little girl why they hadn't boarded the playeen yet. Her older sister gave us this look, like this was the most mortifying moment of her life, and she couldn't believe that we had been so rude as to witness it, and then picked up a fashion magazine and moved about five seats away from her sister.
All in all, it was a very good trip.
No comments:
Post a Comment