Monday, 29 July 2002 | Out-of-towners

Martin and I had driven only about 30 minutes beyond Raleigh (still 4 hours from D.C.) when we started looking for a place to eat dinner. It was almost midnight and we were creeping through towns that had collectively gone to sleep. We found a small pizzeria in a darkened strip mall that had a glowing red OPEN sign hanging in the window, and we fell in line behind the other patrons, among them a round man with a long, triangluar beard, and a 17-year-old guy wearing shorts and cowboy boots. We got the younger guy's attention when we ordered tomatoes on our pizza. "Y'all put tomatoes on pizza?" he asked. A man behind the counter, who was probably the owner, nodded solemnly in response.

While we waited for our pizza, we sat in chairs facing a mounted TV showing a program about embalming mummies. At different times, both of us glanced back to discover that the people standing at the counter were watching us as we watched TV. Martin caught Cowboy Boots laughing and pointing at us from outside of the restaurant. When a 12-year-old boy working behind the counter asked if we'd like a take-out menu, the owner replied, while looking directly at us, "They're not from here."

A couple hours later, we spotted what appeared to be a couple 80s big-hair bands congregating near an exit ramp in a small Virginia town, and I watched an old man operate a cash register at an alarmingly slow pace. His movements were almost imperceptible; I had to bite my lip to keep from smiling at my sudden anxiety.

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I'll have to tell you about the rest of the trip after I've gotten some sleep.