Day One-Hundred-Seventy-Nine, Weather Beaten

The weatherman promised catastrophe, thunder and hailstones.  High tides and hurricanes.  The very fires of Hell.  There were travel advisories and cancelled flights.  Tornado watches and severe weather warnings.  Thanksgiving was going to be ruined, they said.  We'd be lucky to escape with our lives.

It all seemed designed to make me uneasy.  I have been rained on before.  But I like my misfortunes to sneak up on me, like Love or intestinal gas.  Let the future bring what it will.  I'm still getting over my past. 

It was a little humid when I woke up.  The experts said 92%.  I'm not sure just what the numbers mean, but it does sound awfully moist.  My clothes had not dried much overnight.  Neither really had my hair.  I was a little slimier than I like to be.  A quick rinse might do me some good.

But I wasn't going to make it easy for them.  Meridian was ten miles off.  The storm was coming from the northeast and I was headed southwest.  I walked fast.  It sprinkled a bit but I did make it to town.  And into a fancy coffee shop.  Then it really started to rain.

Meridian is almost all hospital.  What I wanted was restaurant.  A place to plug in and supplement the cookies I had for breakfast.  Fancy coffee shop food is too small.  I need a truckers' cafe.

But I did wait out one wave of storm.  The people were nice to me.  The coffee was good.  I checked my map.  I wasn't as lost as I thought.  I was headed for the Verizon shop.  I had some things to discuss.

My Galaxy Tab has a battery gauge that is making itself less than useless.  It hops around.  It contradicts itself.  It sometimes refuses to charge.  It becomes convinced it is empty when it's not and automatically shuts itself down.  My one device.  Used hard and outdoors, in often unhappy conditions.  Does this really mean that Samsung sucks?

Yes.  Yes, it does.

The fellows at the Verizon shop did their best.  I think they were glad for someone to talk to.  It is lonesome selling phones just before the big holiday season.  But their godd natilure did not fix things.  I spent some time on a tech support line.  The Samsung woman was less than useless.  I hope she stubs a toe.

The Verizon fellow was decent, though.  As were the men in the shop.  They tried to help.  It's the thought that counts.  They did give me an address in Mobile.  Where they may or may not be able to help.  I'm not sure it will be worth the effort.  Mobile, Alabama is an awfully big town.  I'll as likely as not be murdered there.  And it will all be Samsung's fault.  I hope my heirs sue them goofy.

It was raining in earnest when I got out of there.  I went straight to a motel.  Twenty-five dollars a night.  The cheapest place I've been to yet.  My room is maybe ten feet square.  With all manner of smears and stains on the walls that I'm too sure I can identify.  But the price is right.  It's pissing down out of doors.  There are worse places I could be.

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