A yankee in Memphis: Which way is UP?

Traveling around Memphis always seem like an adventure for me! Hell, it took me nearly a year and a half before I felt comfortable enuf to give anyone directions but I still remember the pride I felt the first time I was able & it just happened to be to The Med (Regional Emergency Medical Center)...a good time to be able to

Lot's of Memphis roads don't make any sense to me! Come on..... North Parkway runs east & west. East Parkway runs north & south....WTH. Union and Walnut Grove are the same road just named differently in different parts. What crack head here was in charge of road nameage??? In New Jersey, the Garden State Parkway doesn't become Wildwood Ave all of sudden somewhere down the road for Pete's sake (& still, who the hell is Pete anyway???) Interstate 40 & 240 intersect with each other and kind of become the same road. It's easier to understand once you see them as a 'beltway' around the city but still itz complicated and don't even get me started on the Nonconnah! I find myself using all kinds of hand gyrations, more than usual for me anyway, as I try to explain that one. There are also areas of the city you just don't want to wander into.....no matter who you are & even if you live there!

I've been lost in them more than a time or two.

Over the weekend I was working on my house.......power washing, gardening, mulching, etc. I have this wonderful little garden patio & I found myself in need of new outside chairs. I have a round glass table top out there but the chairs were really meant for indoor use. Let's just say they had been weathered & were in 'assed-out' condition. So, all proud of myself, I take them out to the curb, after I all I'm getting new chairs! These chairs weren't out there 5 minutes before some old guy in a pick up truck stops and retrieves them. Some things don't change no matter where you live. I'm still out on the patio & surprised this guy doesn't knock on the door and ask "ummmm......you gots a table to go with them there chairs?" or maybe "can you give me a hand loading them there chairs into my truck?"

So now I've disposed of the old chairs and off for the new ones! I had already checked out Lowes & Home Depot.....nada! One place left....Garden Ridge. GR is literally Chair City....thousands of them! One problem is that it is about 18 miles from Harbor Town and I don't have a truck. I have a Saturn Sky convertible which has no trunk space and barely enuf room for my golf clubs. It's like this..... Skys don't even carry a spare tire. If you get a flat (& I have twice in Memphis) there's a one word description for it..... FLATBED. Ugh!

Off I go anyway. I'll figure something out and I do, in fact, find some beautiful metal framed canvas chairs....2 to a box, on sale & "Easy to Assemble in only 15 minutes" too. So now I have to get them home and in separate trips. Maybe I should have just asked the old guy for the use of his pick-up truck......

This, I realize now, is really a BIG box (& I'm not confident enuf to take all the parts out of the box in case I need the damn box to take the damn chairs back) and itz not fitting so good......but I finally get it jammed in there with the top down & off I go down the Interstate (40 BTW) towards home. I can only imagine how funny looking this is driving down I-40, dumb yankee in a sports car with the top down & a BIG over sized box in the passenger seat,....which then becomes somewhat dangerous with the wind whipping around me.....so itz decision time & I make a bold move & off I-40 onto Jackson Ave....which is also dangerous.....cause now 'I drivin in the hood!'.....

I soon find myself lost in a section that I had no business being in because I decided an even 'smarter move' would be to make a right turn off of Jackson...... plowing me further into God knows where. The cops looked at me like I was crazy but didn't pull me over?? & I swear I even saw one of those Channel 5 News Choppers hovering close by waiting to see some 'action' or at least have a submission to America's Funniest Home Videos! Just about that time I am thinking what a flat tire would mean.......(FLATBED). I make one of those quick Hollywood turns and do what any man would do. Head for the nearest gas station! Turns out..... damn Jackson does run smack dab into the Bass Pro Wonderland....I mean Pyramid! & yeah, just like I thought it would! Smarter than I thought all along!

Anyway, I get them over the bridge & safely home. That is where Adventure 2 begins! Putting the "Easy to Assemble' chairs together with directions you can't even read even if you had more than a pair of dollar store reading glasses & pictures that make you say HUH????....seriously. Rubik's Cube directions in Chinese must certainly be easier. But somehow, eventually, I figured it out several beers & hours later. They do look sharp though and, hell, I somehow ended up with a few extra parts to boot...... I cut down the second chair assembly time in half and by the 4th chair I was damn near an 'expert chair assembly man'. Assembly was never a strong suit for me anyway.....which is why I always let the ex put the Christmas toys together. One helpful hint maybe.....a hammer will not necessarily fix everything and probably is not called for if you do not see a picture of it in the directions!
The second trip out for the chairs wasn't nearly half as fun.