One thing I’ve learned in all my traveling is not to ask where to go for lunch. They’re always eager to recommend a place where you can get “the best” waffles or burgers or fried chicken or chili or pigs feet or whatever passes for “the best” where ever I happen to be … but then they try to give you directions.

Waste. Of. Time.

It’s always “Go west on 4th street like you’re going to the old Hansen place, then make a slight right at the house with the cow mailbox — not a hard right, that’ll take you out to the fairgrounds, just make an easy right — and then go straight for awhile until you go under the bridge where Billy Ray crashed his car that one time. Look for the spotted hog and when you see it go left until you see Elmer’s mother’s begonia patch, and there you are. Best cheese curds you ever had.”

Do they not realize that I don’t live here??? That I asked them for directions because I don’t live here??? That because I don’t live here, I probably don’t know where the Hansen place is, who Billy Ray is or where he crashed his car, what a spotted hog is, or who the hell Elmer or his mother are? Because I don’t live here!!!

That’s why I just don’t ask for lunch recommendations anymore. It just isn’t worth the trouble.

The cheese curds, though? Yum.