Journey vs. Destination

After toll road after toll road and a seeming eternity on the New Jersey Turnpike, we landed in at an Italian place in New Jersey. The bread is fantastic, chewy outside and soft inside.

The restaurant is halfway filled with a loud crowd of nice older Italian speaking men. All of them are wearing cycling clothes.

Stereotypes exist for a reason, not always a good reason but always some reason.

In Texas, I pointed out cows collected around a windmill powered pump (that was when I actually pointed out the window, exclaiming to a dozing C, “Look! A cliche!”). Duh, of course cows will congregate near water. And the silos and farms visible from the freeway were adorable in their iconicness.

It was in Memphis that a cliche annoyed me. I admit I was curious about race tensions. But I didn’t notice anything about that. Despite the fact I held out the credit card, the man checking us in asked every question to C. He deferred to C excessively and didn’t seem to acknowledge my existence. At the restaurant, the maitre d’ courteously held the door open for me but ignored my “two for dinner, may we sit outside?” in favor of greeting C and getting his opinion on dining.

A DC area friend said she finds it annoying when she hands the waiter her credit card, from her purse, and he hands it back to whatever man she is closest to.

I found this in dealing with men only and only when I was with C; women seemed to make fewer assumptions.

To me, the cliche is the men who treat me as though I’m too helpless to be in the real world. To them, I suspect he sees a different cliche.

OMG, this pizza is fantastic. Oh! Gotta go!