We left around 10 AM–we didn’t have to check in until 2 PM, so there was no reason to arrive before then. It was a seven-hour drive, but we lost a time zone, which made it look like only a six-hour one if you looked at the clock. It was always weird to me that the panhandle of Florida was in a different time zone than the other parts. It was distinctively ‘non-Florida’, for lack of a better word. To be fair, Alabama was also part of Central Standard Time and they were as far east as the panhandles. I don’t think people get too territorial over time zones…well, only the East and West Coasters do. What’s so cool about CST?


    Anyway, we left at around 10 AM. Much to my surprise, Michael did get his luggage ready on time.


    I got up around an hour before, just so I could have enough time to drink some coffee and take a piss before leaving. Coffee isn’t the best thing to have when your nerves are uneasy, but it’s better than being nervous and getting a headache due to a lack of caffeine. Michael grabbed a random black tumbler cup from the cabinet.


    “This will do.”


    It was around 24 ounces and had ‘JMK’ plastered on it in white letters. I’ve never seen him use it before—that’s probably because he hasn’t. In fact, I don’t think it had been moved this year until he grabbed it.


    After not-so-gently blowing on the top of the cup (to get rid of the dust on the top?), he started towards the fridge. Not even washing the cup out before using it? Gross.


    “You better wash that thing before you put your tea in there.”


    “Oh, I don’t need to do that. There’s barely any dust on the lid!”


    Is he really not going to wash it out? A cup he’s never used until now? A cup that’s obviously not his? Guess I’ll have to scare him into it…


    “Did you even look inside the cup? What if there’s a spider that laid eggs in there?”


    Michael stopped the millisecond I uttered ‘spider’. He had a jug of oolong tea in his hand, which he was about to pour into the unknown tumbler. Now, he was frozen–the inertia of the tea dribbled some of it out on the counter.


    “…on second thought, I should wash this out.”


    After that, he not only turned on the sink to wash out any dirt that accumulated inside, but he also used paper towels to dry and collect whatever had been in there, plus the little puddles he poured on the counter. No spider or spider eggs were in there by his muted motions. To be honest, I never expected it to have anything terrifying like that inside—he was clearly using one of The Landlord’s cups. She wouldn’t be caught dead with an unwashed cup in a cabinet. It’s better to check anyway. It only takes a little effort not to be nasty. You never know!


    —


    One good thing about where we live is that even if it’s a little out of the way of most things, it wasn’t completely out in the wilderness. We only had to go on the main highway, drive (relatively) straight for twenty minutes, and then we were on the interstate.


    Michael had decided to drive the first half—it was his car, and even if it was mine, I wouldn’t have objected to him driving.


    The first half of our journey would take place all on Interstate 85 and its cohorts. Anyone who''s ever driven on an interstate knows that they aren’t that hard to drive on, and also that they’re the most frightening types of roads out there. When we merged, it was simple since there wasn’t any oncoming traffic–we could’ve taken both lanes of the road if we wanted to. We were lucky that it was a calm time of the day traffic-wise. If we got on two hours earlier there would be a good chance that we would have to yield before getting on.


    During this time, I lounged back and closed my eyes. I’m sure I’ve talked about this before, but I’ve always had anxiety at the beginning of vacations. Of course, everyone hates driving for several hours in a row, but the unintelligible root of my anxiety was deeper than that. I had no idea where this anxiety came from, since I’ve never been on a bad vacation. Many average ones, but never a bad one. It was the type of uneasiness that came from unfamiliarity. The same feeling I’d get on the first day of school or a new job. The clearest reason why I had this anxiety was because I was afraid of change, even when that change was ‘not working for a few days and being away from home’. It would be a good change of pace, but taking that step to shift was the hardest part. I’m sure being stuck in a car for seven hours was why I was feeling this way. It’ll subside eventually—we’re already 5% done with the drive! Might as well close my eyes until I fall asleep or become at peace with the world. Either one works.


    —-


    That comfort lasted for a little while–for about forty minutes until we hit the Atlanta traffic.


    Every city and state will claim to have the worst drivers, but as for cities that I’ve driven in, Atlanta takes the cake when it comes to unpredictable drivers. They might as well be the same thing as ‘bad drivers’. Why they were so bad, there were a myriad of possibilities why.


    For one, there were a million cars in Atlanta going somewhere at some point during the day. Most of these cars got on the interstate—there were many interstates in the metro area, but definitely ‘not enough’. At first glance, the solution would obviously be to build more lanes and more roads. That way more cars can be on the road. That’s the way it works in SimCity and Cities Skylines, right? Well, in real life, it doesn’t work that way—and to be honest, it doesn’t work in video games either. Building more lanes in your Cities Skylines city may temporarily relieve congestion, but lo and behold, the same bottlenecks will eventually appear. Building more highways causes this issue as well. You can repeat the process, over and over again on a city-wide whack-a-mole trying to eliminate gridlock. You can’t win—not in SimCity and sure as hell not in real life. The solution to this is diversifying the methods of transit. Instead of widening a highway, utilizing other methods of mass transit (trains, buses, subways, etc.) would be more effective in relieving congestion. Why then do cities continue to build and widen highways and interstates instead of building (safe) bike lanes and adding more bus stops? There are a million YouTube videos out there that explain why. The short of it is ideology and lobbying. Sunk-cost fallacy and the fact that most Americans are bred to love their cars. The car is a symbol of individual freedom–too bad that the freedom to drive comes at the expense of taking the freedom away from other modes of transportation. For a good portion of Americans, driving isn’t a way to get around, it’s the only way to get around. All of this gets us the situation I’m in now.


    “Damnit, let me merge or I’m going to start to cry here.” Michael wasn’t having the best of times right now. I didn’t exactly know what was going on just yet, just that we were in Atlanta. I still was lounged back, eyes closed, trying to get some more sleep. I’m not exactly sure if I got any, but I know my eyes were closed the whole time. Michael was playing what seemed to be some songs from his Japanese coworkers. It wasn’t that bad, although not something I’d listen to usually.


    His voice was raised enough for me to open my eyes. I first looked to the left at him. He was gritting his teeth, gripping the steering wheel as if it was trying to run away.


    I pushed myself up without raising the seat back up. Looking around, it looked like he was trying to get his car to the right-most lane, where we could exit. Looking at the road sign above, it looked like we didn’t need to merge–we were alright where we were. The GPS also said that the two right-most lanes get off.


    “Let! Me!! Merge!!!” He was getting increasingly upset to the point where tears were coming out from the sides of his eyes. Damn, he’s really getting upset about this. He hasn’t even noticed that I got up. I need to calm him down quickly…


    “Uhh…it looks like we don’t need to move over.” Thankfully, I didn’t startle him. He relaxed his grip on the steering wheel, looked at the GPS, and said “Oh.”


    With that out of the way, I went back down and closed my eyes again.


    —


    At around noon Central time (we had just exited Eastern time when I got up), I got Michael to stop for us to eat.


    After the whole traffic saga, I spent about two more hours with my eyes closed. Again, I don’t know how long of that time was spent unconscious–all I know was that I had more quality sleep then than I did before.


    Michael had calmed down after the ordeal. As far as I knew, he didn’t say another word from Atlanta until I woke up.


    We’d been on the road for about three-and-a-half hours now, and I was starving. All I had for breakfast was one cup of coffee, and I made sure to piss that out before we left so I wasn’t stuck in a situation where I had to piss in a bottle. Not a fun predicament…thankfully it’s only happened to me twice.


    I’m fine with my stomach rumbling and gurgling. It doesn’t bother me in the least. I can live with it as long as it doesn’t turn into pangs…which it did. I don’t know why my stomach was so dramatic–the last time I ate was around sixteen hours ago! Not a terribly long time relative to how long one can (usually) go without eating anything. It was around now that I regretted not having a water bottle on me. I would most likely have to piss out the water I drank on the road, but it would also keep me from feeling like I would die if I didn’t get anything to eat soon.


    With the pain waking me up from my eye-resting session, I got up, for good this time, and looked up restaurants near us.


    “Are you hungry yet?”


    I asked that pro forma–I kinda knew that he would want to get at least a bite to eat by now. If not for anything else, to get his ass from the driver’s seat for a few minutes.


    “Yeah, why?”


    “Is there any place you want to eat at?”


    “Man, I don’t really know this place…anywhere’s fine. I need to pee pretty badly, so I''d prefer a place with a restroom.” I mean, you could’ve stopped anytime…


    Looking at restaurants on the Maps app was never a good idea. I was getting results for restaurants not only in front of us, but also behind us. Annoying.


    Thankfully, the search was short–excluding all the places we already passed, we had…McDonald’s…pass…Subway…pass…Dairy Queen…tempting, but pass…Waffle House…bingo, we got a winner.


    “Let’s stop at the Waffle House down the road. It should be a mile away on the left.”


    “Waffle House? Do they have restrooms in there?”


    “Uh…yeah…” The quality of the restrooms varies by location, but there was no reason for a toilet to be messed up this early in the day.


    —


    About a minute later, I got Michael to stop at Waffle House.


    Waffle House''s were abundant in this region of America. Hell, we’ve probably passed by twenty on our journey already. Unlike In-n-Out, there was nothing holding them back from being in all fifty states and on six continents, but nonetheless, they were mainly a southern thing…well, I say that, but each time I check, they’ve expanded further out. They were as far west as Arizona and as far north as Pennsylvania. That was nothing compared to Chick-fil-A, which was in every state now. It was only a decade ago that they were in very hot water for their stance towards homosexuality. Has their stance changed? Many, me included, would say that the opinions of those at the helm probably haven’t changed any, even if the face has. They’re still Southern Baptist as hell, that’s for sure. The chicken isn’t as good as some in my neck of the woods would claim it to be, but I would be a liar if I said that it wasn’t good. I prefer Zaxby''s and Bojangles when it comes to fast food chicken, but I won’t refuse some Chick-fil-A if offered.


    This location was situated in between a parking plaza and a Days Inn. Taking an afternoon nap in a hotel room after eating lunch sounded good in theory, but the fact that I just got done (trying) to sleep was the biggest thing in the way of exploring the silly hypothetical. In reality, the Days Inn bed would hardly be any better than a reclined passenger’s seat—Michael’s car seats probably had more cushion!


    While parking, Michael mentioned that this would be the first time that he would be eating at Waffle House. Guess that explains why he asked if they had restrooms. That being said, I still was somewhat shocked that he hadn’t had it at least once.


    “Not even delivery?”


    “What?”


    “You’ve never eaten at a Waffle House, not even delivery?”


    “Nope. Not once.”


    “You’ve lived here for this long and haven’t had it once?”


    We temporarily paused our conversation to get out of the car. Walking up to the door, Michael replied, “Well, I’ve only lived in this region for two years. Is that really surprising?” Yeah, kinda.


    “Oh come on, they have them in Arizona and Colorado now. It’s no–”


    “Welcome to Waffle House, y’all can sit wherever you want”, I was not-so-rudely interrupted by an employee behind the counter. This place was a restaurant where you picked where you sat and got served there. Waffle House always had bar seating available it seemed, but it wasn’t the ideal place to eat in my opinion. Too messy. The booths were way better. The thing about Waffle House is that they all look the same–not just the outside, but the inside is always the same. The only difference is that some are mirrored right, and some are mirrored left, some being slightly wider than the others. They all had the same ‘shoebox’ design. Also, the jukebox differs by location. The confines of a Waffle House were quite small, all things considered. It must be claustrophobic to work behind the counter there, but I’ve never seen an employee get more upset than kicking a metal cabinet. He had shoes on so he avoided hurting his toes, unlike me. Man, that was only six months ago, huh. Felt like a lifetime ago.


    Once he was fully inside, Michael first looked right, where the dining area was, and then to the left, where the restrooms were.


    His pace picked up, “I’ll be right back!”


    “Alright, I’ll pick us a booth.”


    —


    Michael was back within a minute.


    “Man, that restroom looked derelict…”


    “Hey, at least it was functional...anyways, it’s not like they’re only in former CSA states.”


    Michael gave me a puzzled look, like I said something weird. Before he could respond, our waitress came.


    “Welcome to Waffle House, I’m Shelly–what ya’ll want to drink?”


    “Coffee with milk.” “Same as him.”


    “Alright, I’ll have that out and I’ll take the rest of your order then.” She walked away to get our coffee. I hope Michael looks at the menu while talking because she’ll be back before we know it.


    “Well, I’ve only passed through Arizona and never have been in Colorado, so yeah…and ‘former CSA states’?”


    Oh, I can see why he was confused. “‘Confederate States of America’, sorry…anyway, you didn’t even stop by while driving across the country?” Thank goodness there wasn’t anyone near us. What else could ‘CSA’ stand for…now that I think of it, there isn’t anything good that has the acronym ‘CSA’.


    “No. I ate at gas stations and McDonald''s.”


    “I see…Well, I won’t oversell you on this place like others will, but it’s the perfect place to eat when you’re on the road. Also when you’re drunk off your ass…” Any fast food is great when you’re wasted, but Waffle House was pound-for-pound the best option, in my opinion. “The best part is that the price point is comparable to…In-N-Out?”


    The In-N-Out comparison was flimsy, but made sense to me, considering that they were both regional chains with low prices and a fanbase that would fight those who said otherwise…okay, Waffle House couldn’t be considered ‘regional’ anymore, but it’s still thought of as a regional chain.


    “Uh huh…these prices are rather low…not as low as In-N-Out though…”


    While he was flipping the menu back and forth and probably reminiscing about other West Coast-based fast food chains, our waitress came back, “Are y’all ready to order?”


    Seeing that Michael was still looking, I decided to order first. “I’ll get a Bacon Texas Cheesesteak Melt, with a side of hashbrowns, smothered and covered.” Since it was already past noon, I might as well get a lunch meal and not breakfast. Not that I’ve ever cared about time constraints when it came to meals, but I don’t feel like breakfast at this time. Well, other than hashbrowns, I don’t feel like breakfast.


    After she was done writing down my order, she turned to Michael and said “Alright, and what about you, hon?” Michael was still looking at the menu with great intensity, but it seemed like he knew what he wanted.


    “I’ll get…uhh…two waffles, with…chocolate and peanut butter chips on it.”


    “Alright hon, I’ll get that right out.” Wonder why she didn’t call me ‘hon’ once…


    Moving back, I had to take note of Michael’s choice, “Wow, two waffles?”


    “What? Is that weird?”


    “Not really, but in the many times I’ve been here, I’ve never ordered or seen anyone order a double waffle.”


    Michael cocked a sardonic grin and replied “Yeah, that’s because you’re boring.”


    “Oh?” I knew he was joking around, but I had to reply to his dig, “Damn, that’s quite a shot coming from someone that had to be forced to go outside by his coworker.”


    His smile slowly faded away as he looked out the window to his left and muttered “...yeah, whatever.”


    Changing the subject, I asked, “By the way, when is Dusty and Yuji going to arrive?” I knew they were flying in, but I had no idea what time they were coming in. I could’ve probably just looked at my phone, but I knew Michael would know.


    “He said that he’d get there a bit earlier than us…his flight comes in at 1.”


    “Ahh, I see. Hope the room is ready for him.”


    “He said that he was going to wait for Yuji to arrive before he came to the hotel.”


    “What time is Yuji arriving?”


    “At 2…I thought you would know this already.”


    “Oh sorry, I haven’t checked any messages in there.” To be honest, I muted notifications from the group chat a few weeks ago. I only checked in on it occasionally–there wasn’t really any reason to be constantly up to date on it in my opinion. It also was very annoying to get buzzes from my phone every time a message appeared.


    “Well, at least he’d be inside with the AC. I’m sure he can entertain himself” Better than waiting in the summer heat. I highly doubt the Panama City airport was state-of-the-art, but I knew that they would have AC.


    “It’s an airport–he’ll survive for an hour.”


    “Yeah, it seems like he’s a big boy,” at least compared to you and Yuji “…by the way, why did you get chocolate chip AND peanut butter chips?”


    The narrative has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the infringement.


    He simply shrugged and said, “Well, why not?”


    I had nothing to come back with–I mean, he had a point. There wasn’t a reason not to be decadent in this case. All I hoped was that the waffles weren’t too sweet for him.


    —


    One much needed meal later, we were back down on the road to Panama City Beach. At this point, it was quite literally a road–or a highway for that matter. There were still three hours left on our journey. After I got back on the road, there was only one instruction from the GPS.


    [“Follow US-431 South for 177 miles, then turn right on East 6th Street.”]


    Thankfully I didn''t have to navigate through traffic on the interstate and lose my head about it. Not that traffic would ever be too much of an issue, since we were in the middle of nowhere.


    With me at the helm, I had my phone plugged in and music playing. I had a feeling that Michael would eventually fall asleep, especially the meal we just ate–when he did, I was going to put on my Formula 1 podcasts to listen to…thinking about it now, my podcasts would probably put him to sleep sooner, but that also had the risk of him talking above it. The title fight this year was non-existent–anyone paying attention knew that Max Verstappen was going to win his third title this year. The question there was when and where, not who. There was a lot more to Formula 1 than who placed first however. The internal politics of Formula 1 fascinated me almost as much as the on-the-track action did at times. Too much to get into now, but the new era that Formula 1 was in–one that not only had the glitz and glamor that was so often associated with the motorsport, but a ‘cost cap’ that limited team spending to $135 million dollars per year. In other words, it was the first time in…maybe forever that racing in Formula 1 was actually profitable. There was no need for ‘pay drivers’ anymore, and the intervals between first and last was at the smallest it had ever been. You wouldn’t ever know that, looking at how Max is destroying the competition, but that’s motorsport sometimes. The history also fascinated me–while movies such as Rush that beautifully show the stories of certain drivers, watching the first-hand account of said events was as exciting, if not more. The engineering, while cool to hear about, often went over my head. Another reason I should’ve gone to school for it.


    For some reason, I started to think about how I ended up going on this trip. I was invited by my roommate, who is going on a ‘work trip’, if we’re stating it nicely. There were many questions that I had wanted to ask Michael, but this one had bothered me the most. Well, at least at one point in time it did. Now, it didn’t matter that much. I still wanted to get the question answered. Just so I never have to think about it again.


    “Did you really not know who the other Francis was when choosing your name?”


    “The other what?” Michael was somewhat confused by my question. In my head, I knew perfectly well what I was asking, but it took him some time to get what I was asking… “...Do you mean the other guy with the same name?”


    “Yeah.”


    “No, no I didn’t.” His stern response indicated that he seemed quite annoyed at the question. I’m guessing because there have been probably a million instances in his chat where random people ask the same thing. That annoyance was understandable, but at the same time, I couldn’t help but to chuckle at his dismay. It was an easily avoidable coincidence.


    “That’s too funny.”


    “Why? Also, who the hell even is this other ‘Francis’? I’ve heard about him ever since I debuted, and whenever I google him, all I see is some old professor guy? Every one who mentions him acts like he’s some important man in politics, but no one has ever told me why he’s so important.”


    Having a Political Science degree, I could understand his frustration. Not with the other Fukuyama himself, but with the constant throwing of his name around for no other reason than the fact that you know about him. On social media, you often see him mentioned with only the slightest of relevance to the actual topic at hand. I don’t know much more about him, other than what I read in his book The End of History and the Last Man.


    “Well, he’s kinda important…depends on which way you look about it.”


    “You should know about him, going to school for politics.”


    “Unfortunately, yes.” I’ve only ever read his famous article as a class assignment, but yes, I knew of him. Reading the book based on the article came after graduation.


    “Why is he so notorious?”


    “Well…uhhh…” I was having a hard time trying to find words to ‘describe’ him–especially it wasn’t because of his actions that made him famous, but his words, “You know about the phrase ‘End of History’ right?”


    Another sigh came out of his mouth, “Yeah, I’ve heard of it…spammed in chat thousands of times by now.”


    “Well, he’s known for coining that phrase.”


    “I assumed that much, but what does it mean? Why does it matter so much?”


    “The ‘End of History’...to explain it in his eyes…uhh…it means that the end point of our society revolves around living in a democratic society–one that is free of totalitarianism and authoritarianism from any political extreme. To Francis, liberal democracy is the ‘end goal’ of any country.”


    “How is that the ‘end’ of history?”


    “It’s the ‘end’ as in there’s no better alternative…as for ‘history’, he means history as an evolutionary process. It originates from Hegel.”


    “Hegel?”


    “Don’t worry about it.” Hegel was too big-brained for me to even attempt to describe. It’s something I know I should change, but the level of attention I would need to pay to the pages is something that isn’t achievable most days. I feel like I’d have to learn German to be able to read him. Perhaps I’m just a moron.


    “Okay…and why does everyone care so much about him? I still don’t get it–why does he matter?”


    “I think…it has more to do with when he said it more than anything else. It was coined by him around the end of the Cold War, when the Soviet Union and the rest of the Second World was going through massive socioeconomic changes. At the time, it seemed like the ‘end’ of the conflict of ‘Capitalism versus Communism’ and of ‘Democracy versus Authoritarianism’ was coming. In a sense, Francis was removing the final step of Marx’s ideal ‘communist utopia’ and declaring that we, the human race, have perhaps achieved the ‘ideal’ as a liberal capitalist society.”


    “Not to knock my unintentional namesake…but it seems like shit around the world has gotten very hectic in the last decade.”


    “Well…” it was hard to refute what Michael said, because, yes, events keep happening. It’s ‘history’ in the traditional sense, but not in the way Fukuyama means. Of course, it’s beneficial to Fukuyama to go ‘yeah, but technically…’ anytime when you’re proven wrong–that was the name of the game of political science. But to be fair to him, those who he would regard as ‘strongmen’ that have popped up have as often been defeated. Throughout time, it seems that ‘liberal democracy’ wins out way more than it loses. Yes, this has a lot to do with external factors, such as ‘the market’ preferring conditions where tensions are low and where citizens at least have a shred of political freedom. “...well, all I can say is that it’s his theory.”


    “Do you believe it then?”


    I didn’t want to inject more of my personal opinion into this, but Michael was pushing for a definite answer. “...No…” I hated answering ‘Yes and no’ to questions like this, but it was the only way I could say what I wanted to say. “That being said, it…it doesn’t really matter if I ‘believe’ it or not. While I personally believe that we aren’t nearing the ‘End of History’ whatsoever, I can see why he would’ve thought it at the time…” Well, other than that history as a dialectical process is still ongoing and won’t end possibly ever. There have been many in Washington and in the media that have tried to hype up other countries like China and Russia as the new ‘existential threat’ to liberal democracy, but I find those calls to be ludicrous. One problem for the United States is that since the fall of the USSR, the government hasn’t been able to find a boogeyman as convincing and as ‘real’ as Soviet Communism. There was a period in the early 2000s where ‘radical Islamic terrorism’ was made to occupy that position, but as everyone knows, that didn’t last long. The ‘War on Terror’ ceased to be effective to the American public in the mid-2000s, and was officially abandoned as a term by the next decade. What was at once a rallying cry for George Bush became a phrase to mock him by. The point is that even ‘liberal democracies’ like the United States need an enemy in order to have something to rally around. Some observers, like myself, would chime in to say that periods like the War on Terror were also times when America became less liberal of a place to live in, especially if you were anti-war, or god forbid, Middle-Eastern. Fukuyama would probably point out that this is different from the ‘Universal History’ that he and others have formulated. Telling Michael all of that would only serve to confuse him–there’s no telling how much of what I was saying was considered ‘word salad’ already.


    “Uh huh…I’m more confused than I was before…” You wouldn’t be the first one.


    “It’s a nebulous concept.” I’m sure Fukuyama could dumb it down for Michael, but I’m too mush-mouthed in the first place to succeed. Should’ve known better. “Let me put it this way. Whenever someone who doesn’t like you states that you’re ‘The End of VTubing’, they’re actually stating that you’re the ideal Virtual YouTuber, meaning that there doesn’t need to be any further modifications. You’re perfect, or about as perfect as perfect can get.”


    “But those are my antis that are saying that. Aren’t they implying that it’s a bad thing?”


    “Well, let’s just say that your antis aren’t the smartest people around.”


    “You can say that again.” he chuckled. I mean, I wasn’t wrong. To spend your time hating on a VTuber was a bit pointless. It seemed that it didn’t really get to Michael all that much, and that he instead found his antis rather annoying.


    “In reality, ‘The End of VTubing’ isn’t even a good phrase, because it implies that there can be an ideal VTuber for everyone. Popularity aside, you know full well that there’s no VTuber that everyone likes. Especially ones like you, who happen to have a penis. Hell, I’d say that most people watch you guys because you’re imperfections, not in spite. The comparison makes zero sense.”


    “To me, most things you’ve said in the last few minutes have made zero sense.”


    “Sorry, I’m kinda bad at explaining these things” I really was–I’ve always been. It’s why I always said “nothing much” whenever a parent asked me how school was as a child. It wasn’t that school was bad, it was just that I wasn’t mentally able to explain what was taught at school without getting too lost in the details.


    Waving me off, he said, “No, don’t worry–it’s the subject matter, not you.”


    “Ah, thanks, I guess…”


    Out of the blue, he said “How did the interstate naming system come to be?”


    I turned my head to him, “You mean like the numbers and all of that?”


    “Yeah,” He was absent-mindedly staring at his phone, only stopping to look at me when I glanced at him, “seems like you''d know why it is.”


    All I did was let out a laugh, because, yes, I did know how the interstates were named. Albeit, it wasn’t something I learned at school–it was a Wikipedia page that taught me! Wikipedia has gotten a bad reputation from professors and teachers throughout the years, but as someone who has vandalized pages occasionally for over a decade now, it is way harder to do it now than it was when I was in high school. In fact, it has been hard for a long time now. Any page that gets constant traffic is unfuckwithable. It’s impossible to do something funny to the page for Albania or Gerald Ford. You have to find a less-used, less-moderated, page in order to do a vandalization that lasts more than a few seconds. Of course, none of you reading this are interested in spreading misinformation! The point is that while you shouldn’t ever source it in an assignment, Wikipedia is a good resource if you want to look something up. It’s the easiest way to sound like you know a lot about something when you really only learned about the subject matter the day before.


    Ending my inner monologue, I said, “Well, it’s more simple than it seems…”


    “Oh yeah?” He put his phone away.


    “Well, you know how you were driving on I-85 earlier?”


    “Yeah.”


    “And I’m sure you know of I-5 on the West Coast?”


    “Of course.”


    “Well, the way the numbering system works is that interstates that are shaped vertically end with the number ‘5’, while interstates that are shaped horizontally end with ‘0’. The interstates that end with ‘5’ start on the West Coast, and go east all the way to I-95, which mostly runs parallel to the Atlantic Ocean.”


    “So, this interstate we were on…I-85…right?” I nodded, even though I just said it was a few seconds ago…whatever. He continued, “This interstate is next to I-95, right?” I nodded again, “And there’s an I-75 and all of that.”


    “Correct…” I struggled to find the words to move on with, “...and the interstates that end with ‘0’ start at the Southern border. You know I-10?”


    “Yeah, it was in LA.”


    “Right. And you used it for a while moving here right?”


    “Uhh…no?” I looked at him somewhat shocked. I was exposed for a fake transit head…he now knew that I only had read the Wikipedia page…“...if I remember correctly, I drove on I-40 for like a thousand miles instead.” Thankfully, be brushed my error off.


    “I-40?”


    “Yeah, I got on it in like Barstow and drove it all the way to like Tennessee. Now that I think about it, it was more like two thousand miles.”


    “Oh wow.” I honestly had never been on it before. The more you know. “...anyways, you know how I-40 went west to east and vice versa?”


    “Yeah.”


    “And I-10 does the same thing.”


    “Uh huh…”


    “And it goes all the way up to I-90, which is way up north.”


    “I see…” He was now typing something on his phone…man, was he evening listening? Oh well, time to listen to my podcasts.


    —


    For the next hour, Michael said nothing. He was first on his phone, doing whatever–after a while, he fell asleep. I was amazed that he could fall asleep without reclining the passenger side seat. Some people just have that power I guess.


    Driving the 431 through Alabama was about as fun as you could expect. Driving straight down, the only respite was that there weren’t many red lights and not a stop sign in sight. The only thing keeping the time from feeling like it was standing still was the fact that I was speeding. Podcasts also helped a little as well. This was a road less traveled, so traffic wasn’t an issue, outside of the twenty minutes I was in Dothan. Jean did tell me about there being a ‘roundabout that’s faster’–I think what she meant to tell me is that there was a beltway that skipped having to drive through town. According to the GPS, both ways took about the same time. Going through the beltway would’ve probably felt faster though.


    We had just entered the state of Florida when Michael’s phone, sitting out in one of the cup holders, started shaking. I ignored it at first, assuming that it was a push notification, but as the buzzing continued, I couldn’t resist the urge to grab it.


    He was getting a Discord call from ‘Dusty Wallace’–seeing that Michael wasn’t even getting stirred up hearing his phone go off, I decided to answer for him.


    “Hello?”


    “Francis? Hello?”


    “Oh, sorry,” I had forgotten that I’ve technically never spoken to Dusty voice-to-voice until now, so he had no idea who answered, “This is the roommate.”


    “Oh, hey roomie-chan…what’s Francis doing?”


    Didn’t expect the ‘-chan’, but I won’t question it for now. “He’s sound asleep.”


    “Ahh, I see. Typical.” Well at least it wasn’t only me that got inconvenienced by Michael at times, “Anyways, I just wanted to tell y’all that Yuji and I have checked into the room.”


    “Oh sweet.” I thought that it would still be some time until they got there…Yuji’s flight must’ve been ahead of time.


    “How far away are y’all?”


    “Uhh…” Looking at the GPS, it seemed that we were still about eighty minutes away from the hotel, “my ETA is about an hour if we don’t get stuck in traffic.”


    “Alright, understood.” In the background, I could hear another voice saying “when is Francis arriving?” The voice got closer and closer, until it was the once holding the phone. I assumed at least.


    “Frankie, when you arriving man?”


    “Uh…soon?” I could only assume that this was Yuji who was speaking now…


    “Oh, you’re the roommate right?”


    Before I could reply with “Yep”, Yuji answered his own question, “What is up my man? Is Frankie at the wheel or something?”


    “No, he’s sleeping right beside me.” Still was somehow.


    “Ahh I see…so you’re driving while talking on the phone?”


    “Yep.” Breaking the law. Technically I was breaking two laws, going 15 over the speed limit. I haven’t seen a cop car ever since we left the town the Waffle House was at, so my guard was down.


    “Damn, Frankie really is making you do all the work, huh?”


    I mean, he did drive the first half of the trip, but he wasn’t here to respond at the moment, so… “Yeah, we ate breakfast and he’s been sound asleep ever since.”


    “Haha, gotta love him.”


    “Gotta live with him too.” Yuji had a fast-talking style that would be great for talk radio if he ever got the bug to scare old people and sell supplements. He had the accent of a ninja turtle, which only made me think I was talking to one. Not verbose enough to be Limbaugh, but he could find his own lane. His model, from what I remember, was more of a thin-set, or rather ‘twinkish’, if you want to go that far. The only options male VTubers had were ‘ikeman’, ‘twink’, or ‘furry’ it seemed. No ‘normal’ looking models. To be fair, female VTubers had similar constraints.


    “Ha, well it was nice talking to you man. I’ll get off the phone before you get pulled over!”


    “Ah alright…we’ll be seeing you in a hour as well, if traffic doesn’t get in the way.” Really, it wasn’t that big of a deal that I was on the phone, since the road I was on was pretty much near damn empty. Not a lot of concentration is needed to drive this. Cops would probably say otherwise, so I went along with Yuji. We were going to meet face-to-face soon anyways, so no need to talk all the way down there.


    —


    It was around 3 PM. An hour and some change passed, and we were finally about to pull in to our hotel. Getting to Panama City Beach thankfully wasn’t any more difficult than advertised. The hardest part was finding the road that actually led to the beach. Thankfully the right choice required me to keep going straight. In Panama City Beach, three roads run diagonally to the beach. The first one, which was right next to the beach, was named Front Beach Road accordingly. The second road, Middle Beach Road, which was in between Front Beach Road and Panama City Beach Parkway, was only a few hundred feet from the beach. It was split from Front Beach Road by a Walmart and was only a few miles long. The third road, which was named Panama City Beach Parkway and began a mile away from the beach, and slowly drifted towards it, until it merged with Front Beach Road around the boundaries of Panama City Beach. It was a road that served as the northern border for larger developments in the area, such as the ‘Pier Park’ outdoor mall complex. It had some interesting things on it as well, such as a Culver’s and a Whataburger…okay, maybe that wasn’t interesting to most people reading this, but I’ve never eaten at either place, and was looking forward to changing that. Michael’s car would be readily available, so I could go to either place whenever I wanted theoretically. That would be a bit time-consuming though, and not exactly how I want to spend my vacation time. Above all else, I wanted to relax. I could always just DoorDash it. It’s what Michael and the other two would probably do.


    Map of Panama City Beach–somewhat outdated, but the roads are the same.


    As I drove onto the portion of Front Beach Road that was parallel with the Gulf of Mexico, the road was made to look more narrow than it was–in reality, it was a five-lane road with the middle operating as a median, but the outer two lanes had ‘ONLY TRAM BIKE’ painted over asphalt that was coated in brown to denote that it was not for your vehicle. On my short trek, I only saw a few bikes on it–seeing as there were no lines for one, they meant ‘bus’ when they said ‘tram’. Beggars can’t be choosers. I’m surprised they went as far to build lanes solely for public transportation and bicycles. I also saw a golf cart on it, so I guess that was the compromise.


    The foliage was what you would expect from a beach–palm trees galore, perfectly trimmed grass and hedges in the places the county or a resort owned, and not-so-perfectly trimmed grass in places the county also probably owned. It was generic for a beach, but I still welcomed the change. South Carolina is already green as it gets, but Panama City Beach was a lot more tropical while Upstate South Carolina was more temperate. I wouldn’t call the weather back home ‘mild’ in any way, but that’s what it was categorized as. And it is definitely more humid down here. No question.


    Our destination was only a short drive on Front Beach Road–I almost missed it since we had to perform what was the hardest part; entering the hotel. The entrance came up suddenly. There was no sign to signify where to turn into. It was pure luck (and the fact we were only going thirty miles per hour) that I didn’t pass it.


    This hotel had its parking lot located internally, occupying the first three floors of the seventeen-story building. I had to type in a four-digit code to open the gate that allowed me to enter the lot. I can only thank Dusty for sending Michael the pass. The entrance was to the side–there was also an exitway in the front that looked like an entryway if you weren’t paying attention. It was impossible to enter as it was blocked by a gate, but upon first look, one might confuse it for an entrance. A car could open it from the inside, but I have a feeling you’d Once I figured that out, my fears about the parking lot were mostly erased. Go right, not straight. Once I was stopped by the bar gate, I typed in the code to open it and the sliding gate behind it.


    Overhead drawing of the entrance—doesn’t account for the decline leading to the exit or how the entrance sneaks up on you. Drawing more crude than usual since I don''t have a computer on me.


    For the first two floors, about half of the parking lot was empty. Normally I would go ahead and park in one of those spaces, but I wasn’t able to. All of those spots had ‘FOR MEMBER NO. 1XX’ in blue paint on the concrete wall in front of it. Some of those spaces were taken, but for the most part, it was empty. For the other half of the parking spots on the first two floors, they had nothing painted on the front of it. The only spaces open were ones that I would have to back into for optimal positioning. That was one of the things I never wanted to do. Sounds odd, I know, but I hate doing it. There were also spots that were rendered useless by there being no space given by vehicles parked beside them. That was always annoying to see.


    Upon arriving at the interior of the third floor, the parking lot became a lot more empty, with the interior also having none of the writing on concrete that was on the two lower floors.


    Turning left, I decided to park in the middle space, since it was available. All I had to do was take a sharp right, which was exactly what I did.


    Turning right, I slowed down gradually, until I was probably two feet away from the concrete wall.


    I put Michael''s car in park and opened my door to see if I parked well…no, it was a bit crooked…


    “You parked a bit crooked!”


    I looked to my left, where the voice came from. There was a door that led to an elevator, which I imagined was the one that would lead us to our room. In front of it, was a rather lanky-looking man who was wearing a black T-shirt and black athletic shorts. He seemed to be smiling, enjoying the fact that I would have to straighten my car. For a few seconds, I didn’t know who this man was. I couldn’t stop to think “Who the fuck is this dickhead?”


    “Shut up dickhead!” – that was not from me, but from Michael, who was out of the car and stretching. I technically wasn’t finished parking yet, but there was nothing stopping him from getting some fresh air. Other than that the chance I could run over his feet adjusting my position. Right now, I was more preoccupied with how my mind had been read by two people…


    I ignored Michael, as he began to walk towards the stranger that had scathing criticism of my parking skills. I assumed it was Dusty, based off his voice, and the fact that Michael had challenged him right back instead of staying silent. I still had no idea what they looked like in real life. I can fully understand why, but I would rather at least know what they looked like before meeting them.


    On my second try, I ended up being within the white lines. I hopped out of the car to do the same thing that Michael did.


    Once I opened my eyes and quit yawning and stretching, I looked in the direction of Michael. He was talking to the ‘dickhead’, and another man, who was also wearing all black. Albeit, he was wearing black jeans as it looked like. I hope they have more of a variety of clothes. All black all the time gets boring eventually. He was a head shorter than Michael and almost two heads shorter than who I assumed Dusty was. Had to be Yuji.


    The journey was over. Now it was time for exploration. The worst feeling when going on vacation is when you’re in between driving and arriving. In those moments, you’re pretty much homeless. Sure, I could turn around and go back home, but that’s another seven-hour trek, and I already did that today. There’s also a thought in the back in the head that pays “what if you got scammed?” What if you paid thousands of dollars just to be told that you do NOT in fact have a reservation? As an adult, I’ve never had this happen, but as a kid I was held by a whim to my parent''s mishaps and jumps to conclusions. As an adult, I still have terrible memories of those times—it happened a lot more than it should. Maybe that’s why I was uneasy leaving today. Right now, I could relax. Everything was already sorted, and even if it wasn’t, I didn’t have to rely on others to fix it. Unlike back then, I have control of my own destiny. Let’s have some fun.