Sean and I went to Youngstown yesterday. He had a roof appointment there. I wanted to go to the Butler Art Museum. None of this is the point of this post.
After the museum, we tried to drove home, but took 680 the wrong way and after 30 minutes finally realized it. So we're passing one of those chain restaurant/mall stretches, where for mile after mile its nothing but overpriced steakhouses and italian bistros and TGI Fridays. I'm all like "Lets go to Olive Garden", cause we hadn't eaten all day and I've been to OG once in my life before. It just seemed like a strange adventure sort of thing to do for us. We never go to places like that. Cause really, in Cleveland, why would you?
Turns out that everyone in Youngstown goes to those places. At exactly 5:30 pm on Saturday.
NIGHTMARE SUPER YUPPIE LOST SOULS TRAFFIC MONSTROSITY
It made me feel old, ugly, young, lucky, repulsed and repulsive, all at the same time. Suburban sprawl? Strip mall danteism? There is no appropriate word for a place like this. But there should be. It rests on the shoulders of our generation to label and separate this phenomena. Before it takes over all my road trips. Forever. We never actually made it to the restaurant because we couldn't get in the right lane. 7 times.
Sunday, March 11, 2007
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30 minutes?! Sounds like you were closer to Cranberry, PA than Youngstown. Unless, by 30 minutes you actually meant 3 exits, then you would've been in Boardman. Admittedly, it is chaotic there (and not just at 5:30 on Saturday...it's all the time), but it's really no different than most of the places surrounding Cleveland. And I've grown to appreciate the honesty of Boardman's chaos...it isn't built by a developer inside a fence. I'd be happy to give you tour sometime so that you are less intimidated on your next visit.
ReplyDeleteGreat post! I too am often frustrated by the lack of proper phrases to describe the yuppie (or sometimes just yuppie-esque/yuppie-wanna-be) tortureous pain that national chain restaurants and stores in a row, or worse yet, in a fake plaza with newly planted trees, inflicts on my soul. While you can find these little nuggets of American Capitalism and Bland-ism around Cleveland, you have to go to the suburbs and look. And why would you do that when we have such great unchained restaurants in the city? You wouldn't. Unless you're a yuppie, yuppie-esque, a yuppie wanna-be, bland, or very sheltered. Thanks for the post!
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