Quaintness should not be confused for interestingness, or bizarreness, or oddness. All in all it's kind of a bland place. Not that that's a bad thing. I've come to grips with the fact that I'm not likely to see a man in a pink sweatsuit with a pink sparkle scarf and pink platform heels strolling down Main Street as I so often do at home. I was prepared to think that fourteen antenaes stuck to the top of a truck was the height of crazy around these parts. Or so I thought.
Apparently, Kentucky likes to keep their interestingly bizarre oddities out of the city limits and on the shoulder of deserted windey mountain freeways.
Friday afternoon I was driving to the airport through the KY mountains --
just to be clear, I'm calling them mountains because they are large hills that the rented Ford Focus struggled to go up and down; but am not to confusing them with REAL mountains that would turn that Ford Focus back to the flatlands of Kansas in tears
-- when I crested a hill and BEHOLD! there, on the other side of the road stood a man in a Gorilla suit holding a sign that said "Monkey Love" in big red lettering.
What the Whaaa?
I looked about to see if there was a pet store or strip club or something he was promoting; no, nothing but trees and fake mountains as far as the eye could see.
I looked to see if he was hitchhiking; no, there was no monkey thumb or destination written on that Monkey Love sign. And what kind of person would pick up someone wearing a gorilla suit? That's a slasher movie waiting to happen!
I looked to see if there was any explanation at all why someone would be in a gorilla suit at 3 o'clock on a Friday afternoon in the middle of the nowheresville Kentucky mountains. As far as I could see there was none.
But that didn't make it any less awesome! And I tipped my cap to Kentucky for showing me that I should not just assume it's brand of wackos is any less ostentatious than those I am used to dealing with in DC. Well played, Kentucky. Well played.
