Texas Steakhouse - Rocky Mount, North Carolina

This weekend I went down to Rocky Mount, North Carolina for my cousin's wedding. She had been dating the fella for 8 years; ridiculous, I know, I really believe the guy should have held off for an even 10. The Jones side of the family is pretty big, 7 children and probably like 25 grandchildren. I actually had to ask one of my uncles how many kids he had now, the guy is like a rabbit. Nearly everyone came down for the wedding, cousins, uncles, parole officers, everybody. We had a good ole time, we stayed at the luxurious Holiday Inn right off of North Winstead Avenue and US-64, and had nearly all of the 4th floor for ourselves. Anyway, they have a pool, which was lovely, especially for Saturday's 90 degree, 98 percent humidity, and overcast weather. My cousins Mitch and Mike, ages five and seven respectively, had a good time swimming for a little bit, until a breeze picked up and they started to get chilly. Mitch got out of the pool and came and told us that he wanted to go to the bar, which I thought was a lovely idea. I volunteered to take him into Texas Steakhouse so my aunt and uncle could have a little time off. So we get to the bar, I sit down and order a tall Coors Light, and get Mitch a Roy Rogers. After about 2 beers and 20 minutes Mitch tells me he has to go to the bathroom, again another genius idea from a 5 year old. I figure that by the time I finish my 3rd drink I'll need to drain the snake too, so I tell him to give me 2 minutes. Mitch then starts shaking around on the chair saying he has to go, he has to go, and I kept telling him 2 minutes. Poor kid, he can't hold it anymore and lets it go on the bar stool. I'm such a jerk. Mitch starts crying, I am feeling awful. All I want to do is to get him to stop crying. So I whip it out and start peeing on my bar stool so he doesn't feel so bad. The bartender comes over and starts screaming at me, which makes Mitch cry harder. She is yelling and having a fit, saying its disgusting and unsanitary, and kicks me out of the bar. She doesn't even let me pay. At this point I have Mitch in one arm, his pee soaked shorts smushed up against my favorite Guns 'n' Roses t-shirt, my wallet in the other trying to hand her a $20 bill for all the trouble, 3 beers, and the Roy Rogers, and the manager is pushing me out the front door. I am feeling awful, and as he closes the front door on me I yell in and say "just charge it to my room, I'm in 111!" Ooopps.

Myrtle Beach Road Trip

The idea started as renting an RV and driving to Texas to take in a couple country shows. Maybe a little Kevin Fowler, Stoney LaRue, Paul Eason, or Randy Rogers Band and drink some beers at the world renowned Billy Bob's in Fort Worth. Well, with limited vacation and expendable income Sudsy and the boys decided on something logistically a little easier: Myrtle Beach, South Carolina.

Mapquest.com quoted approximately 9 hours for the drive. Desiring a full afternoon for our pasty skin to be burnt we decided to leave at 3AM on Wednesday. It's not surprising that we beat the 9 hour mapquest quote, but all 5 hooligans in the truck felt that 7 hours was pretty impressive. Hell, we ate McDonald's breakfast in Myrtle... delicious. It is worth noting that the F250 even got up to 125 MPH on Interstate 95 thanks to a radar/laser detector equipted with X, K, and Ka operating bandwidths.

The week went on pretty much any 24 year old boys beach trip, a lot of drinking, a lot of starring at side-boob and ass on the beach, and a lot of sass- mouth between the fellas. The real story begins Saturday night at The Bowery.

For those of you that do not know The Bowery is where the incredibly famous country music band Alabama got their start. This claim to fame is not the only thing that makes The Bowery great, they have great music, a super sexy barmaid named Jamie, and a great beer menu: $2.25 Bud Light drafts.

Between the 5 of us we easily spent nearly $200 on beer, and broke 3 mugs. After closing we stumbled to the F250 parked several blocks away (On Thursday night we tried walking the 28 blocks back to the hotel, and damn near made it. We finaly found a taxi at 3 blocks away... We are pretty sure the driver was high on meth and that she had been a feature on Cops before.) and drove back to the hotel where we could not find any parking spots. We tried to park in a "spot" but the security guard started bitching. Another guy came in his car having the same problem. For some reason we could not communicate to the guard that if we needed to move the vehicle they should just call us. Finally, after 20 minutes of back talking the security guard a space opened up and we went up to the room.

We had not been in the room but 5 minutes when one of my buddies, Wilder, started throwing chairs off the balcony. The first chair was from inside the room and it went straight into the pool. The second was a plastic balcony chair that hit the deck and shattered into 1,000 peices. No sooner had the plastic chair burst into flying plastic shrapnel than the security guard came running out of the lobby's back door screeming and shining her flashlight like a jedi's light saber battling the dark side. At this point I was on one of the bed's pretending to be asleep and the 3 wise guys outside ran through the sliding glass door at once, nearly getting stuck, laughing hysterically the whole way and slaming the door shut. Next thing I knew was that the lights were out and the phone was ringing.

Now I am a horrible actor, but something in the Bud Light that night gave me the gumption to put on my best "what the fuck you just woke me up from sleeping and now I am as confused as hell" voice. After trying to convince the other end that I had just woken up and had no idea what they were talking about I mumbled "hey let me wake up my friend, hey buddy get up I have no idea what's going on, hey man, hey get up, hey, get up." The other end hung up. Forty-five seconds later there was a forceful knock at the door. We felt like the three little pigs in the house made out of straw. What the shit were we to do?

"Who is it?" I yelled.
No answer.
"Who is it?"
Silence.
"Who is it? Cripes who is it?!?!?!"
There was still silence as I fumbled my way to the door. Upon opening I was scared to see the security guard who strangely made me recall the methed out cabbie from two nights before.

"You all are evicted, the cops are coming, come downstairs and talk to the cops. You all are being evicted."
"What the devil are you talking about?"
"You, know what I's talking about! You all throwed them chairs off the balcony! Destruction of property! She said I was to evict you! The cops is on their way! Come down to the lobby!"
"Ma'am I have no idea what you are talking about. I have been inside sleeping for hours. I was rudely awoken by a phone call at 3:30 in the morning. What is all of this nonsense?"
"Didn't you just come up in here with that red Ford truck?"
"No ma'am, I have no idea what you are talking about. Like I told you I have been sleeping."
"Oh, well these kids just came in and said they was in your room and then throwed stuff off the balcony, destruction of property. We are evicting them. I'm sorry to woke you."
"Can I go back to sleep?" Sudsy angrily asked.
"Oh sure, no problem, sorry again, darned rapscallions was lying."

In another minute the phone rang again. Sudsy told his buddy, whose name the room was under to answer the phone.

"Yeah, hello?"
"What? No, it's a 1997 Light Blue Ford Explorer. I suppose some might consider it a truck. I personally don't."
"Cops?"
"What? Ok, bye."
"Fellas, we seriously need to get the fuck out of here ASAP." The chair tosser said barely audible over his laughing hysteria.

Thus the mad rush to pack up as much stuff as possible in 5 minutes commenced. Sudsy and Sir Smokes Marlboros Alot were the last two out. Running around trying to find all of their SPF 150, aloe vera, and vitamin E soothing lotion. I threw a random shirt on the ground in Marlboro's bag, made sure I had my spectacles, testicles, wallet, and watch... Check. Then I ran through the hotel room door with two hats, a backpack, a jacket, and a bathroom back attached to the rolling suitcase small enough to fit in the over head bin. I hit the down button on the elevator, the doors opened. Thank God it was the Anal-Retentive Clean Freak and Mr. I Don't Need No Tractor to Pull Hoes.

"Go to the basement, and across the street, trucks over there," Clean Freak whispered, as he disappeared back into the room to gather the remaining coolers. The Hoe Puller tripped stepping off the elevator, scrambled to his feet and then followed the Clean Freak. I didn't bother waiting for my comrade Marlboro, I hit the Door Close button and off the elevator went.

"Oh shit," I though as the elevator slowly began to descend. "Why the devil did I take the elevator? What if it stops at the lobby? I'll be screwed..."

Luckily, Sunday morning was not going to involve Sudsy talking to the five-o. The elevator door opened in the lower level of the parking deck, I walked out of the building and turned left the the parking deck. With every step his brisk pace increased. My head was constantly on a swivel. Soon enough it was Frogger time. I was at the street. Just avoid the cars. Watch out for the fuzz. Then disappear into the darkness of the parking lot.

As I approched the truck I saw Wilder, the vandal of the evening. I then turned around and saw Marlboro on the sidewalk galloping past the gravel lot. Then on the back street at the rear of the gravel lot a police car slowly drove by. As it approached the intersection it slowed, and then just said there.

"Oh crap! We're caught! Find a place to hide under the truck!" Wilder cried. Then Marlboro came running across the parking lot. He was safe. At the far end of the gravel lot the Hoe Puller and Clean Freak were running carrying the turtle top and the remaining coolers.

"Get the shit in the bed and get in the truck!" Clean Freak commanded.
"The police are right over there waiting for us, we are doomed, game over!" Wilder whined.
"It's your fault we are in this mess, I just wanted to go to bed," Sudsy cried to himself.

All that was going through my mind was, "what are they going to charge my card for the chairs. Crap. Fuck. Shit. Damn. I don't wanna go to jail, I wasn't made to be someone's bitch."

The truck was off, the race was on.
"We just gotta get out of South Carolina," Clean Freak muttered as he drove ever so slowly out of the parking lot. The truck was his and he treated it like it was his legacy, better than a child. In the 4 days at the beach the F250 had been washed twice. Twice.

Good thing he was the most sober out of all of us. He had been working on a little shugga momma for two days at the beach. The night before he went out at 1:45 in the morning with her, and didn't come back to the room until nearly 8AM. They had slept on the beach, canoodling, and smooching in one anothers arms until the sun came up. But no sex, no not yet, she was holding out, and he was willing to put the time in. The only thing standing in his way were the boys that the little vixen had come to the beach with. One of them had a crush on her, she had a crush on Clean Freak, the clan's very own pretty boy. They had planned on meeting up after dinner, then shit went down faster than your little sister on homecoming when this other shmuck heard about her plans. Clean Freak had waited for nearly two hours before finally saying to himself "bro's before hoes" and drove up to The Bowery.

The rest of us had a good two hours of drinking on him. Plus all of the beers at the beach during the day. It was after 3AM and we were drunk and tired. I tried to pull himself together as I looked at the directions. They were for the north to south trip. Trying to make the mirror image was not something that was coming easy to me. That combined with Wilder and the Hoe Puller giving completely incorrect directions the outlaws soon found themselves two hours out of the way on 17 North.

Clean Freak had to be fuming, here he was driving in the middle of nowhere, lost out of his mind with his so-called "friends" passed out. Somewhere in just south of North Carolina we picked up the trail of I-95. We woke up at a BP station in North Carolina to fill up the diesel. Soon enough the group fell asleep, sorry passed out again. The next time we woke up was maybe an hour later. Clean Freak couldn't go on anymore. He asked the Hoe Puller to drive. The clan again fell asleep, but slowly started to wake up as the F250 bareled down I-95 at 125 MPH. Hitting a little bump on a bidge feels like you are going a foot into the air.

As the truck sped up a slight incline the radar detector started beeping. We head the Hoe Puller yell, "oh shit!" We looked to the left and past the gaurd rail on the south bound lane we saw a state trooper put the pedal to the metal. Thinking quicker than I have ever seen him, Hoe Puller crossed three lanes of traffic and got into the exit lane. The rest of us turned around and looked to see when the trooper was going to cut back and turn on the lights. Thanks to about 200 yards of guard rail and a convenient exit ramp we didn't see the cop turn around. We thought it would be best to stay off the interstate for a while and get some food. The road we exited off to was parallel to the interstate, so we continued north looking for a Mickey D's or Hardee's. We drove through the town without seeing anything and finally came up to the second I-95 exit since we got off. We approached the intersection and got in the left turn lane to make a U and go back to the gas station we had just passed. As the Hoe Puller put on the brakes a state trooper pulled up to the intersection in the south bound lane. Shit.

Hoe Puller made a U and went into the parking lot of the Shell. Before we knew it the statey was right behind us blocking us in.

"Did you just get off the highway a few exits back?" He asked.
"No sir, we were just about to get on, we are heading down to Myrtle Beach." Hoe Puller stated as he pointed to the truck bed of luggage.
"Are you sure you didn't just get off 95?"
"Yes sir, we have been hanging out at a friends house."
"Alright, that's all I needed to know." The state trooper mumbled as he turned around, took off his hat, and got back into the drivers seat.

The rest of us were still sitting in the truck like deer in headlights as the trooper pulled out of the parking lot and flew like a bat out of hell south bound down the road. The rest of the trip home the truck did not make it past 80 MPH.