Manifest Destiny at .50 Cents A Mile

Yesterday, while driving into town to pick up the Teenager from a math tutoring session, I could not help but be swept along in the tailwind created by wrinkled old Yankees enacting their annual migration from Florida. As their gas guzzling behemoths raced past me, my poor old wagon shimmied and shook violently so that I immediately went on asshole driver high alert. I have found over the years that the great Northern migration of Winnebago's and Fleetwood's tend to resemble the frenzied exodus of terrified buffalo. The driving becomes erratic and unpredictable, I can only assume that RVs may come with garden tubs and even rooftop patios, but not signaling devices to alert other drivers when they plan to swerve unexpectedly into their lane.

I propose that we enact a new nationwide system to alert the natives of southern states about the annual Yankee invasion in an effort to increase highway safety. Instead of an AMBER Alert system, we could have a BROWN Alert program. Big Roving Old White Northerners. Every fall and spring we could clear I-75 and I-95 for a few weeks and let them just have at it. Shame we didn't have this when that first infamous old Yankee came through. Do you find it ironic that he swerved somewhere around Macon and burned his way to Savannah? March to the Sea indeed. There's a whole ocean just surrounding Florida; but oh no, he didn't continue his fiery rampage into the Sunshine State. Those Yankees knew that one day they would want a warm place to go hibernate in; one with no state taxes and lots of Jewish doctors attending to their myriad health issues.

RVs strike an indignant chord in my cold little heart for many reasons; the main one being the fact that my husband wants one more than anything and this just scares the hell out of me.

I confess. Southern belle that I am, I am married to one of them; a Yankee. He's from one of those M states; Minnesota, Michigan, Montana, whatever. He's also a WASP and you know they have migratory tendencies. I think it's because most of them chose to come to America of their own free will. They wanted life, liberty, the pursuit of happiness, 200+ cable stations, a Starbucks every five hundred yards, NPR, and were willing to go on the worst possible economy cruise lines to get here. WASPS love long, dangerous, and uncomfortable journeys. They feel like they get their money's worth when they travel in misery. Have one of your really white friends tell you about their last vacation if you don't believe me. They go on epic journeys featuring diarrhea, vomiting, or civil unrest as the exciting highlights of their vacation. And take thousands of pictures of their holiday misery so they can lure you to their house to share them, or worse upload them on Flickr or Photobucket.But I'm getting off the subject. Anyway, soon after arriving here they pushed out or killed all the native people that were already here, and then invented bumper stickers to advertise their support of those poor disenfranchised bastards, featuring them prominently on the back of their Volvo station wagons. Once they were firmly entrenched in gated communities, they quickly bred more of their kind. When the offspring had finished their overpriced and useless educations at prominent liberal arts universities, their proud parents were then free to roam the country in gas guzzling modern Conestoga wagons; once again engaging in Manifest Destiny at .50 cents a mile.

The rest of us got here in more traumatic ways. Some of us were kidnapped and chained in dark, filthy ship holds. Some of us ran for our lives from murderous hordes. Some risked shark infested waters and the possibility of drowning when our Jorge-rigged rafts overturned. Some crossed deserts and rivers, managing to avoid volatile and heavily armed Texans (lord those folks love to kill things, if the U.S is ever invaded I'll be Dallas bound). Some married old white guys and got stuck raising their spoiled, bratty offspring. Truthfully though, our old homelands weren't so great or we would have caught the first boats back. Here at least we had clean running water and 24 hour fast food restaurants. By the time my family got here, all the pesky Native Americans were safely ensconced in casinos so I didn't have to worry about my village being burned down anymore, nor would I ever have to list goat herding on my resume. However traveling around aimlessly in an RV just puzzles me. My family got to the land of opportunity in the last one hundred years, so why would I live in a tour bus? I could have stayed in my native land and lived like a poor schmuck there if I wanted that lifestyle. Travel trauma is part of all ethnic America's collective consciousness, we tend not to be as recreationally intrepid as our WASP counterparts. Don't believe me? Go to your nearest RV park and count all the Asians, African-Americans, and Hispanics. Try to remember the last time you saw a spare tire cover mounted on the back of an RV announcing that you were maintaining a cautious distance behind Sol and Ester Rothstein of Long Island, NY.

This is my argument. My ancestors fled their country to settle in one place. A place on a concrete foundation, not rubber wheels. We roamed enough already, the proof is in Exodus. I am genetically programmed to like toilets connected to county maintained sewage facilities and having a Bloomingdale's within a day's drive.

My husband's people are primarily German. Remember the Visigoths? The swarming tribe that headed south to Italy every year for a little Spring Break mayhem? That's his gene pool. He gets restless if he's in one place too long. I don't think he has an urge to rape and pillage anything, but he does like to go to distant flea markets and wander about looking at tools.

Also, he was military for a quarter of a century. Air Force. Red Horse squadron for years; the most forward deployed unit of the USAF. He used to bitch like crazy about leaving home, but you could sense the excitement as he duct taped containers of grooming products and wrote his name on everything in big perma-ink letters. He tried to duct tape and write his last name on me one night, but I just don't roll with the kinky stuff. His urge to RV is just another damn deployment, except this time I'm the only personnel going. We would join a horde of other retired military guys and their long suffering spouses traveling aimlessly around the country to military RV parks so that we could hang with even more retired military families. The guys even have a uniform: starched and pressed jeans with a short sleeved plaid shirt tucked into pants that are tightly belted. Windbreaker. Hat announcing what branch of the service they were in and covered in campaign pins. Tennis shoes. In warm or sub-tropical climates, substitute shorts for jeans and wear socks with sandals (it's always important to keep your feet dry). Wives wear wrinkled clothes and pained expressions, though if they have been on the road a while they probably have succumbed to heavy prescription drug usage and early day drinking.

Worse, my husband is a mechanic. He can fix whatever Wreck of the Hesperus he purchases third or fourth hand. Have I mentioned he's just a little cheap? Every time we pass some tin can for sale, he cranes his neck out the window and squints desperately at the price. Then he circles back for the kill. Parking the car, he'll get out and study the object of his desire for hours until I interrupt his fantasy with a well timed sigh of exasperation. Or several sighs; he can't hear for shit or is ignoring me. I can't really tell anymore. Then we go home and he locks himself in the bathroom for hours, beating off to his latest copy of RV Life magazine. They have centerfolds of the latest "luxury" motor homes complete with airbrushed special features.

We've already been cruised by the RV community too. I used to manage the library in my little town and we have military campground right down the road. Every fall, the RVs would roll in for their winter occupation and the wives would come in for library cards. The library also provided a safe haven from having to spend the day with their husbands as well as clean permanent toilet facilities. I learned everything I needed to know about life on the road from a woman's perspective from these delightful and desperate RV wives. However some of the couples that came in tried to recruit us. My husband and I are young (compared to them), attractive, healthy, and he can fix large vehicles. We were invited to breakfasts and cookouts so that we could meet all the other nice couples in the community. I felt like we were being seduced into some sort of traveling swinger community, everyone was just sort of panting over us. They got my husband easily. We met the nicest older couple and of course they had the ultimate luxury motor home. It had everything but a butler, though I'm sure that was an option. It was the perfect bait for hooking anyone curious about the "lifestyle" but too scared to actually try it. The husband had also been in Red Horse ironically enough, so he and my guy bonded instantly. He looked my husband dead in the eye and said the magic words "Do you want to look under the hood?" I have never seen my normally slow moving spouse get so excited. He spent hours outside discussing engine schematics and brake systems, or whatever it is he talks about with other mechanically inclined people. Laconic by nature, he was so wound up I was worried about him. I finally drug him out of there and had to listen to him wax on about that damn trailer for hours. He finally exhausted himself and passed out in his big leather armchair; where I left him for the evening. I figured it was good practice for his lonely future as a traveling retiree.

Now, don't get me wrong, I'm not totally against RVs. I think they are the perfect conveyance to Georgia games. I can't think of a better way to spend football season than in an expensive sports bar on wheels. My dream season would be to spend every weekend tailgating in an SEC stadium parking lot with lots of other drunk and merry Georgia fans. I had to explain football to my husband, at least SEC football. He played in high school and comes from a Big 12 Conference state, but obviously they don't get as wound up as we do. You should have seen his face when he found out that on Football Saturday he was only going to get lucky if Georgia won. I think he thought I was kidding too. How insensitive to think that I could possibly put out when my team did poorly! Yankees just don't understand tradition. He tried to option a little action if we were up during halftime, but I'm no fool. Final score is how the game works. We live around a golf course that is heavily populated with Georgia fans and my husband has learned why you hear a loud eruption of whoops and yells when Georgia scores; it's the mating call of the horny Georgia fan. It's a quiet night around Francis Lake on the rare occasion we lose, and the Georgia-Florida game is so stressful you have to drink all week just to prepare for it. If we had an RV to go football games in, he could get lucky on Saturday night in different states. Now how exciting is that?

I might even be persuaded to use the motor home for nefarious purposes again, but only if it's parked in the safety of my own driveway. I am perfectly happy to pretend I am somewhere else if it pleases him, as long as it's not an RV park.

Now run along and stay clear of the Northern migration!

Love and Kisses,

Cult Diva