This photo pisses me off so damn
much. You have no conceivable idea how utterly misleading it really
is. You know what though? You will because by God I'm going to
tell you. First of all, this was taken right outside the Carter
Caves area in the God-forsaken area of our country that is the
northeastern section of Kentucky. Secondly, the reason I was in this
area to begin with is because my friend Sean and I were taking a road trip
to Point Pleasant, WV for the Mothman Festival (and it would take me a
book to tell you about everything we saw there). That sets the scene
enough.
It was about two in the afternoon and
Sean and I were hungry as hell. That entire landscape seems devoid
of any and all restaurants. When we saw this sign, we were actually
going in the opposite direction (east). We drove on for a couple of
miles before realizing that the Subway was probably the only place to eat
in the vicinity. So I turned around and headed back. During
the drive, Sean and I were talking and recalling some of the funnier
moments from our night at Johnny El's dorm room in Morehead, Ky. "We
thought the couch was on fire," "Okay, the solution is we need
to start peeing out the window," "It's just cloves man!"
and "Guess who I am? I'm Youuuu!" are a few
catch phrases that will never get old.
After a while, I began to notice that
we'd been driving on this little country highway for sometime. I
glanced at the odometer and we'd traveled almost twenty miles and not
realized it. So, I turned around and we headed back, assuming that
we'd been so engaged in conversation that we'd missed the sign for the
Subway. We kept a sharp lookout and drove all the way back to the
sign pictured above again. That's when we began to get
confused. So I looked at the odometer and headed in the right
direction again. When we hit exactly six miles, there was
nothing. We went on for a few miles more in case the sign wasn't
exact. Still nothing.
We returned to the sign for a third
time to see if there were any sort of instructions we had missed. We
shook out heads because we were doing what the sign told us to do to the
letter. We drove six miles again and still nothing. The only thing
around the area was a gas station. So I parked and went in. I
asked the clerk where the Subway was. Her reply: "Oh, it's
about six miles from here." Slightly peeved and slightly exhausted,
I told her that I'd driven all up and down the road and hadn't seen
one. She pointed out a road about half a mile away. Ah, so
that's what the sign meant. The road to the Subway was six
miles away, not the Subway itself. The Subway just happened to be
six miles down that road too. Bloody thing was a geographical
oddity; it was six miles from everywhere.
Finally we got to the blasted Subway
after traveling almost seventy-five miles to get there. This is why
I hate small towns and country roads (despite the fact that I live in a
small town on a country road). The place was touted as the
"World's Largest Subway" as well. Yes, they did have a lot
of seating, two mounted televisions and seven types of cheese, but
something tells me that somewhere on this great, big globe of ours that
there's a bigger Subway.
Their bathroom did possess the
"World's Most Clogged Toilet," I'll give them that. It was
one of those newer fixtures that gets jammed up after a good piss and not
one of those pre-1970 cans that can withstand an atomic blast or a Dom
DeLuise-sized intestinal blowout. But, despite my finicky nature
towards public toilets, I still had to go so I contributed to the problem
without lending aid to the solution (like an average American). I
believe Sean did too. That last part of this tale represents a minor
problem for me: I feel no shame about sharing bowel movement-related
anecdotes with others when I really should.
After we ate, we still had time to hit
Carter Caves before continuing on to Point Pleasant. Before I
departed, I asked a girl behind the counter if she knew how far the caves
were from the restaurant. Her reply: "I don't know. I
think it's about six miles." Oh, ho ho. Laughs were
shared by all. What a remarkably sitcom-esque ending. I'm
never going there again.
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