Since I had found an apartment and wouldn't be able to move in until September 1st, I figured I would take the opportunity to visit my friends in Tennessee. From Durham, where I was staying temporarily, Springhill (45 miles north of Nashville) was about 8 hours away. So, Thursday morning (August 28th) I loaded up my overnight bag and got into my car to head west (once again). When I got into the driver's side of my car, I noticed the floor was moving (a typical cliche, I know, but a good one none-the-less).....there were little ants all over the floor board of my car in the driver's side, the passenger's side, the "runner" where the door closes...."UHHHGGGGGG". I ran back into the apartment and got some water to at least get them off the door runner and then shook out my floor mats and stomped 'em out as best as possible until I could get to a car wash with a vacuum.
Driving proved to be a difficult task as I constantly felt like something was crawling up my leg...it didn't help that I was wearing a skirt. Thankfully the first car wash I came to was only about a 1 mile down the street....woohoo. I pulled in and..."what?" the hoses were removed from the vacuums. Okay, onward I go.
I got on the freeway (I-40W) and hoped for a promising exit. About 20 minutes later, I found relief from the "creep-crawly syndrome". I pulled into the car wash, unloaded everything from the front seats, took the floor mats out and took off the transition pieces from the runners. (hope that makes sense...I don't know the lingo). The ants were everywhere, they were feasting on granola crumbs and had quite the winter storage. None-the-less Iput the hose on them. I was at that car wash for about an hour if not longer, because they just kept coming back. When it appeared I had sucked up the last one, I started putting everything back and got situated. I sat there, in my car, next to the token machine putting my cd's in their appropriate cases when a lady came up to the token machine, I kind of yelled out to her, "ma'am, I have extra tokens if you want them?". She took me up on it. I had 3 tokens left and she only had $2 ($1=1 token). I told her to just take the last one because I wasn't from around there and wouldn't be able to use it. Regardless, she insisted on paying me for the last token, so went back to her car and scrounged up some nickles and dimes. When she came back to make the exchange she asked me where I was from. This started our conversation and in it I explained I would be living in Wilmington. She went on to assure me that North Carolina is a great place to live. And she would know, she has lived everywhere, "N. Carolina, S. Carolina, Virginia, Texas, Washington" and she just moved back to NC about 2 weeks ago from Memphis, TN. I told her I was on my way to visit some friends north of Nasheville. She said, just don't visit Memphis. She was very passionate about not liking Tennessee, especially Memphis. Apparantly, in the year (or two, can't remember) she lived there she had been robbed eight times and just two weeks prior she was almost abducted. She went on to explain that she was coming out of the grocery store in broad daylight and these two guys grabbed her and dragged her over to their car and started shoving her into the backseat. She was kicking and screaming, but couldn't get away. She said she saw a police car parked across the way and that he saw what was happening but didn't do a thing about it. That was her biggest complaint about Tennessee, there is no protection for you in that state. (her opinion, not mine, I have no opinion on the matter). Anyway, she said a friend of hers happen to drive by and saw what was happening and stopped his truck, got out and yelled at the guys. They stopped and ran off, her and her husband moved 2 weeks later.
And that was the conversation I had at the car wash while vacuuming ants out of my car.
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