Selinsgrove by Sunset: matchbox cars, party jams and door knobs

At 10 o’clock at night I found myself locked in the bathroom.

This particular Monday had started much earlier- around the usual time with all the usual tricks. There wasn’t much to report. Traffic was a tad bit heavier than normal, but nothing to get too worked up about. And as for most of the day- it was pretty straight forward. As days of the week go, it could have been worse.

Have you ever driven a Mitsubishi Eclipse? If you haven’t, then please never do. Driving that car is an incredibly unsettling feeling. You’re low. You’re very low. And the steering wheel is very non-adjustable. It has the comforts of an old roller coaster car. I felt like kind of a…hard to pinpoint one particular word that fit. Jackass.

But as stated previously, when it comes to traveling the Pennsylvania Turnpike, I am a beaten man. The state troopers have won. I used to drive fast. I drove impatiently. And while I still do, I certainly do not when driving the expensive and massively boring PA Turnpike. So this sports car I had- this teeny bopper matchbox car that could get up to 160…one sixty!...nearly double what the Corrolacoaster can do, would remain legal, never going more than sixty miles per hour. It seemed like a little bit of a travesty. But the car looked like a little bit like a travesty. It evened itself out.

It was a beautiful late afternoon in America.

The soundtrack was a mix of My Morning Jacket I had cooked up- a song or two or four from each of their albums except for the live one. They are such an amazing band. Play them loud! It’s hard to not drive fast when they get wailing, when the motor gets running. How can you not break at least one American traffic law when “Easy Morning Rebel” comes on? It’s one of those times where I felt that if you did get pulled over, you could just explain to the officer the situation you were in and they would simply understand. Because it’s America and speeding when a good rock ‘n roll song comes on the radio is what we do, what we were born to do and what should just be universally considered as something that while not entirely legal, is certainly understandable. Let ‘em live!

My Morning Jacket does not seem right though, when driving a Mitsubishi Eclipse.

The trip was finished with party jams and a promise to myself that we’d play at least one Rhianna song at our wedding.

You can fast forward a couple hours- through checking in to the hotel in Selinsgrove, PA and dinner and settle in back at the hotel and re-runs of It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia before calling it a day. I did not think to bring my phone with me to the bathroom when I went to brush my teeth. The door knob was broken. It kept twisting. I was stuck. There are two sides to Ryno- Bolster and O’Connell, and both sides react to certain situations in different ways. O’Connell prevailed and thankfully, I had a roommate. He went to the front desk and returned with the old lady who was on duty.

This was a little before 10 o’clock at night and was about an hour before I finally did call it a day- in a different room and with My Morning Jacket still in my head.

Patriots 27, Giants 20