Soap Opera Sunday: What to Eat After Hitchhiking from Kalamazoo to Ann Arbor

Thanks to a brilliant collaboration between Brillig and Kate of Kateastrophe, Brillig's wildly successful Soap Opera Sunday series has now gone global, poising itself to take over the blogiverse.

Basically, they're looking for personal, true stories with a bit (maybe more than a bit) of melodrama or scandal attached to them. You let them know you have a post, link to them in your post, and they link to you! There's even rumor of a button coming. For more details, and possibly more accurate information, check the links in the previous paragraph.

Easy, fun, and I bet there are some entertaining stories that come out of all of this. I'm not sure if this is quite what they had in mind, but here's my contribution this week.

What to Eat After Hitchhiking from Kalamazoo to Ann Arbor

We left Kalamazoo that grey autumn morning
Me, to escape an unwelcome suitor,
the guy who insisted on visiting the one weekend
my roommate was out of town.
You, for reasons I've never understood.

Getting there was the easy part,
One ride in a low-slung silver corvette, a blue haze hanging in the air,
Eno looping endlessly from the stereo
90 miles without conversation or complication.

Then, Ann Arbor, all sunlight and autumn color,
law school and public policy institutes
a school of journalism
and a library of endless stacks
stirred yearnings for a larger life.
We were low on cash; our lunch was hot tea
and the free sesame seeds from the shaker
at the vegetarian restaurant.
The waitress frowned.

Later that day, on the return,
A rusting Buick, indeterminate color, dented fender,
back seat littered with empty bags of potato chips, crumpled
packs of Kents
Newlyweds, they said; her third marriage, his second.
They talked a lot
Laughed loudly, and more frequently as the miles sped by.

Around Battle Creek, their playful punches grew more robust,
the steering less precise, crossing the lane divide,
veering suddenly onto the shoulder.
Here's our exit, we lied,
and they dropped us off--just like that.

We walked three miles toward the setting sun
wondered what it would be like to walk the remaining ten miles
in the darkening light and cooling air
An old hippie driving a matte black jalopy, black leather seats,
hand-painted black dash offered us a ride into town.
He could have been an ax murderer
Or worse
But not this time.

So we returned to Kalamazoo
A bouquet of dead flowers--plucked from the neighbor's yard--
and an angry, scornful letter at my door
provoked a moment's remorse,
Don't be silly, you said, he deserved it.
Then you went into the kitchen and toasted slices of fine-grained
whole wheat bread layered with thin slices of tart apples,
salty cashews and grated munster cheese.
I lit candles. Poured cider.

Life may be about the journey, not the destination,
but it sure was nice to be home.