Until recently I had a Bad Stupid Job. The kind of job that sucks up all your time, emotional rescourses, and soul; the kind of job that your parents are embarrassed to admit that they’re embarrassed to tell their friends about. Anyone who gave me credit for having at least half a brain or any of the potential commensurate with the education I have collected wondered what I was doing. In Florida.

So here’s the Florida part. The said Bad Stupid Job dragged me to Florida for three months. From the fifth of January to the twenty-first of March I worked in the sulpherous, watery, thought-forsaken hell that is West Palm Beach. There is so much that this awful place is utterly devoid of it’s hard to believe that there’s anything actually there. A question for the metaphysicians, I suppose. These are the kind of people you like to pretend don’t exist- the kind that when their rich elderly husband dies at a socially inopportune time consider it right and proper to freeze him for a little while so his funeral does not disrupt the Party Season. This little tidbit is now a matter of public record because some socialite moron (presumably from Palm Beach) actually thought it was necessary to write a book about the Palm Beach social scene. You would hope that it was scathing in a tongue in cheek kind of way, but it’s not. And everyone else was just stoned. That may be the only way to deal with a place that has to simultaneously contain Disney World, Miami, Jeb Bush, and Florida drivers. Also, keep in mind that a large percentage of the Florida population has gone there to die. A populace that is either rich, vacationing, stoned, dying, or redneck does not think a lot about the condition of their fellow man; in fact they don’t think- its their job. So, in short, I quit. Godzilla bought a plane ticket. Me and the dog picked him up at the airport. We threw his crap in the back, turned on the Beck, and consulted the atlas while we proceded to Get the Hell Out of Florida. We decided the most sensible way back to the field offices in Virginia would be through New Orleans, Tennessee, and Kentucky. If this isn’t obvious to you, then I can’t help you.

It was absolutely imperative that I not spend one more night in Florida, so we had some driving to do. We headed for Tampa. Now, I have driven across Pennsylvania lengthwise, I have driven across Kansas, I have driven across Texas but I have never been in the grips of such panic and terror as I was driving across the middle of Florida. We went south, we went north, we went east. We passed places I prayed no one lived. Florida would not let me go; I felt like we were on an evil mobious strip travelling on the dark twisted flip side of the seemingly straightforward path on the map. I began screaming and clawing the wheel. Godzilla showed real concern. Finally we rounded Tampa and headed north. Comforted and exhausted, I handed over the wheel at Gainesville. A few driving shifts later, we were in Slidell, LA (just over the bridge from New Orleans).

We dispensed with the standard road trip modis operandi and planned to stay another night in the same place. We bummed around New Orleans all day. The only real mission we had was gloating and loafing. You were at work, we were in New Orleans. A fine plan indeed and one of the few compatible with the four legged idiot party in my back seat. You don’t visit places with a dog in tow. You walk around, enjoy the sun, and loaf. You have to eat outside, and you have to go play in the park. In retrospect, I must say that dogs really know a thing or two about kickin’ back. The next day we went through Mississippi. Can’t say much for it. I was going to comment on the Elvis in the Waffle House but as it turns out that was in Louisiana. We pressed on into Memphis; sometimes I would check my rearview mirror to be certain that Florida was not chasing us.

And then we were in Memphis. The phrase "out of the frying pan and into the fire" for some reason comes to mind. It was a horrific display of the "New South". I thought that we should maybe poke around Beale Street and see what there is to see-it would maybe be all Mystery Train and stuff. Then I read on the map that the downtown district had been ‘revitalized’. There was a Hard Rock Blues House Cafe there now, which means there was also a Gap and probably also a Starbucks. I had already been to a mall that month so we just called it off and loafed in the motel. I don’t know when the rediscovering of urban areas turned into the malling of America, but I’m appalled. Bringing new life to downtown doesn’t mean ripping it out and putting suburbia there. It just doesn’t have to be that way and in some vital, magical cities its not. Yet. But I digress. Where was I? O yeah, Memphis is scary. The next day we drove past Graceland. We did not stop. We had to go.

We drove through Nashville, and here’s what I have to say about that: consider the Applebee’s commercial. If you don’t know which one I’m talking about, you don’t watch nearly enough TV. And I mean that. It’s that one where they’re going on about chicken fried chicken- they say it’s as original as Nashville. That’s about the size of it.

The churches got bigger and bigger. We drove past a Baptist compound. We decided to bail on Tenessee, as soon as possible.

It was about this time that we discovered that gum makes me burp. Outstanding. I don’t know if I’m doing something wrong or if everyone else is. Also, dogs may know about kickin’ back and goofin’ off, but their grasp of roadtrips is sketchy at best. My dog decided that at this point we were probably never getting out of the car again. She went through fits of despair, angst, and ennui unrivaled even by some of the finest material produced by a bored six year old.

We pulled into Kentucky and ran a lap on a trail in Mammoth Cave National Park. There were toad trillium there. It’s a flower. We found a motel and went to bed.

The next day I had to drive. All the way. Turns out I can’t do the Appalachians as a passenger, unless you like whining and barfing. We went home and went to bed, in my apartment, far away from Florida. In my mind this trip re-inforced a few ideas for me: 1. It doesn’t always matter what part of the earth you’re travelling through as long as you’re driving, the music is on, and the weather is signifigantly more pleasant there than anyplace your coworkers or family members may be. 2. Always put the gum in the glove compartment if you intend to leave the dog unattended in the car for any length of time.

While this account may be regarded as highly accurate, I must comment on a few details that were not commented upon.

First I would like to further expound upon the hideousness of the State of Florida. In particular, I would like to take issue with Tampa. I can think of two good things about the Tampa region. First, Tampa Bay is an incredible body of water. What a bay. An ideal harbor upon which to locate a city. Too bad they failed so miserably. Second, there is an outstanding bridge over Tampa Bay. I make it a point to drive over any and every cool bridge even vague along my route (Why? I’m an idiot- don’t ask me.). The Sunshine Skyway doesn’t disappoint. But then you get to Tampa. Yuck. First thing is first, we happened to drive past Tropicana "Field". This is where the Devil Rays try to play baseball. This stadium is an abomination against God. It’s simple: it’s an indoor stadium in Florida. There is no excuse for that. They play baseball outside in Seattle and Houston now. Why can’t they play baseball outside in the Sunshine State. To top it off, they call is a "field". Unacceptable. I noticed on ESPN that they put grass down inside. It looks like crap, to say the least. Tampa, on a whole, sucks. It’s ugly and it’s too close to Orlando for my comfort. There is no reason to be near Orlando unless you have small children. Also, Tampa is jam-packed with Scientologists.

I must also mention the amazing occurrences that we were witness to in Elizabethtown, Kentucky. First, we ate at a phenomenal chinese restaurant. Being the middle of nowhere in Kentucky, we found this to be rather interesting. Second, the Motel 6 that we intended to stay at was full. How is this possible? The light was not left on for us. If I ever bump into Tom Bodet, he’s gonna hear about it. He’ll hear about it with a tire iron. After being turned down at the inn we drove to Lexington, KY to sleep. Lexington, I must say, has the poorest excuse for a beltway I’ve ever encountered. It has traffic lights. Nuts to that. One last point on Kentucky: the Mammoth Cave area is quite the mecca for putt-putt golf (the only kind of golf as far as we are concerned) and go-kart racing.

Don’t the patrons of "Cracker Barrel" and "Po’ Folks" realize that the very names of these establishments are mocking them?

I won’t mention anything about West Virginia because there’s not much worth mentioning.

Upon arriving back at the field offices in Richmond we took it easy for a few days. Finally on Sunday we decided that it was about high time that we got off our asses and got our film developed. We needed one hour developing because we are impatient and I had to return to Evil Robots HeadQuarters (our bunker at secret location in Maryland) the next day. So we headed out to suburban Richmond to hit the Wal-Mart. Suburban Richmond is a special kind of nasty. It’s just a bunch of nothing. It’s more of the same than almost any set of suburbs I’ve encountered. Suburban Richmond is even more appaling when one considers how wondeful urban Richmond is. Can’t take issue with that. Anyhow, we went to Wal-Mart. I forgot how much I hate Wal-Mart. This one was a prize winner too. It was huge. It had a grocery store. It put the big box in "Big Box Retail" (sorry, I just can’t say "big box" without giggling). We redeemed the day by driving back to the field offices via a somewhat circuitous route through the Virginia countryside. It was warm and sunny. The windows were rolled down. Fifty Daffodils were obtained for two bucks. The hand-crafted tape of Bossa Nova ended the second we parked the car. Perfect.

The next morning I got up at 5 AM, got on the Amtrak and went to work.

A note from the Editorial Staff: Princess is one of our new contributors here at Evil Robots. This is the first of what we hope to be many more contributions. We are happy to welcome her to the Evil Robots Family.  Her turn-ons include bacon, driving around aimlessly for days on end, and idiots. Her turn-offs include being unemployed, the alter-alter ego known around Headquarters as "Professor Godzilla", and having to go to work.