Just What I Needed

ROAD. TRIP.

It's convenient living in Texas. There is no shortage of roads. Long, long roads.

There are things you forget about growing up. Simple things. Like the fact that a car and a driver's license equal freedom. Coincidentally, I got my official driver's license in the mail yesterday and today everyone else was headed to Houston, so I had the day to myself. I could do anything, go anywhere, with no explanations, no estimations of when I'd be back.

I started out headed to Sam's Club to get dishwasher detergent and paper towels and then got side tracked away from that access road to go to Kohl's to get new mascara but then decided to get on 290 instead to go to the big nursery on Congress and then Interstate 35 caught my eye. I'm a sucker for a good interstate.

I've been meaning to drive to San Marcos. There's the hugest (seriously, Texas huge) outlet center there with Restoration Hardware, Pottery Barn and Crate & Barrel outlets that I've been planning to scope out for my new house. So, off I went.

Somehow, in the 6 months since I drove down here, I had forgotten that the speed limit on TX highways is 70mph. Most people drive 80mph or more. The road traveled through small pieces of civilization like Buda and Kyle where Home Depot and Cabela's dominated the land speckled with new housing developments. In between stretched open land and cattle grazing, but only for a few miles at a time. It was suburban sprawl at its best. You were never more than 5 miles away from a Whataburger and there were dozens of billboards to remind you of that fact.

I wandered through the Prime Outlets (never actually set foot in the Tangiers mall) in the 95 degree heat. Crate & Barrel is re-opening in a few days and Pottery Barn Outlet is enormous, actually including not only Pottery Barn, but PB Kids, PB Teen, William Sonoma, Hold Everything, and West Elm. Overwhelming would be an understatement. I spent exactly $1.25, on a cold bottle of water. That was it, although I did consider some shortalls and summer pajamas for my nephew.

When I returned back in town, I stopped by my house to check out the current state. They had emailed me a few days ago to let me know that someone had stolen some of the wiring ~ basically all the electrical wire for the kitchen, garage and laundry room, tearing out the insulation where they needed to in order to get to the copper wiring. Nice, huh? It's not like the house hasn't been completely wired for over a month without the insulation in the way and they could have been a lot less destructive. The wiring has been replaced already, but I'm not sure how long this has put the building process back. Drywall was supposed to have gone up last week and now they still need to replace the insulation in the garage where it was torn out.

My mother has taken on the why-does-this-always-happen-to-you attitude. I'm guessing getting fired and having your wiring stolen in one week falls into the category of exceptionally bad luck. I have no idea.

I only know that sitting behind the wheel of my car with Blankest Year blaring on my stereo as I flew down I35, everything felt just fine.

Turn up the volume...