Growing up I was friends with a couple of brothers whose father owned a couple of car garages. And they had a huge car barn where we built hot rods and worked on our own cars. The coolest part about building these hot rods was that we got to drive them from time to time. You want to talk about feeling like a bad ass, be in high school and roll up to the school in a blown 23 T-Bucket or a 32 Ford Coupe with a chopped top and suicide doors, shaved door handles and exhaust loud enough to set off ever alarm in the parking lot.
A little before spring break one year, one of the brothers and I was talking about going to Panama City Beach for spring break. Of course moolah was the biggest concern. We were in high school after all. My friend mentioned that his parents were going down and that we could stay with them. This guys parents where cool as hell, what time we came and went was absolutely no concern, knowing his parents they were going to stay in a nice place (bonus). Then he laid the deal maker down on me, if I went we got to take the T-Bucket and the 32. Can we leave now!
Think about it, a young guy with sweet hot rods at the biggest spring break spot, I was in heaven. Spring break couldn’t get there fast enough.
The day of the trip comes and we are both smiling like a couple of rats eating cheese, even though it was a bit cool (probably in the 50’s). In typical fashion we make a quick check to make sure that we have everything before we head out and then go to fill up before we head out. Since these where hand made cars we stopped every now and then just to make sure that they were running fine and so on. At one point my friends dad had decided that the cars where fine and that we didn’t have to stop any more.
There we are heading down the highway being the center of attention to everyone going in both directions. My friend’s parents in the lead in the 32 with my friend and I following in the Bucket. For those of you who might not know what a 23 T-Bucket looks like mash here and if you don’t know what a 32 Ford coupe looks like mash here. Damn we were cool …and cold, but we were cool. Damn it was cold. Very shortly after the trip started we both opted for leather jackets. Not long after that we looked like freaking bank robbers, ski masks, gloves, two jackets, sun glasses and scarves. But we were cool. Shivering like a Chihuahua trying to shit out a peach seed, but we were cool.
Smelling that salt air when we finally got there made it all worth while. The girls in bikinis didn’t hurt either. It was awesome, we were damn near famous. We check in and couldn’t wait to get out and cruise. But we had to play it cool and not geek out. So we went and got something to eat with the parental units and put our plan together. We hopped in the 23 and scoped out the area, made sure to cruise by the beach to make our very loud presence know and so on. That night we decided to cruise the strip and look for tail… I mean see how everyone was doing. It didn’t take us long to realize that this car, which had about the same horsepower as the space shuttle, was not made to cruise in barely moving strip traffic. It was so powerful and geared so low that when we were stopping I had to pull up on the steering wheel to hold the brake pedal down. It didn’t take long to decide that when we were not moving to put it in park. Oh, one thing about that, this car had a slap shifter in it, but was put in backwards on purpose (long story, don’t ask), so instead of park being at the top of the column it was at the bottom. It can be a little confusing. So there we are with the car in park being too cool for everyone around us when traffic finally starts to move, I put the car in what I thought was drive but apparently it was reverse. I figured this out when I pushed down the gas pedal and we went backwards. You know that saying “frozen in fear”, that was the girl behind us in the little Honda Civic that we damn near plowed into. Fortunately I was able to stop the car from changing the aerodynamics of her Civic. I get it in drive and off we go, in the right direction this time.
Ironically I had just told my friend that I bet that car would cause a wreck that week because of people not paying attention, I know, I am good!
After cruising for a bit we needed some petrol and pulled into a gas station. Just as an FYI, if you accidentally put diesel into a blown 23 T-Bucket because you were looking at chicks, when the diesel gets to the cylinders and ignites it will shoot a big ass flame out of the blower. So we had to call the dad and he had to get a bucket from the maintenance guy at the condos so that we could drain the 8 gallons of diesel that some brainchild put into this car. Even as we were sitting there with draining the diesel out we were still cool. After making us feel like complete dumbasses his dad went back to the condo and we went back to cruising the strip for a bit. Remember how I was telling you about how powerful this car was and how it was not built for all of the cruising, well there is another reason this is true. The engine on this car gets hot, damn hot. It didn’t take us long to realize that we needed to get some air blowing over the radiator or we were going to have a problem. So we pull off of the strip to go hit some of the back roads for a bit. No sooner had we pulled off had I decided that to get air blowing on the radiator that we had to get moving so I punched it. If you looked at the pictures in the links above you realize that there isn’t much to this car, so the simple math of light weight car + extremely strong motor + dumbass standing on the gas pedal = the front wheels launching off the ground and two idiots screaming (literally) down a side road while doing a wheelie in a car. Thankfully my cat like reflexes told me to get off the gas pretty quickly. After repeating “holy shit” about 50,000 times each we both did a quick “are we dead” check and decided that we survived.
But we still had to get the car cooled off and we didn’t want to wait on it to cool on its own. As we are making our way to one of the back roads so we can haul ass and get the temps down some jackass in a mustang is trying to race us, yeah we smoked his ass and he suddenly decided that he had to turn, pussy. So we get the car cooled off and head back to the strip. After another hour or so of bumper to bumper, barely moving traffic the temps go up again. But this time we were at a prime place to actually pull over and let the car cool off, right in the middle of the strip. We pull off the road right by the beach (nice breeze blowing, I am a smart cookie) and proceed to hang out on the car watching the traffic. It was great, we were getting cat calls and invited to parties like it was going out of style. It was like the girls where coming out of the sand they were everywhere, life was great. A couple of girls pulled over behind us and where chatting with us for a bit when I noticed that there was no more traffic on the road in the direction that we were facing. The last car was right beside where we pulled over and then nothing as far as we could see. It was weird. Right after I noticed that I kept hearing this noise, this sort of winding noise. I checked and the fan on the car wasn’t running, the fuel pump wasn’t running but I could not figure out what this little noise was and it was getting louder. About this time I see a little light flickering in the distance. It was some guy on a scooter and he was hauling ass (for a scooter). As he got closer we could tell that he was not paying attention to the traffic but was looking at us. Then BAM he slammed at full speed into the car that was beside our car. He flew over their car and crashed face first into the back windshield car in front of them. His little red scooter literally broke into pieces. But it was like something from the circus, the guy rockets himself head first into the back glass of this car, lands on his feet does a 360 looking around and then collapses on the street. A complete WTF moment. Out of instinct we start to pick up the pieces of his scooter and someone went to go call the medics. When we realized that this guy was going to probably be ok was the exact same time that we realized that we had been drinking and that we need to bounce! We were out of there, slinging sand all along the way. Sorry, but I am not going to jail because of the human crash test dummy.
Some time later we were back on the strip and happened to be in the area where the human spitwad tried to carpool at 50 MPH when a cop motions us over. F’ing great, we are going to jail and there are so many reasons why: no seat belts; I have no idea if this car is street legal; the tail lights had this blue piece on them that made them light up purple which I heard was illegal; minor intox; no catalytic converter; being loud as fuck; DUI; oh and that hauling ass after that dude went X-games with that scooter. We pull over and shut the car off and I start to go for my wallet when the cop starts to ask me all of these questions, none of which were can I see your licenses. He says that he has seen us around and then proceeds to ask if the blower is really hooked up to which my friend interjected “You damn right it is!” Thanks jackass. So the cop just keeps asking questions like how many horses does it have, what size is the motor, this and that. Which I am sure is going to be used against us in a court of law. And then he ask us if we can fire it up and let him hear it. Sure, why not, if I’m going to the pokey might as well make it a good one right. So I crank the car and the cop says “rev it up” and I give it this little baby rev. The cops says “no man, get on it” and grabs the fucking throttle and opens that bitch up. People all around jumped, car alarms are going off, people are coming out of their hotel rooms to see what was going on. Turns out he is just a gear head too. So now we are playing this to our advantage we got a cop buddy. Man we let him sit in it, rev it like a drunken hells angel, take pictures and anything else he wanted. After about 20 minutes or smoozing with local law enforcement he ask us if it would spin the tires (33 inch Mickey Thompsons) we told him no because there is just too much traction and not enough weight. He doesn’t believe us and says he wants us to get on it to see. So he stops traffic and lets the traffic on the road get a good ways down the road. Then he tells us to “get on it but don’t half ass it”. So we pull out onto the road, I tell my friend to hang on and we punch it again. We pulled the wheels off the ground about two to three feet or so and got off of it long enough for the tires to touch the ground again and kept on keeping on. When we circled back around this cop was waving and giving us a big thumbs up. I just knew we were going to jail. It was getting late and we had enough fun for one night so we decided to head back to the condo.
I don’t know what we did but for some reason my friend’s dad was really happy the next day and let us carry the 32 out that night. We loved that car. It was totally pimp with a TV, cell phone (this was almost 20 years ago) and the most important thing heat/ac.
After the 8,372,623 time we heard “hey, ZZ Top” it started to get a bit annoying and people started seeing the back of our middle fingers. The car was red just like the car on the cover of “Eliminator” but we also realized that it looked like that car, even way back when we made it. So we didn’t need every geek on the strip to remind us. That car was sweet and so much fun to drive and you would be surprised how many girls you can cram into a car like that. After scoring some brew we wanted to head to a place where we wouldn’t get so much attention so we headed to this steak house and parked out back to drink for a bit. One of the kitchen staff guys came out to have a smoke and saw the car, we thought we were busted but he was cool and wanted to check out the car. Then he went and got some of his buddies and they will all kinds of excited and wanted to take pictures with the car and so on. Being the jackass that I am, I told them if they could score me and my friend a couple steak dinners we would let them take all the pictures that they wanted and I will be damned if they didn’t hook us up. Snap away fellas. Even the manager came out to get his picture taken with it. We just wanted to drink beer without getting busted by the cops, like I said we were still in high school.
After the free meal we decided to see just how lucky we were, off to the bars Batman! We roll into the parking lot of one of the biggest clubs on the beach, La Vela, and just ask the door guy if there was a place we could park where no one would mess with the car. The guy moves some cones so that we could park right by the door and he welcomes us in. We realized that something about those cars made door guys forget to id us. Advantage us! And since those were the only two cars we had with us we had to take one of them every time we went somewhere. Not getting carded makes up for all of the other hi-jinks.
Don’t get dead
Showing posts with label panama city beach. Show all posts
Showing posts with label panama city beach. Show all posts
Wednesday, April 01, 2009
Tuesday, July 22, 2008
I need a vacation
Yep, I need a place to get away, a place to escape it all, a place to relax, a place to leave my worries behind. Somewhere that is stress free, somewhere that all you have to do is be there, somewhere where everyone is smiling and having fun. A vacation that regenerates, a vacation that puts a smile on ones face, a vacation that you would cherish for the rest of your life.
But we all know that shit aint going to happen.
I tell people that we don’t have vacations, we have adventures. And there is always a story to tell.
Just like this one trip to Panama City Beach. It was the usual crew of us headed down to the Redneck Rivera for a week of fun in the sun, some sub-tropical nightlife, a little relaxation and a whole lot of being …what is the word I am looking for … mischief!
Let me lay the ground work on this trip. Our sole purpose on this trip was to get hammered, past that we had not thought it out. We knew that we needed clean underwear and beer, everything else was a luxury. We had secured a room at one of the miracle strips finest establishments, but only because someone in our party knew someone or something. I don’t remember exactly what floor we were on but it was once of the upper floors, oh and this hotel was shaped like on open parenthesis “(“. This part plays an important role later on.
On the day we leave we all met at one of the groups’ house. From there we all loaded up the convoy of vehicles that where about to make the trip south and we headed out. About an hour and a half later we were there and ready to get this party started. We check in, get the keys and start to “relax”. And most of this trip was great, except for one night.
On this particular night as the sun was beginning to set we were hanging out on the balcony of the room and just being social with other people in the hotel. Shortly pretty much everyone in the hotel was on their balcony. There were a bunch of guys getting this girl across the way to flash everyone and some people a couple of floors down from us had a funnel/beer bong made out of three garden hoses and they were passing it around from rooms to rooms. It was huge. They made it from three 25 foot hoses, two of which where at the top connected to the bottom hose with one of those Y shaped hose connectors. The top two hoses had these big funnels attached to the hoses and the bottom hose had this shut off valve, it was pretty cool. So yeah, there was a bit of drinking going on. Then everyone’s attention turned to the pool, there was this guy who would get everyone really loud and then he would run and do a flip into the pool. Then he would get out drink some more, get everyone loud again, run and do a flip into the pool. This went on for a while and then you see patio chairs flying into the pool. Not to worry, it’s not getting out of hand or anything, just those chairs needed washing. And apparently a lot of other people thought that their chairs needed washing too because they tossed their chairs in too. Then for some reason people started to throw food into the pool. That was weird. We saw eggs and hotdogs and all kinds of crap come flying off of various balconies.
My guess is that at this point the management of the hotel was not very happy. A few members of the hotel staff came out to the pool area and tried to get everyone to calm down to no avail. I will give them credit, they tried.
After the hotel staff left a rousing cheer came from all of the balconies as if we had defeated some huge force. When in fact it was 500 drunk kids trying to be calmed by 6 people. At that point the odds weren’t in the staff’s favor. Back to just general rowdiness and chest thumping!!
After a few minutes local law enforcement showed up. We knew something was up by the way that the people on the first two floors balconies shoot into their rooms at light speed. Four or five sheriffs’ deputies are in the pool area sort of half-heartedly trying to get us to calm down which really did very little. They had a little pow-wow on the pool deck and then it looked like they just split up and walked around with one arm up in the air each and then… well they just left.
Again a rousing cheer comes from the group. But then, as if it was choreographed, floor by floor people were ducking into their rooms.
Remember the part about the hotel being shaped like ( <- that? And that this hotel was on the beach? Well the wind blows from the water to the beach and it would blow right up the hotel. So if someone say, sprayed something it would carry UP the hotel. So yeah, they mace’d us. Floor by floor you see people ducking into their rooms and shutting the doors. When it hit us it wasn’t as bad as it could be but it was enough to make us cough and our eyes and nose burn. But, but, but, but there were more of us than there was of them, how did this happen? Damn physics!
Don’t get dead.
www.ItAintEasyBeingSweezey.com
But we all know that shit aint going to happen.
I tell people that we don’t have vacations, we have adventures. And there is always a story to tell.
Just like this one trip to Panama City Beach. It was the usual crew of us headed down to the Redneck Rivera for a week of fun in the sun, some sub-tropical nightlife, a little relaxation and a whole lot of being …what is the word I am looking for … mischief!
Let me lay the ground work on this trip. Our sole purpose on this trip was to get hammered, past that we had not thought it out. We knew that we needed clean underwear and beer, everything else was a luxury. We had secured a room at one of the miracle strips finest establishments, but only because someone in our party knew someone or something. I don’t remember exactly what floor we were on but it was once of the upper floors, oh and this hotel was shaped like on open parenthesis “(“. This part plays an important role later on.
On the day we leave we all met at one of the groups’ house. From there we all loaded up the convoy of vehicles that where about to make the trip south and we headed out. About an hour and a half later we were there and ready to get this party started. We check in, get the keys and start to “relax”. And most of this trip was great, except for one night.
On this particular night as the sun was beginning to set we were hanging out on the balcony of the room and just being social with other people in the hotel. Shortly pretty much everyone in the hotel was on their balcony. There were a bunch of guys getting this girl across the way to flash everyone and some people a couple of floors down from us had a funnel/beer bong made out of three garden hoses and they were passing it around from rooms to rooms. It was huge. They made it from three 25 foot hoses, two of which where at the top connected to the bottom hose with one of those Y shaped hose connectors. The top two hoses had these big funnels attached to the hoses and the bottom hose had this shut off valve, it was pretty cool. So yeah, there was a bit of drinking going on. Then everyone’s attention turned to the pool, there was this guy who would get everyone really loud and then he would run and do a flip into the pool. Then he would get out drink some more, get everyone loud again, run and do a flip into the pool. This went on for a while and then you see patio chairs flying into the pool. Not to worry, it’s not getting out of hand or anything, just those chairs needed washing. And apparently a lot of other people thought that their chairs needed washing too because they tossed their chairs in too. Then for some reason people started to throw food into the pool. That was weird. We saw eggs and hotdogs and all kinds of crap come flying off of various balconies.
My guess is that at this point the management of the hotel was not very happy. A few members of the hotel staff came out to the pool area and tried to get everyone to calm down to no avail. I will give them credit, they tried.
After the hotel staff left a rousing cheer came from all of the balconies as if we had defeated some huge force. When in fact it was 500 drunk kids trying to be calmed by 6 people. At that point the odds weren’t in the staff’s favor. Back to just general rowdiness and chest thumping!!
After a few minutes local law enforcement showed up. We knew something was up by the way that the people on the first two floors balconies shoot into their rooms at light speed. Four or five sheriffs’ deputies are in the pool area sort of half-heartedly trying to get us to calm down which really did very little. They had a little pow-wow on the pool deck and then it looked like they just split up and walked around with one arm up in the air each and then… well they just left.
Again a rousing cheer comes from the group. But then, as if it was choreographed, floor by floor people were ducking into their rooms.
Remember the part about the hotel being shaped like ( <- that? And that this hotel was on the beach? Well the wind blows from the water to the beach and it would blow right up the hotel. So if someone say, sprayed something it would carry UP the hotel. So yeah, they mace’d us. Floor by floor you see people ducking into their rooms and shutting the doors. When it hit us it wasn’t as bad as it could be but it was enough to make us cough and our eyes and nose burn. But, but, but, but there were more of us than there was of them, how did this happen? Damn physics!
Don’t get dead.
www.ItAintEasyBeingSweezey.com
Thursday, April 10, 2008
Storms
For the last week or so the Dallas area has been getting hit with some pretty heavy storms. Which is great, I love storms. But last night was a doozy. Something woke me up about a quarter to 3 or so this morning and as I lay there trying to get back to sleep I could tell that the wind was really picking up and shortly after the severe weather sirens were going off. Since I had been asleep I turned on the television to see what was going on. Line of storms, rotating winds, hail, blah blah blah. So we go get the kids and put them in our bed and I went into the game room to watch the news and see what was going on as the kids were going back to sleep. About this time the electricity goes off. Well this sucks, I am up in the early hours of the morning, it’s storming out and I am wide awake. It is about this time that I felt the call of nature. So as I am making my way to the bathroom in the pitch black of night during a storm I started to chuckle. The following story is why.
Spring Break come hell or high water, almost literally.
Way back around the time that I was in high school a group of us decided that we were going to go to the beach together and all went in on a beach house. If memory serves, there were about 8 of us staying in this house. Most of the week was great, typical spring break stuff, being loud, drinking, hanging out on the beach by day and partying by night.
Then one day the skies got cloudy and kind of dark and the winds picked up. Guess we will be partying indoors this afternoon. Somehow about 30 people ended up in our beach house but who cares right? Someone crank up 97.7 FM – Pirate Radio! And that’s when I heard it, that annoying ass beeeeeeeeeeppppp tone. What is this crap, right in the middle of “Alive” by Pearl Jam, that’s just wrong. Oh, it’s some weather crap, oh wait what’s that they are saying, a tropical something-another is headed our way, it’s what? Like a small hurricane? Oh ok. And then boom, lights go out. Well shit! Fortunately the boom box we were listening too had good batteries in it, because Pirate Radio was rockin that afternoon. It was at about this point that someone made the announcement of “Do NOT open the refrigerator unless you KNOW that you are going to get a beer out”, got to keep the beer cold you know, priorities and all that.
So the wind seems like it is whipping up around 100 MPH, the rain is going sideways and it is pitch black outside at 3:30 in the afternoon with the occasional lightning strike that seemed like it was hitting the house. But the beer is still nice and cold, we are going to be ok.
Someone found some candles, god only knows where but they did. But we didn’t really need candles, the light from about 30 cigarettes all light at the same time actually put out a decent bit of light. Man the inside of that house looked like London.
So we got a miniscule amount of light, a few dozen “young adults”, beer o’plenty, enough smokes to go around and oh yeah, this weather thing going on outside. HURRICANE PARTY!!! Oh hell yeah.
In case you didn’t know, youth + alcohol + beach – parents + wicked weather – common sense = narrowly escaping death.
About this time I see this girl who we will call “Mandy” making these fidget motions. At first I thought she was dancing or something. I keep watching her and after a while I notice this grimace on her face. So I walk over to her and ask her if she’s ok. To which she replies “No”. So I asked her what was wrong and she gives me the brush off answer of “nothing, it will be okay”. Alrighty then, spaz on. As I go to walk back over to where I was she grabs my arm and ask me if I know when the power is coming back on. Well, I am good but I can’t really predict the future. So I just tell her that I am sure it will be soon and ask her why. She does this shimmy/shake/fidget move again and leans in and whispers to me “I got to pee”. Okay, what the hell does that have to do with the power coming back on, go pee. So then it hit me, she can’t see. So I offer to help her and tell her that I can hold a candle or something for her.
This is where it gets humorous to me.
She gives me a stupid look and says “No, that’s not it”. So now I have to ask because I have to know. I lean in towards her and say “well what is it then?”, she looks me dead in the face and says “Well the toilet wont flush if the power is out”.
Now I got to find a mop because I just spit out the beer I was trying to drink. I am guessing that my reaction might have tipped her off to the invalidity of her assumption and she follows that up with “will it?”
Oh yeah, that’s right, we got those new plug in toilets. Good point.
Please god let her be sterile.
Don't get dead
Spring Break come hell or high water, almost literally.
Way back around the time that I was in high school a group of us decided that we were going to go to the beach together and all went in on a beach house. If memory serves, there were about 8 of us staying in this house. Most of the week was great, typical spring break stuff, being loud, drinking, hanging out on the beach by day and partying by night.
Then one day the skies got cloudy and kind of dark and the winds picked up. Guess we will be partying indoors this afternoon. Somehow about 30 people ended up in our beach house but who cares right? Someone crank up 97.7 FM – Pirate Radio! And that’s when I heard it, that annoying ass beeeeeeeeeeppppp tone. What is this crap, right in the middle of “Alive” by Pearl Jam, that’s just wrong. Oh, it’s some weather crap, oh wait what’s that they are saying, a tropical something-another is headed our way, it’s what? Like a small hurricane? Oh ok. And then boom, lights go out. Well shit! Fortunately the boom box we were listening too had good batteries in it, because Pirate Radio was rockin that afternoon. It was at about this point that someone made the announcement of “Do NOT open the refrigerator unless you KNOW that you are going to get a beer out”, got to keep the beer cold you know, priorities and all that.
So the wind seems like it is whipping up around 100 MPH, the rain is going sideways and it is pitch black outside at 3:30 in the afternoon with the occasional lightning strike that seemed like it was hitting the house. But the beer is still nice and cold, we are going to be ok.
Someone found some candles, god only knows where but they did. But we didn’t really need candles, the light from about 30 cigarettes all light at the same time actually put out a decent bit of light. Man the inside of that house looked like London.
So we got a miniscule amount of light, a few dozen “young adults”, beer o’plenty, enough smokes to go around and oh yeah, this weather thing going on outside. HURRICANE PARTY!!! Oh hell yeah.
In case you didn’t know, youth + alcohol + beach – parents + wicked weather – common sense = narrowly escaping death.
About this time I see this girl who we will call “Mandy” making these fidget motions. At first I thought she was dancing or something. I keep watching her and after a while I notice this grimace on her face. So I walk over to her and ask her if she’s ok. To which she replies “No”. So I asked her what was wrong and she gives me the brush off answer of “nothing, it will be okay”. Alrighty then, spaz on. As I go to walk back over to where I was she grabs my arm and ask me if I know when the power is coming back on. Well, I am good but I can’t really predict the future. So I just tell her that I am sure it will be soon and ask her why. She does this shimmy/shake/fidget move again and leans in and whispers to me “I got to pee”. Okay, what the hell does that have to do with the power coming back on, go pee. So then it hit me, she can’t see. So I offer to help her and tell her that I can hold a candle or something for her.
This is where it gets humorous to me.
She gives me a stupid look and says “No, that’s not it”. So now I have to ask because I have to know. I lean in towards her and say “well what is it then?”, she looks me dead in the face and says “Well the toilet wont flush if the power is out”.
Now I got to find a mop because I just spit out the beer I was trying to drink. I am guessing that my reaction might have tipped her off to the invalidity of her assumption and she follows that up with “will it?”
Oh yeah, that’s right, we got those new plug in toilets. Good point.
Please god let her be sterile.
Don't get dead
Friday, January 11, 2008
Looking back (Chapter 13)
Christmas and New Years have come and gone. Other than some snow, everyone is pretty much looking forward to warmer weather. I think the first sign of warm weather has got to be spring break.
Ah yes, gobs of young people pouring just as much alcohol down their stupid throats as they possibly can, getting into fights, destroying property that is not theirs, having sex with anything that they can have it with (consciousness is probably optional), and just general rowdiness and civil disobedience. They should probably change the name to wholesome family break or something like that.
Years ago I would have been right in the middle of it.
The spring break of my (I guess it was) sophomore year of high school was no different. Myself and three of my friends roll down to Panama City Beach in one of my buddies cars with the tinted windows, rims, and stereo that everyone in the county could hear … at the same time … regardless of where you where in the county … whether you wanted to hear it or not. And my heap.
I remember being so pumped up about it that I think that I smoked a whole pack of cigarettes on the just over an hour drive down. There we are four guys, two cars, about 8 ½ cases of beer, a change of clothes or two each, a couple of hundred bucks in cash each, headed south for the weekend.
We get to the Redneck Rivera, find our hotel, get checked in, and crack open a few. You ever have that feeling that you may want to take things easy because the possibility of an ugly turn is imminent? That feeling came over me like the tide coming in over the sand. Fifteen minutes into being in the room and they are each about four beers down and showing no signs of slowing down and I just knew something, something bad, was on the horizon. I will be dammed if I wasn't right too.
We hang out in the hotel room for a while when two of them, Red and Jay, decided that they want to go rambling. Mark, the other guy who drove and never lets anyone drive his car, didn't want to go so Red and Jay are stuck with using their Jerusalem cruisers to get around. They take off and Mark and I are hanging out in the hotel and talking about what we were going to do over the weekend. After a while I notice the slurred speech which is prelude to an event filled afternoon. Homeboy is about half a case in and feeling no pain when he announces that he needs to use the facilities or as he put it "need to piss". Let me give you the layout of the room, it is a rectangle with two queen beds and a square bathroom that looked to be put in after the fact which was right by the front door, typical cheap beach hotel room. Mark makes his way to the restroom does his business and makes his way back to the main room when he proclaims that he hates the hiccups which he now has a case of. He keeps asking me what can he do to get rid of them and I guess he thought that if he asked me 1,001 times that I may get some sort of revelation and change my answer from "I don't know" to something else. But alas, he was wrong.
It is about this time that Mark is good and hammered and proclaims his hatred for bugs. Okay… not sure what that has to do with anything but good for you homeboy. I was about to find out why he was informing me of this displeasure of bugs existence. He thought he saw one so he balls up his fist and punches the wall and what he "thought" was a bug on the wall. What he actually saw in his drunken stupor was the shadow being cast by the sunlight hitting a nail that was left in the wall and painted over. Ever be around a drunk who has just hurt himself? You would rather have a colonoscopy, which has to be less painful than having to deal with all of the bitching and moaning. Now I have a drunken dude running around the room bleeding all over the place and griping about hiccups and the phone rings. Who in the hell could that be? It is Red and Jay wanting me to come pick them up from a local shop because they are tired. Yeah, I will get right on that. But I get to feeling sorry for them and decide that I would see how drunk Mark was. When he said it was okay if I took his car to go pick them up I knew he was plowed. Mark goes to get me his keys and slips in some of the blood he spilled on the floor and bangs his head on the floor. So now I know that I have to find some way of restraining him so that he doesn't hurt himself. I had to get both of the flat sheets off of the bed, tie them together and use them to tie Mark to the bed. Once I feel that is he not going to be a danger to himself I get the keys and head out the door. When I get to where the gruesome twosome tells me they are going to be waiting for me, they are gone. I go in and ask the clerk if he had seen them and he tells me that they split about 20 minutes ago. Assholes! So back to the hotel I go. When I get there I find Mark passed out, thank god!
I am just hanging out in the hotel room for a while when the phone rings again and it is Jay and Red again, wanting me to come get them none the less. I tell them to stay put and I will go get them but it will be a little while because of the traffic on the strip. By the time I get to where they say they are again they are gone, well F them. No more feeling sorry for them. But I was getting a bit hungry and I did spy a Mickey D's nearby. So I roll over to it where I notice my cousin's car. I find a place to park and go in to talk to my cousin. After talking to him for a while I got some food to go and for whatever dumb-ass reason I wanted a chocolate milkshake. As I make my way to the car I put my milkshake on the roof of the car so that I can get the keys out of my pocket, unlock the door, toss the bag of food in the car, get in and make my way through the parking lot. At this particular location there is a wide shoulder on the road that local law enforcement uses when traffic is heavy on the strip, this is about to come into play in this story. There I am making my way through the parking lot and I notice that a lot of people are looking at the car, I just thought that it was because of the car. So I am just about to pull out into the street when a cop comes hauling down the shoulder and I slam on the breaks so that I don't get in his way. This is when, unbeknown to me, the milkshake that I accidentally left on the roof of the car falls over and spills onto the windshield of the car. Not realizing what it was I said "what the hell kind of bird was that?!" Then I see the cup rolling on the ground. Oh great, I am an idiot. Now I got to find a car wash. Which I did, and now I am on a mission to have this stupid milkshake. I make my way back to McDonalds and take advantage of the drive-thru so that I don't make the same mistake. Now I am happy, have my milkshake, inside the car, and actually made my way back onto the strip. But traffic is heavy so it may take me a while to get back to the hotel, oh well guess I will have to enjoy cruising and cranking up some pirate radio for a while.
During this particular spring break there were cops everywhere, like every eighth mile or so. Really cracking down I guess. So I see one near me, turn down the stereo and try to act cool. He sees me drinking and ask me what was in my cup. To which I replied a milkshake and asked him why he was asking. He said they are looking for people drinking and driving and asked if I would mind if he checked my drink. No, I don't mind and hand him my cup. He opens the lid, looks into it, takes a sniff and thanks me and hands it back to me. Okay, no big deal. So I get a little farther down the road and I see another cop, but this guy doesn't use the same approach. He looks at me and says "What's in the cup boy" to which my pompous ass thought "boy?!" but the part of me that didn't want to get harassed by the cops stepped in and said just shut up and be nice. So I tell him it's a milkshake and that his buddy just checked it. He asked "Do you mind?" and motioned for me to hand him the cup. Which I did and he TOOK A DAMN SIP OF MY DRINK! I couldn't believe it. What an a-hole. Then he hands it back to me. Yeah, like I am going to drink it now. Out of involuntary actions I hold the cup out of the window and the cop tells me that it is a $150 fine for littering. This milkshake deal was not meant to be so I had to let that one go.
I make my way back to the hotel, park the car, and go to the room. But I can't open the door all of the way, like something was behind it. What the hell. Oh god, it is Mark's drunk ass passed out in the doorframe of the bathroom blocking me from opening the door to the room. So I get him up and into the room where I can see that he has started drinking again, pretty heavily I might add. So I get him to sit on the bed and try to clean up when he says "number 7" and trots off back to the bathroom. Number 7?, what does that mean? He says it's the number of times that he has thrown up and lets me know that the substance that I am cleaning up with the towels is barf… damn, thanks dude.
About this time the sun is starting to go down and the social life is starting to heat up. I am sure that Mark is somewhat more sober at this point but still not Red and Jay. As luck would have it, they called the room again, wanting to be picked up again. I let them know that I will get right on it and tell Mark what they wanted. F them was his reply, sounds good to me. But he is hungry now and way to drunk and scared of cops to drive so I have to chauffeur him around. We find a burger joint that he wanted to go to but he insisted that we go in. So there we are standing in line to get our food to go *eye roll* when I notice that the guy working the counter in the line that we were in was handicapped and that Mark "weirds out" about things like that. But we are so close to the register and there is no way that I am going to get in the back of another line to buy food that I am not going to enjoy. No sooner had I realized what was going on when I see Mark get the big eyes and looks over at me. In an effort to keep him from making an ass out of himself and embarrassing me at the same time I tell him "just be cool, just be cool" to which he replied with "don't let him touch my food Sweezey, don't let him touch my food" I reassured him that he wouldn't and that the people in the back are cooking the food and that he was just taking our money for it. We get his food and head back to the car. Drunky Drunkenheimer sitting in the passenger seat of his car with the door open, takes one bite out of his food and then dumps it out in the parking lot stating "dude, he touched my food, I can taste it" What ever, let's just go back to the hotel.
We get back to the hotel and head towards our room when I realize, hey someone is having a party… in our freaking room!!!! I walk into the room where some slack-jaw greets me and tells me to help myself to a beer and points to a cooler, my damn cooler with my damn beer in it. Everyone in the room was drinking my beer. GET THE FUCK OUT OF MY ROOM!!! People got pissed when I kicked them out, until I told them that I had called the cops, at which they all thought it was a good time to take off, hmm, wonder why? Just goes to prove that drunk kids are stupid, like I would call the cops to report underage drinking in my room because they were drinking my beer, while I was 16, morons.
Ah yes, gobs of young people pouring just as much alcohol down their stupid throats as they possibly can, getting into fights, destroying property that is not theirs, having sex with anything that they can have it with (consciousness is probably optional), and just general rowdiness and civil disobedience. They should probably change the name to wholesome family break or something like that.
Years ago I would have been right in the middle of it.
The spring break of my (I guess it was) sophomore year of high school was no different. Myself and three of my friends roll down to Panama City Beach in one of my buddies cars with the tinted windows, rims, and stereo that everyone in the county could hear … at the same time … regardless of where you where in the county … whether you wanted to hear it or not. And my heap.
I remember being so pumped up about it that I think that I smoked a whole pack of cigarettes on the just over an hour drive down. There we are four guys, two cars, about 8 ½ cases of beer, a change of clothes or two each, a couple of hundred bucks in cash each, headed south for the weekend.
We get to the Redneck Rivera, find our hotel, get checked in, and crack open a few. You ever have that feeling that you may want to take things easy because the possibility of an ugly turn is imminent? That feeling came over me like the tide coming in over the sand. Fifteen minutes into being in the room and they are each about four beers down and showing no signs of slowing down and I just knew something, something bad, was on the horizon. I will be dammed if I wasn't right too.
We hang out in the hotel room for a while when two of them, Red and Jay, decided that they want to go rambling. Mark, the other guy who drove and never lets anyone drive his car, didn't want to go so Red and Jay are stuck with using their Jerusalem cruisers to get around. They take off and Mark and I are hanging out in the hotel and talking about what we were going to do over the weekend. After a while I notice the slurred speech which is prelude to an event filled afternoon. Homeboy is about half a case in and feeling no pain when he announces that he needs to use the facilities or as he put it "need to piss". Let me give you the layout of the room, it is a rectangle with two queen beds and a square bathroom that looked to be put in after the fact which was right by the front door, typical cheap beach hotel room. Mark makes his way to the restroom does his business and makes his way back to the main room when he proclaims that he hates the hiccups which he now has a case of. He keeps asking me what can he do to get rid of them and I guess he thought that if he asked me 1,001 times that I may get some sort of revelation and change my answer from "I don't know" to something else. But alas, he was wrong.
It is about this time that Mark is good and hammered and proclaims his hatred for bugs. Okay… not sure what that has to do with anything but good for you homeboy. I was about to find out why he was informing me of this displeasure of bugs existence. He thought he saw one so he balls up his fist and punches the wall and what he "thought" was a bug on the wall. What he actually saw in his drunken stupor was the shadow being cast by the sunlight hitting a nail that was left in the wall and painted over. Ever be around a drunk who has just hurt himself? You would rather have a colonoscopy, which has to be less painful than having to deal with all of the bitching and moaning. Now I have a drunken dude running around the room bleeding all over the place and griping about hiccups and the phone rings. Who in the hell could that be? It is Red and Jay wanting me to come pick them up from a local shop because they are tired. Yeah, I will get right on that. But I get to feeling sorry for them and decide that I would see how drunk Mark was. When he said it was okay if I took his car to go pick them up I knew he was plowed. Mark goes to get me his keys and slips in some of the blood he spilled on the floor and bangs his head on the floor. So now I know that I have to find some way of restraining him so that he doesn't hurt himself. I had to get both of the flat sheets off of the bed, tie them together and use them to tie Mark to the bed. Once I feel that is he not going to be a danger to himself I get the keys and head out the door. When I get to where the gruesome twosome tells me they are going to be waiting for me, they are gone. I go in and ask the clerk if he had seen them and he tells me that they split about 20 minutes ago. Assholes! So back to the hotel I go. When I get there I find Mark passed out, thank god!
I am just hanging out in the hotel room for a while when the phone rings again and it is Jay and Red again, wanting me to come get them none the less. I tell them to stay put and I will go get them but it will be a little while because of the traffic on the strip. By the time I get to where they say they are again they are gone, well F them. No more feeling sorry for them. But I was getting a bit hungry and I did spy a Mickey D's nearby. So I roll over to it where I notice my cousin's car. I find a place to park and go in to talk to my cousin. After talking to him for a while I got some food to go and for whatever dumb-ass reason I wanted a chocolate milkshake. As I make my way to the car I put my milkshake on the roof of the car so that I can get the keys out of my pocket, unlock the door, toss the bag of food in the car, get in and make my way through the parking lot. At this particular location there is a wide shoulder on the road that local law enforcement uses when traffic is heavy on the strip, this is about to come into play in this story. There I am making my way through the parking lot and I notice that a lot of people are looking at the car, I just thought that it was because of the car. So I am just about to pull out into the street when a cop comes hauling down the shoulder and I slam on the breaks so that I don't get in his way. This is when, unbeknown to me, the milkshake that I accidentally left on the roof of the car falls over and spills onto the windshield of the car. Not realizing what it was I said "what the hell kind of bird was that?!" Then I see the cup rolling on the ground. Oh great, I am an idiot. Now I got to find a car wash. Which I did, and now I am on a mission to have this stupid milkshake. I make my way back to McDonalds and take advantage of the drive-thru so that I don't make the same mistake. Now I am happy, have my milkshake, inside the car, and actually made my way back onto the strip. But traffic is heavy so it may take me a while to get back to the hotel, oh well guess I will have to enjoy cruising and cranking up some pirate radio for a while.
During this particular spring break there were cops everywhere, like every eighth mile or so. Really cracking down I guess. So I see one near me, turn down the stereo and try to act cool. He sees me drinking and ask me what was in my cup. To which I replied a milkshake and asked him why he was asking. He said they are looking for people drinking and driving and asked if I would mind if he checked my drink. No, I don't mind and hand him my cup. He opens the lid, looks into it, takes a sniff and thanks me and hands it back to me. Okay, no big deal. So I get a little farther down the road and I see another cop, but this guy doesn't use the same approach. He looks at me and says "What's in the cup boy" to which my pompous ass thought "boy?!" but the part of me that didn't want to get harassed by the cops stepped in and said just shut up and be nice. So I tell him it's a milkshake and that his buddy just checked it. He asked "Do you mind?" and motioned for me to hand him the cup. Which I did and he TOOK A DAMN SIP OF MY DRINK! I couldn't believe it. What an a-hole. Then he hands it back to me. Yeah, like I am going to drink it now. Out of involuntary actions I hold the cup out of the window and the cop tells me that it is a $150 fine for littering. This milkshake deal was not meant to be so I had to let that one go.
I make my way back to the hotel, park the car, and go to the room. But I can't open the door all of the way, like something was behind it. What the hell. Oh god, it is Mark's drunk ass passed out in the doorframe of the bathroom blocking me from opening the door to the room. So I get him up and into the room where I can see that he has started drinking again, pretty heavily I might add. So I get him to sit on the bed and try to clean up when he says "number 7" and trots off back to the bathroom. Number 7?, what does that mean? He says it's the number of times that he has thrown up and lets me know that the substance that I am cleaning up with the towels is barf… damn, thanks dude.
About this time the sun is starting to go down and the social life is starting to heat up. I am sure that Mark is somewhat more sober at this point but still not Red and Jay. As luck would have it, they called the room again, wanting to be picked up again. I let them know that I will get right on it and tell Mark what they wanted. F them was his reply, sounds good to me. But he is hungry now and way to drunk and scared of cops to drive so I have to chauffeur him around. We find a burger joint that he wanted to go to but he insisted that we go in. So there we are standing in line to get our food to go *eye roll* when I notice that the guy working the counter in the line that we were in was handicapped and that Mark "weirds out" about things like that. But we are so close to the register and there is no way that I am going to get in the back of another line to buy food that I am not going to enjoy. No sooner had I realized what was going on when I see Mark get the big eyes and looks over at me. In an effort to keep him from making an ass out of himself and embarrassing me at the same time I tell him "just be cool, just be cool" to which he replied with "don't let him touch my food Sweezey, don't let him touch my food" I reassured him that he wouldn't and that the people in the back are cooking the food and that he was just taking our money for it. We get his food and head back to the car. Drunky Drunkenheimer sitting in the passenger seat of his car with the door open, takes one bite out of his food and then dumps it out in the parking lot stating "dude, he touched my food, I can taste it" What ever, let's just go back to the hotel.
We get back to the hotel and head towards our room when I realize, hey someone is having a party… in our freaking room!!!! I walk into the room where some slack-jaw greets me and tells me to help myself to a beer and points to a cooler, my damn cooler with my damn beer in it. Everyone in the room was drinking my beer. GET THE FUCK OUT OF MY ROOM!!! People got pissed when I kicked them out, until I told them that I had called the cops, at which they all thought it was a good time to take off, hmm, wonder why? Just goes to prove that drunk kids are stupid, like I would call the cops to report underage drinking in my room because they were drinking my beer, while I was 16, morons.
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