So, I’m drunk beyond belief, my drinking buddy is in OK shape, and our other friend has arrived. I take one bed, my buddy takes the other, third party grabs a patch of floor (he doesn’t mind.) I’ve been asleep for what seems like fifteen minutes, but may actually be as much as three hours, when there’s a knock at the hotel room door: my girlfriend and intended bride has arrived.

The good news is, I am not hung over. The bad news is, I am not hung over because I am still drunk. In point of fact, I am still drunk when afternoon rolls around. I stagger drunkenly to the door, let in the girlfriend, stop at the bathroom to heave for a bit, then head back to bed. I am pretty sure I hear my girlfriend complaining that the room reeks of booze, and wondering aloud who the hell is sleeping on the floor, but I am already drifting off.

Some hours later, I awaken, still dizzy and feeling tipsy, but now the buzz is wearing off and the booze is taking its toll. Dammit, I didn’t drink enough water. Stagger, heave, take a bow. It is in this impaired and unattractive state that I propose marriage to my girlfriend. I explain to her that I wanted to make a big surprise of it, but was unable to obtain the license the day before. I go on to explain that, furthermore, I am far to ill from my night of debauchery to go get a license now. Sickly and stinking of alcohol, I ask my girlfriend to marry me. This is not, perhaps, my finest moment.

For reasons I may never understand, she says yes.

So, my friend takes my betrothed on a bayou adventure to obtain a marriage license while my other friend and I wait in the hotel room. I drift in and out of something that passes for consciousness, and eventually a marriage license makes its way to the hotel. I, being still sick unto death, remain indoors while the others celebrate in my stead, eating big Louisiana burgers and fried shrimp and whatnot, while I lay in bed and struggle to keep down a glass of water.

I’ve been in New Orleans just over twenty-four hours; this is shaping up to be a hell of a weekend.

Ah, what the heck, I’ll make you wait to hear about the wedding. The wedding that takes place in a place called… PIRATE’S ALLEY, YAAARGH!

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I’m not much of a drinker, really. I got blackout-drunk once when I was eighteen and barely touched another drop of liquor for ten years after that. Alcoholism runs in my family, but I guess it skips a generation now and then, because I don’t even like the taste of booze, nor do I feel compelled to drink. After my underage over-indulgence, I didn’t get drunk again until my friend (the same one who is on this trip with me) bought a bar in Cleveland. My friend is no more a drinker than I am, but you can’t visit a friend who owns a bar and not get drunk, I’m pretty sure that’s a law. So, we had a great time being drunk and stupid in Cleveland and had high hopes for New Orleans.

New Orleans did not disappoint.

Being the only one us who had ever actually been to New Orleans, I showed my friend around the parts I knew, and we picked up a couple of drinks along the way, including some cherries that were soaked in something that was not Everclear and some of the famous New Orleans Hurricanes. We had a nice buzz going, but we were looking for serious drunken stupidity, so we wandered in and out of a few bars. Although it was only a Thursday, there were live bands in several of the bars lining Bourbon Street, and we wandered into one where the band was playing some eighties rock covers.

Sidling up to the bar, we ordered a couple of shots. The bar tenderette eyed me up for a few seconds, then walked off to pour my shot, which she put into a glass tube, followed by putting the tube between her breasts and encouraging me to pull it out with my teeth. Talk about service! We knew where we’d be drinking for the rest of that night.

Oh, boy, did we drink. I bought shots, my friend bought shots, we bought each other shots, we bought the bar tender shots. It got to the point where the bartender was feeding me two shots at a time, and at some point she started feeding us Grand Marnier, which means i was already drunk, because I don’t like that orange flavored alcohol. I’m pretty sure the bartender was only marginally more sober than we were, because she spent most of her time drinking with us and eventually she didn’t even seem to be charging us for drinks. The drink girl working the floor stopped by once or twice and, using the shrewd tactic of taking my money and giving me extra alcohol instead of change, managed to get me to drink six or eight shots in addition to what we were getting at the bar.

The music pounded, the people danced, and we drank. The bar tender found increasingly creative ways to feed us increasingly large amounts of increasingly powerful liquor, and we tried to drink enough water to keep from dying of dehydration right there at the bar. Thank God for the air conditioner in the doorway, because that alcohol had my body temperature up to about 338 degrees (Kelvin).

Seriously, we drank a LOT. All I can say for sure is that we stood right at the end of that bar for hours and there was never a lull in the alcohol consumption. I am pretty sure our intake that night would be measured in bottles. We both drank a lot, but my buddy made several trips to the bathroom, whereas I spent that valuable time consuming more liquor. Also, I seemed to be getting a lot of extra attention from our bartender. This is kind of odd, since I am a fatass and my buddy is a gym rat, but what can I say, I’m charming. Or else fat guys are easy marks, whatever. The upshot is, I drank even more than my friend, and he drank a lot. We closed down the Famous Door, which is now my favorite bar on Bourbon street and my favorite tourist trap in the whole city, drunk as can be, and staggered next door to a place whose name eludes me. There, we got some greasy breaded food to soak up some of the alcohol (good luck with that) and some more alcohol to replace what was being soaked up by the greasy food. A delicate balance was maintained.

Although this second place (directly across the alley from Famous Door, if that helps) was more subdued and we didn’t party quite as hardy, we did have some interesting experiences there, as well. Most notably, as woman who was sitting at the bar with her dog invited me to a backyard crab boil at her house (I told you I was charming.) I absolutely would have gone, but my friend, my other friend (more on this later), and my girlfriend (or did she become my wife? more on this later) were uncomfortable about showing up at a stranger’s house. My feeling is, people who aren’t comfortable having strangers at their houses don’t hand out crab boil invitations to strangers in bars. Along with a verbal invite, she actually gave me a printed paper invitation and the fact that we didn’t go is my only regret about the whole trip.

I also met a guy named Michael (I think) from Holland (I think) with whom I had a lengthy and interesting conversation about America, world politics, Michael (I think)’s job as a diver in his country’s navy, and how there really aren’t any more fat people in the USA than there are in his homeland. I really had a good time shooting the breeze with that guy, and I wish I had gotten his contact information. Hell, maybe I did, I was wickedly drunk.

Some people rolled into the place (across the alley from Famous Door, remember?) and, being the friendly types we are, we raised a few glasses with them. Eventually, it was time to head back to the hotel. At this point, it’s post-5:00AM and we’ve been drinking since the evening before. My buddy seems to have shaken most of it off (he thinks he drank nearly as much as me, but he didn’t, period - I am sure I outpaced him by low double digits) but I was still outrageously drunk. Just as we left to head back to the car, the skies opened up in a monster downpour. The streets flooded in minutes and the rain showed no signs of slacking, so we hoofed it back to the car (parked on Canal street) in puddles that sometimes reached almost to my knees, and I’m a solid 6′5″ in shoes. On our way to the car, my cell phone rang and on the other end was a friend of mine from Las Vegas, a fellow professional poker player who had actually lived with me and my girlfriend for a while. My girlfriend (or is she my wife, now? the suspense must be killing you) doesn’t know it, but I’d invited this friend to meet us in New Orleans, and he’d arrived just as my buddy and I were leaving Bourbon street.

We stumbled into the lobby, collected my other friend, and headed up to bed, with no marriage license and only a few hours until my girlfriend arrives.

I think I’ll leave you all hanging, again. Tune in next time for the shocking conclusion (or not) of this exciting (or not) story.

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Before I left for New Orleans, I swiped my girlfriend’s birth certificate so I could get the wedding license on my own. I also asked my girlfriend to get my suit dry-cleaned, in case we ate at a really fancy restaurant, ha ha. When My friend and I arrived in New Orleans, we checked into our hotel, grabbed a shower each, then went straight to the local government office to get the marriage license.

“We don’t do those here, anymore.”

Argh! This office has just stopped issuing marriage licenses and I simply do not have time to drive all the way to the next-closest office in Orleans Parish. This is not good, as my girlfriend arrives at 9:00am the next day. I fret and sweat, but in the end, there is nothing I can do about it, and both my friend and I are dead tired. We decide to catch a nap, head out to the French Quarter, and work out the license issue in the morning.

Nap we did, then we awoke, put on our going-out duds, and ran face-first into the Famous Door. I’ve decided my Bourbon Street drunkening deserves a post of its own, so stay tuned to learn the answers to age-old questions, such as: did I get insanely drunk, and did my girlfriend agree to marry me despite the stench of tequila and an unexpected third person sleeping on the hotel room floor?

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Having passed through the eight stages of Detour Denial (amusement, annoyance, anger, more anger, disgust, seething anger, depression, blinding rage), our hearts even heavier than our eyelids, on our three-hundredth trip down a street marked “84,” we finally spotted a tiny sign that said “Tallahassee” with an arrow pointing down what looked like a residential side street. Fearing that the sign might be a mirage brought on by a combination of dehydration and pathetic desperation, we made a quick circle to read it, again. Upon a second reading, the sign still said Tallahassee, but the street it pointed to looked iffy, to say the least. We decided that anything was better than another minute in Thomasville, GA, and so struck out down the Tallahassee path.

Here is our initial screwup:

A little over fifty miles and forty-five minutes. Had we turned around and gone back exactly the way we came, the total delay would have been about one hour and thirty minutes. Not great, but survivable.

The clerk at the gas station said to take the 14 back to 10 West, but the 14 was barely a paved road as far as we could tell, and MapQuest seemed to have a better route, so we went west a piece:

Another forty miles and about fifty minutes. This is getting ugly, but we’re still OK, still OK. Oh, wait, this is Thomasville, GA, nothing here is OK.

Finally, we followed a path of “approximately thataway” and found our way to the Tallahassee area and 10 West.

Initial mistake: missed an exit that was only six miles away.
Compounding factor: Failed to notice we had entered an entirely wrong state.
Compounding factor: Decided to try and find a more efficient route back to the proper highway.
Compounding factor: The streets in and around Thomasville, GA, were designed by meth-addicted chimpanzees wielding random number generators.
Minimum time we could have lost due to the initial error: One or two minutes turning around for the proper exit.
Actual time lost to this detour: Somewhere north of four hours.

Finally, though, here we are, on a sparsely populated back road heading toward Tallahasse, FL, and 10 West. Thar she blows, the freeway of our dreams! Now we’re on our way! Party ahoy! New Orleans around the bend! Are you excited? I’m exc… exc… *YAWN*. I’m a little sleepy, actually. That was quite a detour. Hey, what the hell is this? My friend is asleep and now I’m driving all alone. Highway hypnosis is working its magic, but I must… get… to… New Orleans. We need to arrive in time to check into our hotel and to arrange the “BIG SURPRISE.”

I soldier on, singing softly to myself and trying not to be lulled to sleep by the white lines flashing by on the pavement. The occasional snatch of conversation as my friend drifts in and out of sleep helps, but soon I am forced to pull off at a rest stop. This pisses me off royally. I am, as I may have mentioned, a man, and I am one of those men who likes to cover ground quickly when I’m traveling. I am furious at having to take a break, but our little side trip to hell/Thomasville has really sapped my energy.

We sleep fitfully for a bit, then we are on our way, once more. The rest of the trip passes fairly uneventfully, and we check into our hotel in the early afternoon. We’re both dead tired, but I have to prepare for the “BIG SURPRISE.”

Next: The “BIG SURPRISE,” and way, way, way, way too much alcohol in way, way, way, way too short a period of time.

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The answer is, “Yes.” Furthermore, I support disinterment and desecration of any responsible parties who may have already gone on to their great reward, serving at the feet of the Prince of Darkness.

Here is Thomasville, GA, courtesy of Google Maps

.

It looks so unremarkable from here, but let’s expand our view a little (click for full size):

I want you to take a minute, look at the full-sized version of the above picture, and count how many Route 84s you see. How many individual, apparently unconnected, streets all share that single route designation. While you’re at it, have a quick hunt around for 319s, as well. I had initially edited the map above in Photoshop to highlight my point, but I’ve decided it’s more fun to allow my readers to look for themselves. Take your time, I’ll wait.

….

You’re done, are you? Did you like the way Route 84 would occasionally just end right in the middle of a road and become something else? How about the giant doglegs where Route 84 peters out at an intersection then just reappears a mile or two away? Best of all, did you notice how many times some of those state routes intersect themselves? Do you think I am joking? Please, have another look. You can actually be on Route 319 and come to a four-way intersection where all three other directions are also Route 319. I wonder how many of you spotted the bonus route, #122. Have a look at how 122 comes in the northeast corner of Thomasville, gets swallowed by the route tangle at the center of town, then, mysteriously, juts off of 319 southwest of the city, heading in a completely unrelated direction.

My words and the illustrations above do not do justice to the awful evil that is the Thomasville, GA street system. While trying to find our way out of this sixth circle of hell, we saw signs that literally showed this:

I wish I were kidding.

I had so many hilarious things I wanted to say about Thomasville and the time we spent lost there, but none of it seems funny, anymore. Don’t go to Thomasville.

Tomorrow (or possibly later, I am fantastically lazy): We find our way to 10 West, then on to New Orleans, then on to… THE FAMOUS DOOR.

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Interior: Front passenger compartment of a 2008 Chevy Impala SS; the driver is speaking to his lone passenger.
Driver: “Oooh, get Willin’, by Little Feat. Willin’ isn’t just a great driving song, it’s actually about driving.”
Passenger: “I see ‘Willing’ by Little Feat.”
Driver: “Yeah, that’s…”

[Chuck Berry’s Maybelline starts playing somewhere in the car. The driver digs in his pocket and retrieves his cell phone, which is the source of the noise.]

Driver: “Hello? Yeah, hi, Babe. Were on the 75 North near Tallahassee.”
Caller: “Blah blah blah, blah.”
Driver: “Yak? Yak, yak yak yak, yak.”
Caller: “Yak, blah. Blah blah. Yak, yak?”
Passenger: “Woohoo, I see the sign: 10 West, six miles.”
Driver: “Yak, blah blah blah blah blah blah blah.”
Caller: “Blah… blah blah blah, blah blah blah? Yak.”

[Phone call ends, conversation in car resumes, Willin’ plays, followed by Signed, Sealed, Delivered, and other great driving tunes.]

Driver: “Does that sign say Valdosta, GA?”

Sadly, the answer was, “Yes.” We had whipped right past our exit and trucked on into Valdosta. All I saw of the town was a gas station, where we got directions back to 10 West which, of course, we ignored, but it seemed like a lovely place.

The same cannot be said of Thomasville.

Thomasville has a quaint charm, with lots of trees and sleepy downtown areas. It appears at first blush to be a place where a man could cultivate a happy life with the woman he loves and the children she gives him. Don’t be fooled: Thomasville is evil, evil in a creeping, insidious way that lulls you into a false sense of security then hits you like an out of control Mac truck. The effect is very much like what happens when your lover pulls the blanket up over your head in bed, then farts in the air pocket, laughing as you tear at the blanket and gasp for air. At first, it seemed sweet, and felt cozy, then it became a hellish nightmare of claustrophobia and attempted escape. That’s Thomasville for you, the suburban version of being hotboxed.

What makes Thomasville so hideous? What evil lurks within its confines? What could possibly motivate me to say such terrible things about this (deceptively) lovely little southern town? The answers to these questions, and many more you haven’t asked, will be explored in my next installment of the New Orleans Odyssey: “Thomasville: Threat or Menace.”

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I also like to laugh. The only thing (that I will publicly admit to) that I like nearly as much as laughing is making other people laugh. If you ask me, I’m pretty darn funny. You didn’t ask me, but there it is, all the same.

I got some “link love” from another blog recently, so I stopped by to have a look. As it happens, I think it’s a pretty good blog. Some of the material is NC-17, but I’m over seventeen, so it didn’t kill me. Sometimes snarky, sometimes funny, and consistently well-written, ettarose-edgeofsanity gives you the lowdown on what its webmistress thinks of everything from paying taxes to her own clumsiness to contributing to birthday gifts for people she doesn’t like. A blog from the point of view of a 50-year-old woman who is capable of both raising her three grandchildren and swearing like a sailor is refreshing, indeed.

See Mike Draw his web comic. I’m not a huge fan of web comics because, frankly, most of them suck. That’s just my opinion, of course, but who else’s opinion did you expect to find in this post? As far as web comics go, though, Mike’s has a pretty good hit:miss ratio. I also like the free form nature of the comics: if Mike needs one panel, he draws one; if Mike needs four panels, he draws four; if Mike’s feeling colorful, you get color, otherwise it’s black-and-white for the day. I’m rather partial to this one.

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Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, in the guise of Sherlock Holmes, said, “Once you eliminate the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth.” I won’t bore you with the details of my thought processes, but I was able, after some hours of thought, to reduce the Sammy Hagar mystery to two possibilities.

• Hypothesis #1: Living the rock star life is good for your health.
• Hypothesis #2: Sammy Hagar engages in youth-prolonging rituals, namely the drinking of virgin blood.

Now, it doesn’t take a genius to see that #1 is clearly impossible. All one needs to do to prove that to one’s self is to reflect on the number of rock stars that have choked on their own vomit before the age of thirty. Clearly, the rock star life is not good for your health. That leaves only one possibility: Sammy Hagar drinks virgin blood. He may supplement his virgin blood intake with healthy eating habits and yoga, but I think we all know where the real power is coming from (Satan).

What about Mick Jagger, you ask? Yes, Mick appears astonishingly fit for his age, but as these photos show, Mick Jagger, who is only four years older than Sammy Hagar, has actually aged during the course of his nearly fifty years in show business. The difference is subtle but important: Mick Jagger looks very fit for his age, whereas Sammy Hagar looks like he is some other age, completely!

If Sammy Hagar happens to read this, I would like to invite him to send me his secret age-defying virgin-blood recipes, I promise to keep them to myself. I would love to look that good at sixty. In fact, I’d like to look that good, now.

If Mick Jagger reads this, you rock, dude. You wear your wrinkles well, but you might consider asking Sammy for just one or two bottles of his evil brew, so you don’t die before you make it back to the American south for another show.

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