Where is Mount Rushmore?

Last night I called in an order to one of my favorite pizza places that I haven't ordered from in quite a while. I honestly felt bad that it had been something like six months since the last time I ordered from them. It wasn't because I went on a diet, or because I was suddenly too poor for take out. Padawan and I have been eating as much pizza as usual. 

I hadn't call in six months because I was having an affair. 

I was cheating on Rockin' Tomato. I was cheating on them with a new pizza place that opened up that had no delivery charge and a monstrosity of fatty awesomeness called Chicken, Bacon, and Ranch Pizza. For those of you that are unaware, this is awesome. If you take chicken, bacon, and ranch and stick it on a sandwich, a pizza, or on a damn plate and eat it straight up, it  is fucking unbeatably fabulous. You cane eat two slices of this pizza and feel happy and full. But it's so fucking delicious that you have to keep eating until you have eaten half of the pizza or you feel like you're going to explode. Because of this amazing slice of sin, I had a six month long affair with the new place.

But last night I had a craving for pizza rolls. And the only place you can get good pizza rolls in Northwest Austin is at the Rockin' Tomato. Also, they have this really good ranch dressing with garlic for dipping that I can only describe as orgasmic. Yes. It's just that good. 

Anyway, so I called and said I wanted to place an order for carry out. (Not carry out as in you carry it out to me, but carry out as in I'd like to come pick it up.) Then I gave them my phone number.

"Okay, is this for Chanel or...um...Princess?"

Wow. I forgot about that. Sometimes I order from them on days that I'm working, and if the phones are ringing non-stop I have my friend Dizzy call in the order for me. Dizzy gives them my phone number and then says, "Put it under Princess." So they had my name in their system as Chanel/Princess.

"Yeah. That's me." I couldn't help laughing. He sounded so confused. A lot can happen in six months. This guy was clearly new, because everybody else knew the story behind that. Most of them just said "Princess" without the Chanel because they found that far more entertaining. Some people are so easily amused.

I totally intended to go with Padawan to pick it up, but because of something on StumbleUpon, Padawan insisted that I take a stupid world geography test to see how smart I was when it came to global geography. Let me just say this in my defense: I made As in all of my Geography and History classes from the beginning of my school career. I used to be so good at Geography that I even made an A in my college geography class, despite the fact that I couldn't understand a damn word the Professor said all year long because he had this horrendously thick Korean accent. It was so thick I probably could have cut it with a knife, and it grated on my nerves like nails on a chalkboard. 

The thing is, I made As in Geography because I had to know it. Frankly, I didn't care about any of it. History I found fascinating and went out of my way to learn more than they were teaching me. Geography...well, it just didn't interest me. *shrug* To each his own. So I made myself remember it as long as I needed to, but as soon as that information was no longer necessary I shoved it to the back of my mind where it either escaped or was forgotten.

I did fine on the first three levels. Basically, they would name something and you would have to take your  mouse and click the spot it was located in. Cities and buildings and rivers and blah blah blah. All well and good.

But then they had the nerve to ask me to click on the location of Mount Rushmore.

Mount Rushmore? Are you kidding me? Well, I knew it was in the United States. But I have never known what state it was in, let alone where exactly in that state it was. Who the hell cares about Mount Rushmore? I mean, really? It's just some Presidential faces carved into the side of a mountain. The presidents themselves represent amazing things in history, but the mountain itself is rather unimportant. As in, why the hell should I care about it? 

I don't. So I never knew what state it was in. So I guessed.

Seemed like Washington State was a good bet. Lots of mountains. Far away. Obscure.

Um. Wrong. 

Now, the states aren't drawn out on this stupid thing. It's just the whole continent of the US with only natural boundaries showing, but no state lines that aren't physically there. So when they showed me the proper location I couldn't be entirely sure what state it was in, only that it was in the Northern US close to Canada. It didn't TELL me where, though I think the area is either the bottom of North Dakota or the top of South Dakota. Or it might to the left of the Dakotas. I don't know. 

And then it had the nerve to give me no points. Well, for the love of God, I was at least in the right damn country. I pinpointed within 2 kilometers where Manchester, England was though I've never been there in my life, but they wouldn't give me any points for Mount Rushmore? Well, fuck them.

I made it through level four, and then the bastards had the nerve to tell me that I had a world geography IQ of only ninety five. 

On the bright side, though, I scored 95% on the test immigrants have to take in order to become full citizens of the United States. According to their statistic something like 92% of Americans can't even pass it, let alone make an A on it. Since it's all questions about things they teach you in American History, it leaves me to believe that a lot of people are idiots.

And nowhere on that test did it ask me to pinpoint on a continent the exact location of Mount Rushmore, because everybody knows that Mount Rushmore is nothing more than a stupid tourist attraction that people stop to see to give themselves a false sense of intelligence, belonging, and culture.

Like, OMG, I'm so cultured that I, like, drove halfway across the country to look a mountain that was turned into a giant sculpture of these dead presidents!!!!! Like, I don't even know which presidents they are. Tee hee! I am, like, not even sure what they did that made them so famous!!! But I'm cultured because I'm taking pictures of them. OMG, OMG!!!!!

For the record, the presidents represented are Washington, Jefferson, Roosevelt (Teddy, not Franklin), and Lincoln, and I think knowing that, and who those men were and what they did, is far more important than knowing where their faces were carved into the side of a mountain.

I digress. Because I was taking this stupid test, I gave my card to Padawan to go pick up the food. And then he came home, we ate and watched House, and went to bed.  Padawan got up for work and left while I was sleeping. Unintentionally taking my debit card with him this morning.

Meaning that I had to waste fifteen minutes this morning searching our apartment desperately for loose change so I could buy a coffee to warm me up.

Wow. This is one long, random bit of rambling. I should probably delete. But I think I'll post it for now and maybe delete it later.