The proposed waitstaff uniforms for the soon-to-be-announced Chili’s and Hooter’s merger, tentatively named “Chili Hooters.”

See more cracktastic hetero-erotic costumes here and here.

I guess it’s good to know if a stranger sneaks into my room to pee while I’m showering.

When I was a kid we had an Atari 2600. My favorite game was Circus Atari (especially when their little heads splatted on the ground), but I have the most vivid sense-memories of playing Pole Position. I remember fading into a trance-like state while watching that center dotted line as my car drove along through the desert and the cities. The dots never stopped, they kept coming and coming, an unending line as constant as the sway of a hypnotist’s pocket watch. This carpet reminds me of that game. It’s a long, long walk to the elevator, and I’m getting veeerrrry sleeeeepyyyy….

I enjoy staying at inns and B&Bs while I travel. More accurately, I enjoy the idea of staying at inns and B&Bs. They’re quirky, there’s usually a dog or cat underfoot or in my lap, the food is good, and there are other human beings around who want to chat and pass the time. Sometimes though, things don’t work out as imagined.

I stayed at a lovely inn near Kenyon College where I was the only guest that night. Not a big deal – until breakfast when the innkeeper made breakfast for me. Just me. The previous evening we had discussed my food allergy (minor, but limiting for breakfast options), and she asked the requisite dietary-restriction small-talk questions (anyone with a food allergy or sensitivity will know what I mean), and we decided on pancakes and chicken sausage. Excellent. Lovely. Delicious. So there I was, the only diner at a table for eight, sipping coffee from a rose-patterned teacup, when the innkeeper walked out of the kitchen with a giant slice of cantaloupe.

I panicked.

You see, in all of the discussion about the foods that I can and cannot eat, we never really broached the topic of foods that I do not want to eat. And melon, my friends, melon of any sort, is at the top of that list. The top, all caps, in bold. But she had already sliced it, and there was no one else to eat it. And I had already established myself as (in my head) a nuisance with dietary restrictions. And before I could get any words out she put the plate down and disappeared back into the kitchen to make my pancakes.

I stared at the melon. The melon smiled at me. Then the voice of my friend Joe popped into my head, telling me about how he hated melon in his 20s then he tried it again when he was 30 and he liked it. Being a mature, sensible 31-year-old, I took a bite. And spit it out. And cursed Joe in my head because now I couldn’t just politely say that I don’t care for melon because it looked like I took a bite and spit it out.

What to do? I thought about feeding it to the dog, but immediately realized two flaws to that plan. One, I don’t think Irish Setters care for cantaloupe either. And, two, the innkeeper would realize what I did when the dog vomited orange goo later. I  could shove it into my backpack and deal with it later because, as we all know, my life is a sitcom and that always works on TV. Except that no one, even people who love melon, no one eats the rind. I opened my backpack, thinking maybe that I could just climb inside and hide, and saw the ziploc bag I carry full of band-aids, ibuprofen, and other travel essentials. I knew I didn’t have much time – had she flipped the pancakes yet? So I dumped out the baggie, quickly spooned out ten or twelve bites of melon, scooped them into the baggie with my hand, and shoved the baggie into my backpack just as the innkeeper came around the corner.

Here’s the thing. I’m normally a very confident person. Really! I speak in front of large groups all the time, I voice my opinion constantly, I laugh at my mistakes. But something about this scenario just made me freeze. It wasn’t until I got to the convention center later and hid in the bathroom to pull out the sack of melon that I could begin to see the humor in the incident. And let me tell you, my friends, when I arrived that night at a giant corporate hotel, I was mighty pleased to be just another anonymous guest. With hands that smelled like melon.

But that’s just me.

In a few days I’ll be leaving for a five-day trip through Ohio, and this is what I’m bringing. Luckily (in the long run) this is an abnormally large amount of stuff to bring. Unluckily (in the short run I have to schlep it all with me on this particular trip.

I like Ohio, so far at least, and I should have some room on this trip to take scenic byways instead of megahighways. Here are my Ohio Road Trip Goals:

• - Stop at a roadside farm stand
• - Eat a good slice of pie or some quality biscuits & gravy
• - Spend the night in a silo

I think all of this is achievable (more about the silo later).

Oh, and did I mention that these boxes are heavy?