Dopple Gang

By Beckie Carlson
I recently went on a trip with my youngest daughter to Atlanta, Georgia. I had not been to Georgia before. I used to live in Alabama and Florida (at different times), so I figured it would be mostly the same. What I didn't know was that Atlanta is Gotham City. You may not have known this, and I'm sorry if I'm ruining some fantasy-other-wordliness aspect of Gotham City, but....it's in Georgia.
Our adventure began when we got the rental car and headed out in the safe hands of GPS (aka evil maniacal devil guide) to our hotel. I don't know when I decided Siri was a reliable source again. She has burned me way too many times in the past for me to have any sane reason to trust her, but here I was, across the country in the middle of a rainy night, trusting my life to the voice in my phone with a desire to kill me.
How do I know she wants to kill me? Let's recap. I have gotten lost more times than not when using her. Usually it is because she decides to tell me to take U turns in the middle of freeways or busy roads. Other times it is because she leads me to my destination which actually turns out to be a lonely spot in the middle of nowhere, perfect for murder. This time, it was to the back side of a prison. Yes, just pull into the guarded driveway...don't mind the guns..."your destination is on the right"....sure it is. I didn't fall for it.
I had a feeling that no matter what Siri said, I should probably head towards the taller, better lighted buildings in the distance. By some miracle, we ended up at our hotel. I prefer to believe it was devine guidance. On the way, we discovered we were in Gotham. It wasn't hard to tell, all we had to do was look up. The buildings were somewhat shrouded in fog. Did I mention it was raining? Constantly? The entire weekend? The fog swirled around the tops of the buildings. One building in particular had lights shining off the top, cutting through the fog, just waiting for the Bat signal to be blasted into the sky. It was Gotham. I'm sure of it. If that wasn't enough proof, the sirens that screamed all night were the clincher. I didn't actually SEE Batman, but I'm pretty sure I saw something dark and caped streak past my 9th floor hotel window in the middle of the night.
The rest of our trip went fairly well. We went to a Art walk/block party, very much NOT like the art walks here in Arizona. I expected to see cool art that made my mind scream, "How did they think of that!?" like what happens at the art walks here. Instead, what my mind was screaming was more of a, "WHY did they think of that? What is wrong with them!?" My daughter assured me it was all about the experience, not the product. That had to be the only resoning behind the live music in the "Mammal Bar" which turned out to be a very warm, over crowded room (bar), with a group of adult size toddlers playing on xylophones, recorders, and bongos....with no apparent melody in common. My brain hurt and I wanted to curl up with something familiar, like a cactus. It was painful.
All in all, I totally enjoyed my trip with my daughter. She is an awesome person. I'd want to be her friend if we weren't related. She's totally cool. She is also blessed/cursed with the same talent as I have. We both see celebrity faces in random people. On this trip we saw young DiCaprio, Ice T's uncle, A white Bruno Mars, and the perfect blend of Bradley Cooper and Will Arnett. I admit to following the latter around with my eyes for quite a while and even snapping a picture. Is that weird? It's not like I'm going to stalk him or google his picture online and find out his name and whether or not that girl with him was his girlfriend or send him bunnies or anything, it was purely for research.
Cause I said so.
Photo credit: www.dreamstime.com