Redneck Pictures

Here's a post that I meant to do quite a while ago. My mom sent me one of those "you might be a redneck if" e-mails, littered with pictures that could all have been taken here in St. Mary's county. In any case, I uploaded the pictures and promptly forgot about it. Then, the same e-mail made the rounds at work, and I was like "Oh yeah." I now present to you what I feel were the three funniest pictures: Okay. Okay. That is just too funny- a graham cracker gingerbread house of a trailer- and look at the selection of cars! A monster truck, an old muscle car and a firebird on blocks in the front lawn! Not only that, but it looks like one window is covered with a tarp. The attention to detail is astounding. I swear, this could have been based on any of approximately 5 to 6 houses that I used to pass on my way to work when I lived off of Great Mills road. Next!

The guy is wearing a shirt that says "If I throw a stick will you leave?" in his engagement picture. In the paper. That's even better than my previous favorite from the Elkhart Truth that I mentioned before. And I saved the best for last- I won't even add any of my own commentary.

Meet the Prakasams Part 2

Who wants to hear about my trip from three weeks ago? Okay, good!I guess there's a little left to tell. Saturday we took a day cruise to the Bahamas. Since the boat left at 7:00 am, we had to be there at 5:30, which means we again had to get up at 4:00. Anyway, when I was in high school the marching band took a trip to Miami to march in the Orange Bowl parade, and at some point during that week we took a very similar boat to the Bahamas for a few days. Though in that case we took the boat there one day, spent another full day on the island, then took the boat back in the evening on the third day. It never ocurred to me to go there, spend 4 hours in Freeport, then turn around and come right back all in the same day. I figured, "Wow, 4 hours isn't nearly enough time in the Bahamas." But truth be told, since we weren't going scuba diving or parasailing or spending the day on the beach, it was like "Okay...we need to kill 45 more minutes until the boat leaves."

But of course the boat itself is an experience. You can chill on the deck, watch odd shows in the lounge, play bingo in any of the available locations, or take part in one of the several activites they stage throughout the trip. While most of the patrons opted to drink on the deck, then drink in the bar in preparation for drinking on the island, the Prakasam family joined the trivia contest in the lounge. They asked questions like "Name a marsupial other than the kangaroo" and "Name 3 of the Bahama islands other than Grand Bahama." There were twelve questions, and they said if you got eight correct you got a t-shirt or something, and if you got all twelve you got the grand prize. Well, Ramya and I finished with 10 (including the extra credit question- "Name all nine planets of our solar system") so we were like "Free t-shirt here we come!" But the lady was like, "Oh, sorry. That's for people who get eight correct." I say "So, not eight or more, but exactly eight?" She says "Yes." Ramya's like ".....Really?" Anyway, we walked away shirtless. You know what I mean.

We spent most of the way over hanging out in lounge chairs on the deck, but we did head inside for a while when it got too cold. That's right, it was a chilly day out on the open sea. I wore shorts and a t-shirt (to continue the trend of being improperly dressed) but brought a hoodie- but it wasn't enough. So we go inside the ship, and guess what- it's even colder. They had the air conditioning cranked! I understand that this is an epidemic on cruise ships.

Once we arrived at Port Lucaya we disembarked and found a taxi to get to Freeport. They're all vans that take like 10 people, and ours was operated by "Uncle Willy." The other travelers included two extremely white-trash southern women who were traveling with the Hispanic Tony and his mom. Tony was one of those dudes that had a comcorder and videotaped everything. I mean, he recorded the entire drive from the port to downtown (about a 20 minutes), and later the entire drive back, presumably out of fear that he missed something amazing on the way there. These people kill me- is there going to be some day in five years when he has a bunch of friends over and says "Hey everyone! Who wants to watch the video of a 20-minute drive from Port Lucaya to Freeport?" Then someone asks "Are there dilapidated yet pastel-colored houses?" Tony will answer "There and back!" I guess it's more entertaining than those videos of the airport people are always shooting.

Speaking of which, times are rough in the Bahamas. While there is still a nice casino (we went in to use the bathroom and get our free Bahama-mamas) and the beach is beautiful, the place on the whole seems to have fallen on hard times. We talked with one of the shop workers, and she said that it's been tough ever since there was a particularly bad hurricane a few years ago. The island still hasn't completely recovered, and I guess US toursim is down in general. Since tourists are the major source of income for the islands, that leaves them with only offshore bankng to essentially support the country. In high school I rememeber there being just rows and rows of craft stands (all offering the same shirts and trinkets, but hey) to peruse, and this time they were down to about 5 or 6. It was nice to see that their sales tactics haven't changed- if you ask them how much something is, they always answer with "I buy it for 10 dollars, but I sell to you for 8." No wonder the economy is hurting!

So we kicked around the island, looked at the arts and crafts, walked in the ocean, then headed back to the ship. Shortly after sundown it was way too cold to be sitting out on the deck, so we headed in to one of the lounges for karaoke. Ramya and I went up second and did Bon Jovi's Livin' on a Prayer, which is always a sure bet to get the crowd rockin'. But we didn't have the sheer showmanship presented by some of the other participants- most noticably one woman that I really wish I had snuck a picture of, because she totally looked like a klingon. I'm not saying that because I'm some Star Trek nerd, but the lady was dark skinned, had huge eyebrows and a gigantic forehead complete with receded hairline. Seriously folks, she looked like this but without the bumps on her forehead. Or the crazy outfit. However, the most awkward performance of the night was a lady who was dressed in clothes much too young for her that dedicated a song to her daughter for her 16th birthday. The song? Mariah Carey's Dream Lover. Complete with overly sexual dancing. It was uncomfortable for everyone in the room, but it was fun to watch the daughter squirm and look like she wanted to die. Then we played cards in the lounge during the uncomfortably stereotype-laden "comedy" show, and got home way late at night.

Sunday was fun because we slept in, then went for a run around her family's beautiful neighborhood. The only real event was when we went to Royal India, which apparently is the Indian restaurant that all the white people like the best. You know what? It was all good. Even the curry chicken, which surprised me because the word "curry" has long been associated with "intestinal distress" in my mind. Still, my favorite thing there was Naan, which is this delicious Indian flatbread (not surprising, since I pretty much live off carbs). Apparently this is a stable of their quisine- in fact, when we were back in DC we were talking to Ramya's roommate Padmini about her upcoming wedding, Padmini asked what (Indian) food she should have at the reception. I was like "Oh! You should have naan!" This made them laugh, because apparently meals aren't served without it. Padmini very patiently said "Yes. There will be naan."

The most memorable part of Sunday for me was that I found an English to Tamil (the language Ramya's family speaks) phrasebook in my room. So, before I went down I looked up how to say a few things like"good morning," "please" and "thank you" (and more importantly "no thank you-" Amudha will keep putting food on your plate until it's all gone) and worked them in at breakfast. Holy God were they impressed- Vidya was like "Whoa! He's speaking Tamil!" and her parents looked at each other and smiled. I'm telling you people, they ate it up. That was easily the highest payoff to effort ratio of anything I've ever done in a relationship. Later that day we watched the Tamil station on TV, and there was an Entertainment Tonight-type show about the 10 most popular current movies. Eight of them were Tamil films, but Rambo and The Golden Compass squeaked in there (dubbed, of course). During one fight scene Vidya walked in and said "Are you practicing your Tamil?" I was like "Well, I can tell you that no one's saying 'please' or 'thank you.'"

So the rest of Sunday we lazied around, and then Monday it was once again time to get up at 4:00 am for our flight home. All in all, great trip. I got along with Ramya's family, I think I passed the test, and I really enjoyed spending time with them. Good all around!

3 Thoughts from Saturday

I know, I still have part 2 of "Meet the Prakasams" to finish, but I was in LA all week and then I had a really busy weekend. In lieu of that, here are some things worth mentioning from the weekend:

I keep seeing this commercial for the Diners Club Card. The slogan is: "The world is open. This is the key." Does that make sense to anyone? If it's open, why do you need a key? Did anyone run that by the department of common sense beforehand, or did it go straight from some VP to the air?

Ramya and I were all over the DC/Arlington/Alexandira area Saturday, so of course we ran into some traffic. It was one of those construction spots were you abruptly lose a lane with little warning, so we were kind of stuck. Ramya was signaling and trying to merge, but this being DC, that only made people speed up to cut us off. Eventually she took the best opening she could and got over. We totally cut off this lady in a big old red SUV, but what are you going to do, right? So we crawl along through the construction and eventually it opens back up into two lanes and traffic is flowing smoothly. All the sudden, there's a big blast of car horn next to us. We look over, and it's the SUV lady we cut off, laying on the horn, looking us in the eye and screaming her head off. Eventually, she speeds away. Here's what I like about this:
1. Yes, we cut her off. We needed to get over, and she was one of 50 or so people being a jerk and not letting us. Sue us.
2. It's not like any lives were ever in danger. We were crawling along in the 5-10 mph range when it all went down.
3. Our windows were up, her windows were up. Were we supposed to understand what she was saying? I can't read lips or anything, but she sure looked pissed. And my favorite part:
4. The honking/yelling confrontation happened about 5 minutes after we jumped in front of her. So really lady, you were crawling along in bumper-to-bumper traffic, someone did something to make you one car further back in line, and that made you mad enough that you still wanted to retalliate a full 5 minutes later? I mean, you idled along thinking about it for 5 minutes, and decided that yes, this is what I need to do? And after a full 5 minutes of contemplation, yelling at us with your windows up was the best you could come up with? Give me a break.

And finally, we went to the grocery store to pick up some stuff. I went to grab something off of a shelf next to a lady who was pushing one of those carts with the little car in front that you put your kid in. So to visualize, we were in a line- the lady getting something off the shelf, the cart, then me, standing about 6 inches from the front of the cart. Out of the corner of my eye I see the cart lurch forward, right at me. Thanks to my cat-like speed and reflexes I was able to awkwardly jump out of the way with minimal cart contact. As soon as I was clear I looked up at the lady, fully expecting to see her pushing the cart in one direction while looking in another (one of my biggest pet peeves- I could write a book about people not looking where they're walking, and chapter one would be called "the Airport"). In any case, nope. She was looking right at me, with no expression whatsoever. So, it's not that she didn't see me standing directly off of her stern, it's just that she figured instead of a) turning her cart and going around me or b) saying "excuse me" so I would move, her best option was to c) without word or warning accelerate her cart up to ramming speed and assume I would leap out of the way. It's not like I walked in front of her while she was moving- she was stopped, turned around and looking through things on a shelf when I walked up to look at said shelf. What ever happened to common courtesy?

That's it for now. I hope everyone had a great weekend!