For many of us, August means back-to-school: an exciting time when you get to discover exactly how much matter you can condense into a compact car without setting off the airbags. As you prepare to make the yearly trip back to campus, you should begin to steel yourself mentally for the inherents hazards of navigating Boofoo America. These include:
Coptown: Population – However Many Cops Live There
If you’re thinking about taking the “shortcut” back to campus because it saves you 10 miles, remember that the speed limit is frequently 20 miles per hour through all the little towns it goes through, and 0 miles per hour if it’s the end of the month or you are a minority. On the bright side, you can take solace in knowing that your tickets will help pay for various community improvements, like better radar guns.
47 State Champion Football Teams
Small towns love to boast about their legendary high school football teams, which become legendary by playing in the same division as consolidated rural high schools with 33 students. You will often see signs designating a town as “Home of the 2002 IHSA State Champion Womprats (Class 63F),” of which three players eventually went on to purchase NFL Sunday Ticket.
Flying J
I used to think Flying J was just a Missouri thing. After several trips across different regions of the country, I have learned that all truck drivers must submit to the Way of the J, lest they run out of gas, dehydrate or starve. All this despite a nonsensical name that sounds like airborne drug paraphernalia or some sort of complex autoerotic maneuver.
The Phantom Gas Station
Fifty years ago, when cars were the size of nuclear submarines and teenagers’ greatest fear was being caught without a pack of cigarettes rolled up into their shirtsleeves, this place was doing great business. Now, you’ll sit there until you realize that there’s no place to swipe your credit card and, worse, it’s not attached to a Subway.
Adult Video Stores
Somewhere in middle America, there are people who haven’t heard about technological advances that can deliver modern porn to your home via the Internet. Or maybe they really enjoy conversing with the clerk about the lighting quality in Ass Camp 6: Electric Badonkadonk. In any case, these stores will stand as lightning rods for aging perverts and 18-year old rural misfits long after Blockbuster collapses.
Cracker Barrel
No matter how many accredited bioengineering hours you’re picking up this semester, Cracker Barrel’s golf-tee game will always be there to remind you you’re actually an ignoramus. Too bad you can’t use those tees to scrape out your arteries after tearing through a chicken-fried steak and buying a giant bag of wax soda candies for the road.
