First Post: The Vehicle Inspection Adventure

 I, with my SO and two cats, moved to North Carolina on 08 August 2018. My sobriety date is 17 November 2018, a mere three months later.

These two facts are earthshaking for me. I love sobriety (most of the time). Still not sure about the South. I'm making an effort.

I'm now channeling David Sedaris as my guide to the South, not because he grew up 90 miles from here, but in his book, "Me Talk Pretty One Day", he writes charmingly about moving suddenly to a small town in rural France. He describes how he interacts with the locals in the small French town. Quite a culture shock! (I so, so get that.) One of Mr Sedaris' big challenges is speaking and understanding the local language.

Quite frankly, I'd do better in my small Southern town if the language we spoke was French. I speak French, pick up weird local accents found in the French countryside when just visiting, not even living there. We've been living here in North Carolina a year and a half, and still, walking into local businesses, I take a quick look around to see if there's a likely translator in the house. Luckily, the locals can usually understand me, though clearly they find my Northern tones harsh.

Understanding the words is sometimes, frustratingly, not enough. I think the non-verbal stuff was easier in my three drinking months here...I either got it, or I didn't care.

Let me tell you a story.

I was getting my car, no, ve-HIC-le, its required safety inspection. I looked up safety inspection locations on line. (This was a pointless activity as by and large the only internet anyone uses here is Facebook. Any business listed on line is really desperate because no one but "foreign" transplant will look there.).
I went to the place closest to me. There were signs saying "Car Vacuum Here" and "Safety Inspection Here" I dutifully drove to the Safety Inspection one. It looked dubious. Where I come from, Safety Inspection is done by State employees with clipboards in a drive thru dedicated facility. Here a bunch of young people were standing around holding polishing rags. No clipboards. A young man said "youlgwanov'rthar" and pointed at what appeared to be an unused wing of the building with a distinctly unwelcoming utility door. I looked at him in utter incomprehension. "ma'am, youlgwanov-rthar. Lfyrkey". Key! I got that. The picture was falling into place. He wanted to me to leave the key in the ignition so he could check things while I lounged in whatever sort of space was behind the utility door. We don't lounge during car inspections in the North. We sit anxiously in our cars, being directed to rev our engines alarmingly.

Before lounging, the key issue must be dealt with. There's a necessary backstory: I got sober after drifting, in a drunken stupor, into a cement truck. You get caught doing that, and your life changes. Normal people could leave their cars with the keys, and the guy could do whatever it was that he did to make sure my car wouldn't fall apart on the North Carolina roads.. I couldn't do that. My car, through no fault of its own, is graced with an Ignition Interlock Device (IID), known by me as the g-d f**king Blow & Go. People get these things installed in their cars after they get a DUI. Therefore, I had to be the one starting the car, which inevitably meant I would have to Blow in Public, something  I remain embarrassed about.

No real need to be embarrassed here. Based on DUI court case statistics and general population, almost 10% of possible NC drivers firstly don't have a licence at all for a least a year, then have an IID, due to a  DUI conviction.  Instead of being embarrassed by the g-d f**king Blow & Go, I could be riding a 49cc scooter, for which no license is required. You see a lot people here riding those things; they might as well be going around with DUI written on their foreheads. I think of all the places I've been where a fleet of little scooters buzzing around was a sight of joy and youthful abandon, Seattle, New York, Paris, India...not here. Lucky me, I offended in Washington State and only have to suffer one year of the g-d f**king Blow & Go, not a suspension.

The utility door led to the office, where I deduced from the presence of a counter and a credit card swiper, I was supposed to pay. I couldn't understand a word the young woman behind the counter said. When I got a translation, it didn't make sense. It was "Take this out there." She'd refused to take my credit card, instead handing me a piece of paper with a scrawl on it.  I said, "Very sorry, but I'm a Northerner, we have to have things explained to us." Why couldn't I just pay? She was uninterested. Luckily, the inspection guy showed up then, wanting me to start my car. He took the piece of paper, had me start the car, scribbled on the paper, said, "dyoulwanyrcrwashd?" I was delighted to understand "wash", apparently the operative word.  Oh! That's why the woman wouldn't let me pay! They were going for add-ons, the joint being multi-purpose oriented. I'm used to crisp state run inspection operations, not car wash businesses with a sideline. Having refused the wash, the transaction proceeded smoothly.

All this wandering around in incomprehension was disorienting and exhausting.

I drove home, fixed a nice dish of cashews and dates, poured a big glass of fizzy water, made sure a mindless novel was queued on the E-reader, and climbed into bed. It was 3PM, the sun must be over the yardarm somewhere. I was ready for oblivion, without the alcohol, without the lovely edible, and I knew how to find it.