All My Stuff is in a 5×10 Storage Unit…

After throwing all my belongings into a 5×10 storage unit…

and sleeping on an air mattress in my empty apartment for a week, I ventured out on the road.

The passengers on the $3.50 Megabus trip entertained me all the way to Philly. I sat in an area of young people on laptops – a technological Benetton ad. One of our more obnoxious brethren elicited this comment from the amazingly vocal old couple behind me, “That one’s wearing sunglasses. But it’s dark in here.” They then started pointing out everything we passed in a sort of conversational-yell…
> That’s a Red Roof Inn.
>> Over there is a Residence Inn.
> That’s nice.

I found myself wishing my friend from the line had made it onto the bus. She was a young Indian girl who found out that the tickets cost $20 on site but $3.50 if you purchased online. She called her father to have him buy her ticket on the new computer her and her brother had just bought him. It was the perfect side of the conversation to overhear.
> No, you have to put your name in. If there is an asterisk next to it, then you have to fill it in. Don’t put your address there. It says NAME! You have to login. You have to login with the username provided to you in the email. It’s in the email. The email!

It was hard not to outwardly enjoy hearing what started as an instructional walk-through so quickly disintegrate into public yelling. I was glad I wasn’t doing this trip by bus (especially since mine was 45 minutes late and I was standing on the sidewalk at noon on a 92 degree day in Manhattan). But I knew I’d miss out on overhearing a lot of great things. I resolved to eat at lots of truck stops and keep my ears open.

The bus pulled up to 30th and Market, I took a train to the airport and a shuttle to the rental car depot. The guy snickered when I asked what kind of car I was getting. “It’s small,” he said. “That’s fine,” I replied. “I don’t need a lot of room – just hoping for good gas mileage. I’ll be doing a lot of driving.” He laughed again while looking at the car’s details on the screen. When I walked to spot 613, I quickly knew why. It was ugly. The color could be described as Underwhelming-Bordering-On-Unpleasant. It wasn’t quite mustard, it wasn’t bronze… it wasn’t a color. Knowing I’d have to describe it in print made me confused and a little sick. She was even prettier on the inside. Stains on the seats, no power locks or windows, no cruise control. I wondered how long it would be until I cursed this hideous monster – or if I would grow to love her, like your friend’s shelter dog whose not quite right and hears things that aren’t there and runs into walls.

The driving begins…