Updated Update!

I didn't update last night because I thought it would be boring, but now (dun-dun-DUNNNNNN!) the plot thickens.

So the U-Haul remained in the Pigby's driveway with no observable activity most of the afternoon. Around 3PM, I settled down on the couch to watch a movie and eventually fell asleep. At precisely 4:56PM - ooh, doesn't that sound official? I didn't memorize the time, I checked Caller ID a moment before posting - Alan telephoned to report that he was stopped in traffic on the highway and requesting that I check Georgia Navigator for him (that's a real-time traffic webside from the Georgia D.O.T.). Once I did that, I looked out the window and the U-Haul was gone! Carelessly, I'd let them escape without finding out anything about what was going on! I stink as a master detective.

Once Alan finally got home, he suggested that we go out for dinner, so that's what we did (Applebee's). On the way home, we stopped at the sleazy liquor store so I could buy some wine. A couple of amusing side-stories about the sleazy liquor store: this is a place that caters to the gallon-jug wine, cheap disgusting vodka that you've never heard of, Bud Light crowd; we first went there during a county-wide search for Madeira wine which we needed for an Ina Garten recipe. Of course, none of the grocery stores, neither the giant wine-mart or the two nice, upscale liquor stores had Madeira but we found it at this one - good Madeira, too. On that trip Alan noticed that they carry my current favorite wine, Kendall-Jackson Meritage, about $2 cheaper than the grocery store, so occasionally we'll brave the place. Now, I think Kendall-Jackson is decent wine for a decent price ($15 - $23 a bottle, depending), a good compromise between two-buck Chuck and paying $75 a bottle for Silver Oak. At Publix, Meritage is usually $15 a bottle and at the sleazy liquor store it's $13. And you KNOW you're in a sleazy liquor store when the proprietress, who rang me up, looks at a $13 bottle of wine and says, "Ooooh, expensive!"

The proprietress is the best thing about the sleazy liquor store. She's about my age, give or take, and is this tiny little Asian woman - if I had to guess, Korean, but I'm not positive. I don't know how many generations her family has been here, but whether it was her parents, grandparents or an even older generation who immigrated, she was definitely born and raised right here locally. She has a much thicker, slower Southern drawl than I do; it's not quite as cornpone as "The Dukes of Hazzard" but closer to the way those guys sound than me. The incongruity of it is rather jarring, and kind of funny, like one time we were going to Mom's for a cookout and the grocery store didn't have any Rolling Rock, so we stopped there. She didn't have any either, when we asked, but offered, "I kin order some for ya, but I won't git it in...least a week, prob'ly, 'cause I hafta tawk to the supplier first. Or, wayt a minnit, lemme go look in the back."

Okay, so back on topic: when we got home from dinner and our trip to the sleazy liquor store, the U-Haul was still gone. Alan made a point of checking. But this morning, we got up around 9:30 and it was BACK! Still with all doors closed, still no visible activity next door, but the U-Haul has returned!