I won't bore you with the philosophical ramblings of such a decision but I will say that being single, with a steadily rising (and already absurdly high) rent, while charging head long at the precipice of 30 made the decision somewhat easier than it would have otherwise been. So, as these stories typically go, I soldiered through my last day as a working man on December 2, and then spent the subsequent two weeks fattening the coffers of my favorite NY watering holes and preparing to move my shabby belongings back to the distant land which bore me: North Carolina.
As is often the case when I attempt to accomplish something outside of holding down a bar stool, the moving process was interrupted by a series of unfortunate, albeit humorous, tribulations. The first of such incidents occurred mere moments after loading the final item into the moving van when I accidentally smashed the truck into the tail lights of a parked cop car after driving no more than 150 feet. Needless to say, the officer did not find the situation as humorous as we did, but thankfully I was saved the issuance of a ticket (likely in large part because the officer was parked illegally in a towing zone facing backwards on a one way street). Below is an (handmade!) illustration:
The most amusing part of the incident was that after we hit the car, the officer responding to the incident made us drive around the block and park exactly in front of the cop car, meaning that after they had completed the incident report, I was forced to execute the same turn past the cop car that resulted in the accident in the first place. I should also note that it was tempting to, while parked directly in front of the obstructive cop car, put my 2 ton van in drive and floor the gas right into the hood of the car and keep it down until I had rammed the car well past the intersection. Then of course, using my turn signal and checking both ways, continue to make the right turn in an orderly fashion.
The second incident came while idling at one of the 7,000 toll booths in New Jersey. I was attempting to manually wind down the window of our 1970's era moving van when the handle (window-winderer?) got stuck and I jammed my thumb into it hearing a loud pop- effectively re-braking my thumb. (I should note here that the thumb was likely already broken from a prior incident occurring during one of my evenings lining the pockets of NY barkeeps.) Being the 21st century handyman that I am, I resolved the problem by wrapping the offending thumb in several sturdy layers of packing tape and continuing on my way.
Apart from these mishaps, the remainder of the journey went relatively smoothly until of course we unloaded the truck and my father walked into his living room to find a mountain of boxes and assorted other junk cluttering his usually immaculately clean and orderly living room. After taking some time to unpack and decompress, it still had not sunk in that I had moved back to North Carolina until several days later when I drove to the doctor to pay $40 for him to tell me what I already knew about my thumb. When I got into the car, the first song on the local radio station was Alan Jackson's "Chattahoochee." It seemed I had officially arrived in North Carolina.
[A quick aside: am I the only one who thinks the lyric "it gets hotter than a hoochie-coochie" seems a bit... risqué for a pop country song? I don't know what Alan Jackson has in mind, but when I hear that term I think... well, you know what I think.]
The past several days I've spent the majority of the time christmasing and holidaying (largely drinking with relatives and opening trinkets). Starting next week when the aforementioned crippled thumb is cleared for contact, I can start working this sad excuse for a body back into some semblance of shape. Official departure date is April 4. I'll delve more into the plan in the next entry but right now I've got a date with Alan Jackson on loop in my Grooveshark playlist.
