We've been on a road trip this week for a couple of family reunions. The first with my dad's family in Maryland and the second with my mom's family in Richmond, Virginia. We were on our way home through West Virginia and had to stop at a McDonald's for lunch before the kids melted down any further.
We stopped along I-64, deep in the heart of Deliverance. As we walked in I heard the music stop and the needle scratch across the record as everyone looked up to see the unusual family of two white parents and three Chinese children, enter the restaurant. I looked around trying not to make eye contact, but it was hard when every single eye in the dining area was on us. The group of white do-rag wearing bikers, the white family of four and the white family of five with chain-smoking granny in tow, all stared at us...with fervor.
Steve immediately got defensive and mumbled, so only I could hear, "What're you lookin' at?" I immediately took the more mature route and thought, I'm gonna blog about these red-neck-hillbilly-backwards-racist inbreeds.
I expected staring in China, maybe because I understood that it was a cultural difference and that's just what they do. But in the U.S., we are taught from a young age that it's rude to stare. You might do it, but you try not to get caught. I might see someone who is disabled in a way I've never seen before. I will catch my own curiosity wanting to stare, wanting to know more, but I will fight it off with a baseball bat in order to not leave the person in discomfort. I catch people staring at us all the time, but they always look away. Obviously not the case in China and apparently not the case in Deliverance, West Virginia either.
Now I have nothing against West Virginia. I mean, it's almost heaven...It's West Virginia...Blue Ridge mountains, Shenandoah River. It's one of the most beautiful states in the country. My mom was a Mountain Mama. She was raised in a holler (or at least next to one) and I have many fond memories visiting my grandparents and other relatives in West Virginia as a child.
So I was a little saddened when the dining area stared and stared with nary a smile, even when I decided to make blatant eye contact. I wanted to scream, "Didn't you catch my stop staring signal! Let me help you out! When I stare back at you, you turn your stinking head in embarrassment because you got caught! That's how we do it! Capeesh?" But I didn't.
We sat down at a table. I left to order and wait in line for 20 of the longest being-stared-at-minutes of my life while Steve waited with the kids who all got stared at too. While I waited I noticed a black man ordered through the drive-thru and the other two African-Americans I saw in the parking lot, never entered the restaurant. I almost shouted hallelujah when an Indian man walked in. Maybe they'll stare at him. Probably not, he's too normal.
Upon my return, Steve told me that Josiah had poured pepper all over the table, but not to worry because Josiah had also cleaned it up by rubbing his hand in it and licking it off. We were both getting more and more irritable the longer we sat. At one point, I opened Autumn's apple slices for her and she dumped them all over the nasty ketchup-smeared table. We sat and stared at them. Then Steve put his hand on them and smashed them into the table and rubbed them around while saying, let's get 'em really dirty and then eat 'em. I got mad at his minor outburst, so I scraped the then really dirty, inedible apple slices off the table and hauled them away to the trash can. Then I went to stand in the 20 minute long line to get her another bag of apples and mostly to show Steve what his spurt of frustration was going to cost us - time waiting in line while I get more stinking apples!
After about 30 seconds I got annoyed with the line and remembered that I hated the place and the people in it and wanted to leave and it wasn't worth it to teach Steve a lesson. So with slumped shoulders I walked back to the table and gathered our stuff to go.
As we walked out, I noticed a billboard touting a local sheriff running for re-election. The billboard had the man's picture on it and a rifle next to it, which apparently shot out a list of all the reasons you should vote for him.
Then a man pulled up in the parking lot with a truckload of cows.
I looked around wondering where the banjo-playing albino was because I'm sure I heard the sound of banjos dueling somewhere off in the distance.
Oh I so needed the Kate entertainment today!!! The laugh just felt good!!!!
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