Hitchhiker’s Guide to Central Pennsylvania

Although it might not appear to be so to the untrained laymen eye, central Pennsylvania is a microcosm for heartland America. And because the heartland is the most important part of any country or person, central Pennsylvania is quite possibly the physical manifestation of America (besides the actual America). And out of all the countries God put on this planet, America is the most important and least-smelly one, so Cen-Penn is pretty much the world incarnate. And because the bible tells us so, we are the happy little nougat-y center of the universe. Indeed, central Pennsylvania is the totality of existence; the alpha and the omega.

Now the important question: how do I get the F out of here?

Super Secret Blog Spy Message!
(Here’s a little how-to on the what-to-dos-and-don’t-do should you find yourself stuck in this how-do-you-do poo-poo voodoo skip-to-my-lou skinamarinkidink-skinamarinkido human zoo)

Hitchhiker’s Guide to Central Pennsylvania
There’s a saying about Pennsylvania: They’ve got Philadelphia in the east, Pittsburgh in the west, and in the middle is Alabama. Take comfort in the fact that when hitchhiking, your chances of being picked up by either an honest-to-God redneck or an Amish buggy driver are 50-50 regardless of your proximity to Amish country. Take a chance, stick your thumb out and hop on it. You will either be treated to a lengthy story about the ’05 and ’08 Steelers or no story at all.

Etiquette is as follows. First find a deserted piece of shit of a road. You won’t have to look far. Thumb down a ride and tell them were you want to go. If you say “anywhere but here” or “just get me out of the state” the driver is then protected under Pennsylvania state laws from being accused of assault. He can legally beat your ass. Just try to be specific. Be like, “Yeah, take to that gay-bar in Scranton, you know what I’m talking about. The Man Hole. Yeah that’s right.” If you get beat up then at least it’s a no-no.

The Restaurant at the End of I-79
Interstate 79 runs the back spine of the state and then unceremoniously dies at Erie, Pennsylvania. You may have heard about it’s relevance in the news recently; it is ranked the 55th most deadly highway in the country. Some people say it’s because of all the drunks on the road. Others say it’s the Jersey Devil’s fault. I like to think it’s because of the highway herself. Once you start heading north, you’re hypnotically drawn towards oblivion. Your only options are to crash your car into one of the three great bastions of void: Lake Erie, western New York, or Ohio.

At the end of I-79 is a restaurant. It’s called Zero’s and its open 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. It is inhabited by a cadre of spooky trucker patrons, wait staff, and yokels, (figurative) ghosts of their formal selves, like the whole thing is a scene from a Tennessee Williams play if it was directed by Tim Burton. They are not dead. They are survivors. They are the few who stared directly into the quantum singularity of nullity, went past the event horizon and lived to talk about it. They will tell you to order the cherry pie.

I have no fucking clue what that’s supposed to mean. I’m just saying, these guys’ brains are seriously fried or they’ve acquired some sort of super sentience through this exposure and it just seems like their brains are sizzling bacon. Either way, you don’t fuck with people like that. Just order the pie.

Life, the Road, and Um, Like Everything
So um, like, apparently? You gotta walk down some roads…before you can be called a man? And chickens cross roads? So like, um…uh….we’re all like these chickens crossing roads…? And like, the more roads you cross, um, the more you’re a man? Like it’s a man thing? Yeah, and uh, um, it’s like spiritual, man. Aaaaaaaaaand, you gotta man-up and cross the road. It’s like, everything is the road and…the road is everything. Right? Uhhh…ummmm……So uh, when you’re like walking down “that road of life,” like, don’t be a faggot.

Dust in the wind, man.

So Long, and Thanks for Nothing
A thousand thank you’s, m’Lord. How gracious of you to permit me, a humble traveler, stowage in your mechanical vessel for 10 miles. I’m so glad you didn’t over-burden your heart by driving me to my actual destination which was where you were going to fucking anyway. No, we wouldn’t want that, would we? You gotta keep that extra seat open for some skanky road-head you’ll pick up along the way to Trenton, so shit, thanks for what little you did give me. I know it was tough. If you catch a homeless person begging on the street, don’t shill out more than 35 cents for him. You’ll crush him under the weight of your enormous generosity. Hey, man. Don’t worry that you dropped me off in the middle of nowhere in the middle of the night. It’s cool. Totally chill. I always wanted to know what Satan actually looked like. I’ll just crash in that coal mine tonight.

P.S. suck my ass, your ’90 Honda Civic smells like stale McDonalds.

Mostly Harmless?
A quintessential riddle for all hitchhikers: will the hitchhiker or the hitchhike-ie be murdered first? We’ve all seen The Hitcher. Some sketch guy travels the roads, get’s picked up by a car full of sexy teenagers who are really in their late 20’s, and he kills them all with an axe. And we’ve all seen the ending of House of a Thousand Corpses where after being the sole survivor of Dr. Satan’s said house of 1000 dead bodies, some half naked chick gets picked up by clown named Captain Spaulding and is promptly taken back to the house. Presumably to die. Point is all that stuff, crazy murdering hitchhikers and crazy murdering clowns who pick up hitchhikers, exists in central Pennsylvania.

But come ON. That’s 2 guys in a state of, what, like 12.5 million people? And let’s assume not everyone in the state hitchhikes or gives rides like that. Say, 1000 people in the whole state. Let’s do a really conservative estimate because it’s totally way more than that. That’s 0.2% chance of dying. That means you have a 99.8% of living (winning). Those odds are great. Shit are you kidding me, those odds are fantastic! You WISH you could have odds like that in Vegas. You probably won’t be brutally murdered so don’t be such pussies.

And Another Final Thing…
You need to walk a fine line when it comes to wardrobe. It needs to be durable, yet comfortable. Don’t come off as too hardened, or something that screams “take advantage of me.” Don’t wear any sports stuff: Pittsburgh fans hate Philly and vice versa, and you’re stuck in the middle. I suggest a Canadian tuxedo with a pair of comfortable boots lined with some of those Dr. Shoals pads. And maybe a musical instrument, even if you don’t play it (lie and say its broken when they ask).