Sharon Visits NY - Episode 1: The Drive

Readers sometimes write me, “Lighten up a little! It’s all terrorism all the time over here. Why can’t you write about something frivolous, like music or fashion?”

Well, they don’t actually write that. But that is primarily because 1) I don’t have readers and 2) my blog doesn’t exactly attract the fun crowd. (You know who you are!)

In an effort to drum up traffic and appeal to as broad an audience as possible, we are launching a new series this week called “Meet the Inmates”. (After much deliberation by the editorial board here at Sharon’s Asylum, we shelved the idea of “Topless Tuesdays”.) Those of you who think this more light-hearted drivel should be quarantined onto a new blog, a sort of Sharon’s Asylum spin-off, let us know.

So without further ado, we present you “Sharon Visits NY – Episode 1: The Drive”. (Disclaimer: The events decribed herein took place on Sunday, but our access to Internet this week is a little spotty.)

Those who know me will tell you that I am a gizmo geek, a gadget freak. This means that I spend much of any drive rotating car chargers for various electronic devices. In fact, there was scarcely a moment during the entire trip to New York when some battery-operated device was not having its charge restored.

Possibly the ultimate in gizmos is the GPS navigation system. When I ask, “Where are we?” the correct answer is not, “Corner of Maple and Pine,” but rather, “Latitude 3.2876945W and longitude 6.8347959N, at an altitude of 6.2734 meters above sea level.” The GPS navigation system will not nag you or berate you for taking the wrong turn. The GPS navigation system will not say, in an accusatory tone, “I told you to turn left 3 lights ago! Why don’t you ever listen to me? Now we’re going to be 15 minutes late for Aunt Estelle’s dinner party!” It will maintain an air of unflappable calm, recalculate a new set of directions, and continue to issue instructions mildly. Its other main purpose is to plot the known locations of all Cheesecake Factory restaurants along the drive.

When we got to US Customs, the officer asked us some pointed questions about the monitor in the trunk that Alexei intended as a hand-me-down for his nephew, who lives with Alexei’s mother in New York. Now, I hold no truck with Customs agents, particularly Canadian ones. I see them as nosy and officious persons who can’t simply take a hint and leave it at that. I resent their unwarranted intrusion into my private life. If my own husband is not privy to the details of my personal expenditures, why, I reason, should I share them with a complete stranger? I feel strongly that what I choose to bring or not bring into my own country, including recently purchased clothing and footwear concealed on my person, is nobody’s business.

Right past the border is a town called “Chazy Sciota”, which I misread as “Crazy Sciota”, leading me to momentarily envision the place as the favored hangout of some whacked out mafia guy. After that, it was pretty much all sloping valleys and gently rolling hills – so pleasantly pastoral a vista, in fact, that I promptly fell asleep looking at it.

You will have gathered by this that I am not the most stimulating of traveling companions. The drive from Montreal to New York is about 6½ hours, of which I usually spend about 6¼ fast asleep. My contributions to the general conviviality tend to come in the form of lolling my head from side to side slack-jawed, occasionally producing a sudden startled jerk. On planes, I am usually sleeping soundly by take-off. I suspect, however, that Alexei prefers it this way, as it enables him to drive at a faster clip that he would if I were wakefully alert by his side.

My slumber was punctuated by a stop at a rest area to use the facilities, of which I will only say that I have decidedly first-world notions of hygiene that, regretfully, do not seem to be shared by the caretakers of the site. I had almost nodded off again when a sudden exclamation of distress from Alexei roused me to wakefulness. Briefly, it appeared that we were in the middle of nowhere and the gas light indicator had just gone on.

After a short pause to verify using the GPS that the nearest gas station was impossibly far away in the opposite direction, I seized the opportunity to sketch out, in my best supportive tone, a happy and carefree alternate existence where Alexei would regularly check the gas gauge in a manner befitting a responsible driver, and we would stop to fill up at a quarter tank.

We were, however, pleasantly surprised to discover that the gas warning indicator means that you actually have a good 30 miles of anxious driving through winding mountain roads to the nearest gas station from the moment it lights up, with time to idle while some honest old son of the soil helpfully gives you a precise description of all gas stations within a 10-mile radius.

Marital harmony thus restored, we continued on our way. Five minutes later, I was fast asleep.