Redneck Moment

Yesterday, some friends of ours who aren't from around here were asking what was going on downtown that there was so much traffic and they had the roads blocked off and everything. I kind of wish I could have said, "Gosh, I don't know! It's a mess, isn't it?" But no. Instead, I told them all about Speed Street. I don't mean that I said, "That's Speed Street. Something to do with NASCAR." No. I went into detail about it having to do with the race this weekend, even told them the name of the race, and how there are vendors and food and representatives of the race teams and giveaways. Then our friends wanted to know why there were so many police officers out. Did I just say, "I don't know"? No. I launched into a big explanation about how they'd had some trouble in past years and have found that having an officer on every corner really helps. And I didn't stop there. I proceeded to explain, unasked this time, about how they had spread out the whole Speed Street thing so it wasn't so congested. Thank goodness they didn't ask me if Dale Jr gets to keep the number 8 when he leaves his father's racing team because I know the answer to that too!

I've never actually been to Speed Street. I've walked through it on my way to my car and looked down at it from Big Bank Land when the bands started banging their drums in the middle of the workday and glared at all the idiots who don't really believe that the road is closed ahead and make a traffic mess for the rest of us. But somehow, yesterday I was an expert. I wish they had asked me more questions about racing because aside from the Dale Jr thing, which I only know because the local news interrupted regularly scheduled programming here when he announced he was leaving his father's company, I'm proud that I'm NASCAR-dumb.