Undisclosed - Zach Bo1inger
The Huntsville Visitor Center story
I'm in Huntsville on a business trip for about a month. I have a house sitter, so if you know where I live, don't bother trying to rob me.
Since I've got some time to kill, I headed down to the visitor's center to see what I could find for the weekend. There's a retired lady running the visitor's center. When I walked in, she asked if she could help with anything. I told her I was in town for a month and I was going to look through the brochures. She shuffled over as fast as her little legs could carry her over to the brochure wall. She was very excited to help me. Like a kid in a candy store she started pulling little brochures from the wall and filling up my hands. "You have to go here!" she'd say, and then tell me something she liked about each one.
I had about 20 brochures in my hand before she finally asked what I was interested in. I told her I was looking for some hiking or camping. She almost seemed confused. She looked like she was thinking, "well nobody comes here to do that." I was a little surprised because this town is right in the valley of some good sized hills at the edge of a mountain range. It looks like beautiful country for that sort of thing. And then she perked up and grabbed another brochure. "You should talk to these people. They know all sorts of things like that in this area."
She looked me over and saw that I was wearing a New England Patriots T-shirt and some athletic sneakers. "You probably like sports. Unfortunately all our sports are winding down. We have a farm team for the Milwaukee Braves, but their season just ended." That was funny, because not three hours before that, I talked to my mom on the phone and she thought the Braves were still in Milwaukee, too.
The tourist lady rattled off a few more sports teams that weren't playing this time of year, and then left me to my own devices. I picked up a brochure for a community theater, and her eyes lit up again. I should tell you, she was a sweet old southern lady. She was at least in her sixties.
She handed me another community theater's brochure. She lowered her voice and says "I should tell you, this one is a little more adult than the other. A couple nights ago, we went and saw 'The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas' and it was quite a bit raunchier than the movie version." I don't know how I managed to contain the laughter. "Whorehouse" just rolled off her tongue like it was perfectly natural for a lady that age to talk about it. Maybe it is, but I'm not used to hearing about it. I really want to go back there and take a picture of her and post it so you can see what a surprise it would be to hear this from her mouth.
About that time, another man came in and started thumbing through the brochures. He was planning a wedding and he wanted some things to send to some of the guests. He picked out five brochures and said he wanted a few of each of them. There was one he wanted in particular because it was for a historic house and that happened to be where the rehersal dinner was being held. The little old lady was very concerned. "How many of these do you want?" she asked. "Just a few for the wedding guests," he answered. She went out back to talk it over with another gentleman in the back room.
"I can give you 10 of each," she conceded, but she was not happy about it. "I'll have to take them from the back stock. Please leave the ones out on the shelves alone."
"I'd better take 12," the man said. I suspect he needed less than 10, but he smelled an opportunity for some fun.
The woman went on and on about the cost of printing brochures, as she counted out 10 of each from the back stock. At the same time, the man was taking 12 of each from the shelves. As he was counting, he said, "It sure would be a shame if people came here and spent their money."
I always thought sarcasm was a Northeast thing in the United States, but he was pretty good at it. And it got her all riled up. They had a heated debate about the cost of printing brochures and he said it was in investment they made, and the printers wanted people to see them. And she talked about all the groups that come through wanting large quantities and how there would be none left for individuals if those groups had their way. It became a very emotional battle for them both.
I looked down at my sizable stack of brochures for all her favorite places. I knew there was a pretty good chance that the only one I would actually go to was the Texas Whorehouse place. I considered putting all the ones I wouldn't use back, but suddenly the visitor's center didn't seem like a safe place to be. I subtly smiled to the lady and mouthed "Thank you very much," and slipped out. She looked back and me and smiled with appreciation and then looked back at him continued to unleash her rage.
Tonight's show was sold out. I'm going to try to get tickets for Thursday's show