my first night on the job

i arrived in gorgeous sutton (pronounced 'sudden' if you're from here), nebraska a little after 5:00 local time, 6 eastern. i had been on the road by myself (well, except for sharita, our gps, who would talk to me every 200 miles or so. but more on her later..) for about 13 hours, since leaving cleveland at four in the morning. needless to say, i was glad to park tammy at my destination, even if it was tiny town, usa (or so i thought. turns out sutton is fairly big for these parts. awesome!..) and tammy was extremely happy to take a nap and have a roof over her head. she was great on the trip. but i think she's still mad at me for not taking her for a bath since i've been here. she's still wearing the dirt and salt from the drive.

after moving most of my things in, i went to the convenience store in my front yard. so convenient. i bought some eggs, shredded cheddar cheese, tobasco sause (scrambled egg heaven), orange juice and a tombstone pizza. oh and a six pack of beer. during which time my boss, darren, called me and we agreed that i would meet him at the office the next morning (sunday) after church.

(now we get to the first day on the job)
hi, darren, i'm kris. nice to finally meet you.
kris, this is my wife cassie.
nice to meet you cassie.
wanna get right to work?
i guess so? what's up?
fairfield and clay center are having santa come today. here's a camera. go cover it.

that's essentially how it went. i will use another post to describe these 'santa comes to town' events, as they are entirely deserving of their own post. anyway, mission accomplished. i put in a good word with santa in the process. as lloyd christmas said, 'it feels good to mingle with these country folk, eh harr'?'

back to sutton. hey, is there anything open on sunday? nope. great, thanks, anything else for me? another santa event in trumbull at 5, want it? sure, i guess i have nothing else to do.

(here's where sharita comes back into play.) i have no idea where trumbull is. the first two were pretty easy to find. i use my gps for this one. city: trumbull. state: nebraska. address: skip. street: umm.. i'll pick a random street, that'll get me to twon and i'll find it easy enough. the town's only so small. twenty minutes in to what should be a 35 minute drive, i realize i am not going in the right direction at all. SHARITA! i try entering in a new street. just get me there, i don't care how long it takes, just get me there. after zooming out 3 times on the gps screen, i see that sharita is taking me about ten miles in one direction, turning me onto the interstate for about ten miles, then taking back in the direction i came. what the hell.. let's roll with it. i'm with you shareet.

the exit i take dumps me off on a dirt road. it's been nightfall for a little while now. the only lights in sight are my headlights and distant lights on barns, so far away they might as well be stars. before i realize it, i'm in the middle of miles and miles and miles of fields with absolutly no clue where i am or where i'm going. there's dirt roads with letters and dirt roads with numbers. it means nothing to me. less than 24 hours in the state and i'm in the middle of a horror movie. so i call my boss. darren, i'm so lost right now. he tells me to take road b south. i find road e, road d, road c, ahh road b. oh, awesome, you mean road b only goes north? where the hell am i?! well, it's road s b, so maybe that's what he meant. take south b.

not what he meant. oh you mean that i have to drive a quarter mile past the first road b to get to the road b that goes south? oh, of course. i hate you nebraska. eventually i arrive at trumbull and do what i need to do. however, while i'm there i go to take something out of my pocket and my back up memory card for the camera falls out. in the two seconds i look at my hand to see what happened, the card has vanished. literally nowhere to be seen. five or six people around me begin helping me look, but it's nowhere.

i call it a night. i make sure to get correct directions back to sutton. i probably pound a few beers and pass out on my air mattress. welcome to nebraska.