The End of America

The fall of the American empire is at hand and it is has started in Catoosa, Oklahoma. One might ask; how can anyone from Kansas (not that I’m technically “from” Kansas anyway) make fun of any other place in the continental U.S? Well, dear reader, I’m about to explain that to you. Be patient, a-hole(s)! At first glance, Catoosa is merely a suburb of the booming metropolis of Tulsa. As for why Tulsa has this reputation of some king of undercover cool town, I have yet to figure out. For now, we’ll save Tulsa for another day. Back to the task at hand, the fall of the American empire and Catoosa, Oklahoma; last night I booked a room at a new hotel off of highway 44. Not wanting to stay in the casino, the Holiday Inn Express was my only option in town as far as I could tell and is actually quite nice.

After checking in, I worked for a while in my room (they even have the Internets in Catoosa!) and then felt the need to go out and check out the town, or at least find something to eat. I headed east, past the Wendy’s, Waffle House, Burger King, and someone’s ‘home cooked all you can eat’ buffet in search of something with a little bit of local flavor and hopefully not a franchise operation. East was the wrong way to go. After the Waffle House, there was nothing for 8 miles so I turned around and tried a couple of side streets that I had seen to no avail. I passed back through the two stop lights at the highway exit/town and passed my hotel headed west. As I descended into trailer park hell, I quickly realized that this was not the right direction. Quite hungry at this point, I noticed a lot of traffic at a small strip mall about 500 yards from the hotel. There was a grocery store, Subway, pharmacy, Video Rental Store (they still exist?), Check Cashing place (of course), and some Italian restaurant called Mazzio’s which I have come to find out is a chain as well, but the others are much cleaner and nicer than this establishment.

Reluctantly, I entered the restaurant thinking that it couldn’t be that bad because seemingly 75% of the town was dining there. I walked in and there were two types of people; the morbidly obese and the horrifyingly thin. I didn’t notice race, I didn’t notice sex, I only noticed girth or the lack thereof. That’s a lie, I also noticed an appalling lack of hygiene; both personal and facility wide. A dentist might have also found some work at Mazzio’s this fine evening. I walked to the counter to place my order and stood, un-helped for no less than 7 minutes while all 6 employees scurrying around behind the counter like roaches (real roaches have too much pride to be found in a place like this) did there best to ignore me when they were not yelling at each other. Finally, one brave soul asked if I’d been helped. I assured her I had not and tried to order. She informed me that she did not know how to take an order, but would find someone who could. I gave her high marks more effort and initiative. She must be on the fast track to management status. After finally ordering, I attempted to find a fairly clean place to sit and wait for my food to be prepared. I grabbed a copy of the USA Today sports page and strove to block out everything around me while I digested the baseball stats. Fat chance. The three children playing tag within the restaurant kept banging into my table and their piercing screams were enough to raise my blood pressure 40 points. Of course my 10 minute wait conveniently turned into a 25 minute wait. At some point during those 25 minutes I witnessed a seminal point in American history, the unveiling of the chocolate chip pizza. I knew something was up when the din subsided and was replaced by an anxious murmuring. Sure enough, one of the cooks shouted “Chocolate Chip is up” which was followed by a mad dash to the buffet line. I was left to stare open-mouthed at the chaos and wonder just what the fuck was up with our country.