We all want a great meal at a great price. This is an old dream, and some would say this reflects a naive part of me, a naive part of America itself. Has there ever been a time, truly, where reality matched these expectations? Great...food at great prices? Simplicity? Ease? Or is everyone everywhere just raising the prices as they lower the quality?
We might become jaded and more jaded. Me, you, America. I don't know that many of us are still looking for the perfect nachos. We got tired, we got old, we got disappointed- we gave up.
Yet somehow, some of us, continue to cling to that optimism, that hope, that dream. And we get hurt, disappointed, crushed even.
Yet being naive- sometimes it’s a choice. And I choose it, again and again. Because if I have to look at the real world- McDonald’s and how much it actually costs, how it is actually not cheap at all and it doesn’t really even taste like food- if I have to look too hard at the real world. Well, I don’t know if I could go on.
So I hold on. I allow that hope. I know these things exist, somewhere, they have to. I need it.
I’ve been to town after town after town after town. Searching for- I don’t know what. And everywhere is the same. Look, there’s the Holiday Inn. I didn’t know this town had a PetSmart? And a Micheals, and a Denny’s. The Walmart is on the edge of town. The Sonic is across from McDonald’s. The hardware store looks independent until you see the TruValue sign. Again and again, all over this country. Yet- I can’t let my heart break. I can’t let myself get jaded. I am stubborn. I am naive.
I am also naive enough to think there might still be a quirky little Queer town somewhere in the desert. A town full of artists, full of cowboys, full of life and sun and hope.
Truth. At the drive-in, in TorC, the real story, the truth is not jaded at all. A dream fulfilled. Great food, great price, great town!More