Mr. Sheppard Goes to Atlanta - Part I: The Snowpocalypse

Last night I sat in bed fixated on the wintery mix falling profusely outside the window of my cozy one-bedroom in Post Renaissance apartment complex in downtown Atlanta.  The glow of the lamppost peeking through the snow-covered trees, reminiscent of C.S. Lewis’s Chronicles of Narnia, and Sherlock Holmes on HBO in the background quite nearly made me forget that I am sharing the cozy one-bedroom with two other people.  In fact, I do not even live in the bedroom, rather Jacob and I share the living room, equipped with a midget sized bunk bed set, circa 1940—quaint is not exactly the most appropriate word but it will do.  I’ve always wanted an antique bed; be careful what you wish for.  

The mesmerizing novelty of the snow quickly wore off about a quarter of a mile into our two-mile snow day trek when Jacob spotted a car at the bottom of the hill on Central Park Place.  Our friend Joel, who enjoyed the luxury of sleeping on Jacob’s futon last night, was along for the walk and laughingly said, “I bet that lady needs a push.”  He spoke too soon.  We were scarcely within speaking distance before the proud owner of the new Lexus IS350, still adorned by the dealer tag, lowered her window to ask, “Do you guys think you could give me a little push?”  Lady, I hate to break it to you, but there is no such thing as “little push” when the object of that push has a license plate.  You give a stroller a little push.  You give a shopping cart a little push.  You do not give a CAR a little push.  Despite the fact that this woman, who must have thought that the snow traction control button in her new car was a magical snow repellant feature, should have been punished for even thinking that she could successfully drive in this mess, we figured that she needed our help most of all, and set out to faithfully discharge our duty as southern gentlemen.  We convince her that continuing uphill was futile and managed to get the car turned around.  Our victory was short lived when approximately 11 seconds later, she was stuck again, the nose of the black Lexus sticking right out into North Avenue, normally a busy street, but lucky for her, everyone in Atlanta with a brain left their cars at home this morning. We continued heaving and pushing and grunting and laughing at the foolishness of this situation until we finally got the car into the main ruts of North Avenue.  Once the tires grabbed hold of the road we screamed, “Go! Keep going, go…go!”  Though unsure of her footing, the blond mystery woman drove out of site; we only hope that she actually made it home. I noticed as she was waving goodbye that she was wearing what appeared to be a hospital bracelet; perhaps she had just been discharged from a mental institution.

Around the corner, we saw the shining beacon atop the hill, our destination, Krispy Kreme.  By this time, we had worked up a hefty appetite; hot glazed donuts have never looked so good.  The Snowpocalypse  had rendered the iconic doughnut shop understaffed for the day, but we were patient with the doughnut man as he fetched our doughnuts and coffee (and chocolate milk—yes, I’m 8 years old).  Words can not describe the satisfaction delivered by the consumption of these O-shaped treats.  No Krispy Kreme experience is complete without employing the use of one their paper hats; after all, they’re free, so I crowned myself.  While we were sitting by the window, I in my hat, some joker drives up and stops, blocking our view.  I then realize he is making some kind of undecipherable gestures directed toward me.  I walked out the door to see what he wanted.  He said, “Is the drive through open.”  And I, a first time patron of this establishment, have no idea, so I replied, “I have no idea.” I turned to head back inside but was stopped with another inquiry, “Well are you open at all?”  I then realized that I was still wearing that stupid paper hat, which apparently makes you an employee.  So I said politely, “Oh, I don’t know; I don’t work here, just wearing the hat.”  But what I really wanted to say was, “Are you an idiot? I’m wearing work boots, a scarf, a huge coat, and sweatpants! Do I look like I am at work?!? NO!”  Clearly the snow brings out the best of Atlanta residents, and they all seek my car pushing and doughnut making skills.

Upon completion of our brunch, we made our way to our final destination, Publix, the end-all, be-all of American grocery stores.  There are many reasons I choose to support this company’s endeavors in the grocery business such as the cleanliness of the stores, the quality of their store brands, the availability of items that I actually want to purchase, etc.  All of these things are important, but none are as important as the fact that Publix is the only grocery retailer I have visited that exercises an appropriate use of grammar on their speedy checkout signs.  They correctly read “20 items or fewer,” unlike every other store I have ever been to, whose signs read “20 items or less.”  If I need to explain to you why this matters or why there is a difference, please discontinue your reading of my blog; you will not enjoy it.

Now remember, we are a mile from home on foot in the snow, and we now have almost $100 worth of groceries to carry back.  I had planned to simply borrow a shopping cart to transport my items home and then return the cart to the store later in my truck.  Surely spending $100 in this establishment earns me the right to borrow a cart for a couple of days?  Joel’s friend Emily, a criminal justice student who joined us at Krispy Kreme, tells me that this, in fact, is illegal? What? She further explains that there is an automatic anti-theft feature which locks one of the wheels if the cart gets too far away from the store.  “It keeps homeless people from taking them,” she says.  I am flabbergasted by this; we do not have such features on our buggies at Harvey’s in Sandersville.  Surely it costs more to install these lock down mechanisms than it does to simply replace a cart.  And what about those of us who only want to borrow carts? The homeless people ruin it for everyone.  I am of the opinion that allowing valued customers to borrow shopping carts at the expense of the store losing a few to some homeless people could be spun as a good philanthropy. 

After an eventful day in the snow, Jacob and I were nearing our gate with our groceries when we were stopped AGAIN.  This time, it was a reporter from the Atlanta Journal Constitution.  She said she was talking to shoppers who had obviously ignored the weather warnings.  How dare she make such assertions?  We told her that we had not ignored them, we just didn’t care.  We chatted for a few minutes, realized she lives in Post Renaissance as well, she took some notes, took down our information, and took a picture of our ridiculous snow outfits.  I hope that this blog will not be the only published write up of the events of our day.

I have to go to Verizon now and buy a new phone; my Blackberry couldn’t deal with the Snowpocalypse.  If history serves as an indicator, dealing with Verizon’s customer service people will likely be cause for another blog post.  We’ll see…

Bed Intruder? Not So Fast.

I imagine if you are reading this blog, then you have too much time on your hands, some of which is likely allocated to keeping yourself apprised of the latest you-tube phenomena.  If I have typecast you correctly, then I imagine you have seen the news footage of the “bed intruder” at the Dodson home in the projects of Huntsville, Alabama.  I realize that this is sort of a late reaction, but today when Heidi and I were chuckling at this video together (during a telephone conversation via my landline), we were suddenly struck with a need to point out the clear fallacy contained in the incomplete enthymematic deductions made by Dodson and his fellows.  If you do not know what I am talking about, please follow this link before continuing. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y54yESyq6Io

You may also enjoy the auto-tuned rap song version of this footage which sparked the written outpour below.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hMtZfW2z9dw

“Obviously we have a rapist in Lincoln Park…,” says Antoine Dodson, brother of the alleged victim, but we challenge this logic.  The evidence suggests that the existence of a rapist is not at all obvious.  Please read on as we share the incompetence of the claims made by the Dodsons.

“He’s climbin’ in yo windows, snatchin’ you people up, tryin’ to rape ‘em…”  To assume that someone is a rapist simply because he climbed through an upstairs window and crawled into the room’s bed with its unsuspecting occupant is foolishness.  Clearly this man was drunk, lost, cold, lonely—a myriad of adjectives could describe his state of being at the time of the incident.  Hungry for unsolicited sex? Surely not. Methinks this conclusion the work of someone with a colorful imagination.

“You don’t have to come and confess; we lookin’ fo you; we gone find you.”  No doubt this statement warms the heart of President George W. Bush—he appreciates your buying into his war doctrine.  Indeed, your intruder would probably love nothing more than for you to find him so that he may redeem his shirt and any other belongings left behind when you and your sister so rudely purged him from the inner sanctions of your home.  Is this any showing of Southern Hospitality?  This isn’t Canada, friends.

“So you can run and tell that, homeboy.”  Homeboy?  The ever-reliable UrbanDicationary.com tells us that one cannot go through life without a homeboy and that it is hard to have more than one because a homeboy is one in a million.  Is your homeboy not someone who is welcome in your home?  For instance, I am Heidi’s homeboy.  Sometimes I cuddle with Heidi.  Does she misconstrue this for attempted rape?  No.  Not usually.

Kelly Dodson, the alleged victim, claims, “I was attacked…by some idiot in the projects.”  Perhaps she needs a vocabulary lesson—cuddling is not synonymous with attacking.  My notion is that the only idiots in these projects are those who occupy your home, Kelly.

So let’s, for a moment, assume that Antoine is right—the intruder was a rapist.  Dodson’s solution?  Hide your kids.  Hide your wife.  Hide your husband…(‘cause they rapin’ ere’body out here).  Our confused friendly drunken sailor has quickly become a pedophilic bisexual rapist.  A solid case for a slander suit?  I think so.

So you see, Antoine, there is no need to hide every member of your family—simply lock your windows, or give your sister's boyfriends keys to the front door.