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This last weekend my friend and I were unfortunate enough to find ourselves in Pennsylvania for a brief period, while in the midst of an unexpected road trip. I've always hated the country, with its vast open expanses of nothing but flat land and animal poop as far as the eye can see. But most of all I hate those little Podunk hillbilly redneck towns that litter the vast open expanse like cancerous sores.
"Hooooooooo
Weeeeee! Ya'll look like city folk!
Come on in and I'll have Susie-May fix you up a nice
big hot bowl of grits and chitlins!"
While driving through the boring nothingness that is most of Pennsylvania, we grew hungry, and decided to stop for dinner at a place called Amaranth. It sounded interesting enough, being named after an imaginary flower that never fades. And we were fucking hungry, so we could also just leave it at that.
Anyway, we pull off the highway and follow a windy country road up to the top of a mountain (never a good sign when looking for something along the lines of a quick fast food eatery) until we finally reached the "village" of Amaranth. The so-called village proper consists of two houses and a church. That is all. One of the houses even had a large "No Trespassing" sign posted on the front door! I would have hoped it'd be fairly obvious that it's typically considered a bit of a social faux pas to just barge into someone's home (unless burgling happens to be one's intention), but apparently the slack-jawed local yokels need a good reminder ever now and again. "Well, butter my butt and call me a biscuit! This ain't my house after all! Hyuck!"
Deciding we'd best be moving along before having an inevitable encounter with redneck cannibals mutated by inbreeding and a tainted water supply, we sped down the mountain and were back on our way. As we got back on the Interstate we passed a sign that said "Motorized Vehicles Only", a warning to all Amish out there that their horses and buggies may have a hell of a time not getting smeared all over the road if they had a hope to travel with real traffic.
Next stop: Hagerstown! And hey, there are blue signs on the side of the road that list restaurants! We're saved! Or so we thought...we pulled off the highway and immediately headed to a local sub shop just off the main road. The girl behind the counter stared at us like you might expect a retarded lobotomized orangutan to gaze through its cage bars at the zoo. They only had twenty minutes before closing time. I knew there'd be no way she could put together ONE sub in twenty minutes let alone two. We pressed on...
So we kept going until we saw a Wendy's sign in the distance. Finally, something familiar, something we could count on! We decided to go for it. We went in and it was almost empty, save for the usual ex-convicts and post-op brain donors you'd expect to find behind the counter. As we ordered our food, a leviathan of incredibly preponderant obesity lumbered in to stand behind us, drool glistening upon his triple chins. He gazed upon the menu with a twinkle in his eye, as if he just arrived at Mecca after a long and hard-fought pilgrimage.
As we moved to the tables with our food in hand, I heard him bellow across the counter "Say, what are 'Chili, Chips & Cheese'?" He listened intently to the counter lackey's reply, learning that it was in fact chili, chips and, of all things, cheese. Suddenly a few other locals wandered in and they hailed the fat man as if they knew him. It turned out they did know him, because this town was just that small. After they all ordered and went to sit and dine together, another group of people came in, all dressed up, like some church group perhaps, and made a beeline to the bathroom. All of them together. My friend noted that there was only one stall in said bathroom, having made a trip there prior. As they returned from their bathroom "adventure" I joked to my friend that they probably knew the fat man and his entourage as well. It turns out THEY DID. They fucking did!!!
They all, each and every one of them knew each other, because we were in a redneckish nightmare from hell! They stared at us like we were the devil, with fear and loathing in their eyes, for we were indeed strangers in an even stranger land. I hate Podunk towns.
note: Protoclown actually lives in Hazard County, where he spends his time hanging out with trouble-makers Bo and Luke Duke and dodging the justice of Roscoe P. Coaltrain.
note
#2: If you want to see actual redneck cannibalism, you
can rent "Redneck Zombies". (Just don't buy it! Save
yourself from making that mistake that -RoG- made)
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