I’ll be driving down the road, with Barry snoozing in the passenger seat. I hate to wake him up, but I have to. “Honey? Could you write something down for me, so I don’t forget?” If he’s driving, I sometimes ride with the notebook open in my lap. The result is what I call “fluff,” those funny things that flash by as we’re lumbering down the road at 55 mph.

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North Carolina has many institutions of higher learning, like Duke, and UNC, and Back Swamp Community College. If I was trying to get into graduate school, I’d hate to have that last one on my resume.
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We recently drove past an antique store in Woodbine, Georgia, where they call a spade a spade. Their sign simply said, “Dead people’s things for sale.”
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Speaking of signs, our nearby farmer’s market has a huge banner that says, “Collards,” in 2-foot tall letters. At Thanksgiving, I watched a man come in and buy so many that they filled the cab of his truck. He drove away, his head barely peeking above the sea of green.
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Near Christmas, I saw another huge banner, along a back road in North Carolina. This one said, “Collard Kraut.” I bet that gets a lot of takers.
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Somewhere along I-95 in Florida, we saw an actual restaurant called “Ying’s Chinee Takee Outee.” That’s either an anachronism or a sadistic signmaker.
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Speaking of Florida, I’ve got a new slogan for the state, based on recent observations: “Florida, the dead armadillo state.” Then again, there are a lot of states vying for that title.
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Georgia might consider a new slogan, too. “Interstates under construction…since Eisenhower.”
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And South Carolina might use this: “Y’all be nice, or we’ll secede again.”
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OK, what’s with the Christmas inflatable yard decorations? Only about one in ten is inflated. The rest are not festive holiday cheer, they’re what Barry refers to as “technicolor flaccid lumps.”
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Real streets I would not like to live on: Tattletale Lane. Embarrass Avenue. Dead Cow Lane.
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Real streets I would like to live on: Ju Ju Lane. Daisy Street.
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Can you imagine having a friend in Friend, Nebraska? It’s easier than imagining an enemy there.
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Laramie, Wyoming: Where the truck stop ladies’ room has a vase full of plastic flowers…and the vase has water in it.
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What would you find across from the Sleep 4 Le$$? The competition — a white sign, black letters: “Generic Motel.”
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In Elko, Nevada, we drove past an establishment called “Inez’s Dancing and Diddling.” Wow. Are there really still women named Inez?
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We stopped at a rest area next to Stinking Water Pass. When I took my water bottle to the fountain to fill it, I was stopped by a large sign that said, “Non-potable water.” No kidding.
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On I-95, we were passed by a car with a personalized license plate that said “Ms Epoxy.” She was driving fast, probably trying to get away from a bunch of single guys with boats.
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Weirdest boat name this year: A fishing boat called Dang Brothers. I guess, to be grammatically correct, that should be Danged Brothers.
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I wish the folks at Gaskills Hardware had some punctuation for their changeable sign. The last time I saw it, the sign said, “Crab Pot Trees.”
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Speaking of things that don’t go together, here’s my favorite pair of highway signs from Route 24: On the top, “Welcome to Turkey, North Carolina.” On the bottom, “Bird Sanctuary.”