OK. So. The New Orleans work trip update.
A few weeks of straight work passed MUCH faster than I expected. And I'll be doing this through the rest of the year, with two short breaks (for which they'll bus me home so I don't "exhaust myself" and I'll...work here.). Major pay, raise for it, free food, FUCK YEA.
Day 1: On The Road Again:I'd worked almost an entire overnight shift when people showed up to get shuttled to a nearby city for pickup. People thought I was crazy for not sleeping but umm....I get paid for working. They pay us for travel time, during which we have sleepers. So, why not work for money then get paid to sleep? I'd packed a backpack and small sack of clothes/supplies intended for at most one week of use...what SHOULD have been a 3 hour drive turned into 14 hours. We had to pick up people who were late, we had to stop for McDonald's (and then Burger King, for people who don't like McVomit's), then we had to stop to pee, THEN we had to stop for lunch, then we had to stop for gas, then we get to the outskirts of New Orleans....delay while we drive around looking at the damage a bit, and then we....get lost. That's right, we went to the wrong place, and had to go ALL THE WAY back across the city to our place....then....ohno. We can't unload yet. We have to go drop off the females first. So another hour driving there through horrible traffic and the most frightening single lane bridge EVER:it runs alongside a tall railroad bridge, and these bridges are horrible rusted. Eventually we make it to our "home", our "dorm", the "male facility"....
The destruction in Nawlins (and the surrounding areas) is worse than you can see on the news, and this is after (how long of a?) cleanup began. Entire apartment complexes crumpled, garbage piled two stories high, roads ripped up, stained building sides from the water, nasty stuff. Large portions STILL don't have power.
So, we're technically in another day for Day Two:You Made Your Bed, Now Lie In It. We had to set up our living facilities (unlike the females). We're outside of New Orleans, near Kenner. Imagine an empty grocery store. You walk in. Straight ahead, in the back, are the double doors to the back rooms. Ahead, and to the left side, are 150 beds just laying in rows. We would get to build ALL the frames for those and also linen them (something I didn't bother to do, as it's been so long since I owned a bed I really dont remember how nor do I care for anything other than a blanket). To the right is a large border-on the other side of it is our "rec area". We got to install this next, and naturally it's where I had the most fun:THREE 51" plasma HDTVs and EIGHT 30" HDTVs; 4 XBoxs and 4 Playstation 2s; and....two DVD players. And LOTS of Direct TV hookups (which NONE of us could figure out). Several couches, recliners. Lots of fun to hook that up, then they brought in somewhere around a hundred various games and a hundred DVDs. Immediately behind that was a cheap "weight area", which basically was a broken BowFlex, a bench (with no bar or anything), a few weight bars and MAYBE 200 pounds worth of weights (at the MOST) to go around. Behind that, though, was my favorite part. SIX refridgerators and SIX deep freezers, and SIX tables....all loaded with food and drink, replenished DAILY. Orange and apple juice and water every day, croissants and philly steak sandwhiches everyday, chicken breasts, BLUEBERRY MUFFINS, chicken salads, all KINDS of good stuff.
LOTS of microwaves. In the back room was a row of nonfunctioning computers (that we could never get running), and an elevated platform which had 8 sink/mirrors and maybe a dozen private shower stalls. The showers were GREAT, the water only came in three temperatures:hot, hottest, and more than any human could stand. It never ran out of hot.
There was a problem with the water though:it was HARSH. I would quickly learn I was not the only person who was having serious skin dryness issues. Parts of my arm looked lizardlike, and there's no feeling like laughing and feeling skin break. Now that I'm away from it, I'm starting to heal up, but damn. I wish I were INTO pain so that I could be excited to see my dick scabbing. At least this time it's for a different reason...
The female "dorm" had a MUCH better setup. All 150 h ad their own cubicle, a dozen net connected computers, a library, chefs cooking fresh for them nightly, all the other amenities we had, OH. AND TRANSPORTATION IN THEIR OFF TIME.
Time to hit "bed", work starts at 5am....
Day Three:Hello, I Love You Won't You Tell Me Your Name? First day was basically hauling stuff from out of a warehouse.....for over 12 hours....assembling some "things" (dont remember what they're called) that hang from a ceiling and rise/lower with hooks. However, damn. Just. Wow. Kenner, Louisiana; YOU are the MILF capital of America. Any woman with their daughter was at LEAST %150 hotter. LOTS of distracting eye candy. Minus points:no goths (for the WHOLE trip) and no redheads. Day went by pretty quickly....
You know, fuck the day by day. Let's say that work was 12-16 hours a day of various work at various locations. Deconstruction, reconstruction, assembly, painting, hauling, loading/unloading 18wheelers, installation, electrical work, all kinds of stuff. I'll hit the work highlights, then the nonwork highlights.
Nearly got into a fight with a hopped up meth addict....guy REALLY took his job too seriously and NEVER stopped for break/lunch, got his "recharge" on the job, etc....a peon with a big head. REALLY pissed people off, but noone else had the balls to say anything (not that I made much progress)...but when management appeared and an arguement began, I joined in on management's side, explained what had been going on and a more efficient way to do things but this guy wasn't listening and was THREATENING others. Etc etc, meth head picks up a wooden crate and HURLS IT at a guy.
Forklifts that can only drive backwards are an interesting experience.
One place had been completely submerged in water....on the third day there, I'm recruited to powerwash and disinfect all the carts becase noone had done that yet....we'd been using them for DAYS. I touched that infected thing with my hand, and touched my wang too! Nice of them to "remember", then tell us never to tell anyone and not to speak about allowing contaminated materials in. Of course, using the filthy water supply to clean it didn't make much sense, but hey...
The "dorms" had some interesting problems. Someone stepped on a pair of used condoms in one of the shower stalls, one of the guys was arrested after being found sneaking ABOVE the shower stalls and taking pictures, etc. Some morons tried to steal a shitload of discs and game consoles....and most of them got away, unfortunately. Being paid extra, fed housed and entertained, and STILL you want to take MORE?!
One guy didn't shower or change clothes for the whole 2 weeks. Just kept spraying himself with aerosol deodorant. NASTY. His stink made eyes burn.
I played with an XBox Three Shitty. I'm sure you can guess my opinion of the thing after a few tries and a few games, and I never touched it again. "Next gen" doesn't look much better than current gen. Microsoft, I suspect your underpowered and undersupported console will fall right back to second place.....
Had a surprising series of GOOD times, though. Made a few good friends, Chris (who looks EXACTLY like Kid Rock, remember that detail), Jimmy (who resembled Adam Corrola), and Scotty. In fact, of the many trips to local bars or to the French Quarter, the BEST of those days came with Chris:picked up a few neat shirts at Gargoyles and lunch at Angeli's (ohyes. feta cheese chicken pizza.)...and then it was time to walk Bourbon. The PLAN was to kill some time, down a few shots, and head to my mecca (which, sadly, the awesome picture didn't come through since the camera didn't survive the trip)....the Hustler:Barely Legal strip club. Ran into Rod Stewart and his wife on the street, upon being recognized and spoken to he murmered something covered his face turned around and walked in a different direction....then ducked into a building when more people recognized him. Damn, I just asked how it's going. Chris ended up being mistaken for Kid Rock at one point, which was pretty funny and got us some free tits. "Holy shit, Kid Rock on the street!" Most of the night ended up a blur, but here's the shorthand version. Club. Thought it was a CD playing, it was a LIVE BAND, holy HELL they sound great, and wow. That singer is bringing in men but the dozens. Let's grab a few drinks! Look, 4 for 1! Wow, they're good, let's see if they know....you know of King's X?! Yea, I'm a big Alice In Chains fan too. Oh, you KNOW some KX tunes?! Play them, please?! They were mostly playing 70s tunes and some hair fluff, but we drank and chatted for a few hours before getting OUR chance to sing along and shine....and it went from there. They started playing louder, faster heavier stuff as we refused to surrender the singing.....clarification. I can't sing. I can SCREAM. Drinks and shots started flying, things became blurry, I remember at one point slamming down the cash for a dozen drinks between Chris and I and having them gone within the span of two or three songs-tsated like shit, but it went down fast. Made my throat more raw. This would go on for....5 or 6 hours, we screaming out heavy versions of hair tunes and early 90's grunge hits (I even got to sing my King's X!), the girls were....well, shit, honestly, I stopped paying attention to the strippers(!) to concentrate on headbanging and not smashing into Chris while we tore the floor/stage up, people screamed, it was great! Again, I love music...I should be a part of it...it should have been MY show with MY music, not me hyping up drunks to other people's tunes and tits....but the holy mecca was yet to happen. ALL DAY I'd had "Cum On, Feel the Noize, Girls Rock Your Boys" stuck in my head.....and then.
*thump!* *thump!* thissoundslikeQuietRiot *thump!* *crash!* IT'SFUCKINGQUIETRIOTCHRISGETOVERHERE!
We quickly killed the drinks and ordered more and launched into one of my favorite guilty debauchery favorites.....drunk out of my mind, ignoring the grinding of the girls, ignoring the cheering of the crowd, ignoring where my head was flailing, screaming and belting it out....
The festivities ended when Jimmy showed up and convinced us to come with him to the Hustler club....I had tits where I was, I had MUSIC where I was, I was already smashed....why would I leave?! But we did....Hustler is a mecca. It was there that I recieved the biggest torture of the evening:while flailing about I didn't really have time to notice or care about the opposite gender, I felt each strike of the bass pedal as a pulse in my heart, my ears told me that I have to hear myself over the buzzsaw of the guitars, my vision told me that the ground was down and everything else was a neon blurgasm, my sense of balance told me to sway to stay put.....but once we reached there? Once I was sat down and forced to notice, once I was straddled for a lap dance (oh how I HATE lap dances. it hurts to be so close and not be allowed to touch.) it occured to me I was trapped and to allow any of my arousal (reawoken from it's long slumber by my nose and the slight brushes of soft skin against my own) to show through could make things....bad. She spread her lips and ran it down my nose-I'd never thought about trying to penetrate someone with the tip of my nose before, and even after wiping off the fluid the scent of her rose stayed with me until I showered it off.
Good thing the visit to the Hustler ended early due to Chris passing out on the table and security asking us to leave.
I think I went down to the Quarter a total of....5 times? And the bar across the street from where we stayed gave us GREAT discounts (a dollar a pitcher?!), most of the guys were very disappointed by the nearby strip club (hi guys, you won't find silicone barbie dolls are a place called Fat City), GREAT pizza place next door, etc....mostly good times.
Except for that last night.
Night before Halloween....the Quarter SHOULD have been bustling. I'd NEVER seen it so dead. I'd debated whether or not to go, anyway, since getting smashed before taking a bus ride home probably wasn't the best idea. But there was a group of guys going, it'd be cheap to get there and back, why not....
Big mistake.
There was a taxi company that gave us a good rate to the Quarter, if we got a couple guys together (at least 4, no max) it was 5 bucks each, each way. Much cheaper than the average of 24-30 that other companies quoted us per way, who also charged an additional fee per head for groups or an INSANE flat per head rate to/from the Quarter. I decide sure...for under $20, I can get smashed again, I'll meet up with Jimmy and Scotty and they'll pay for entrance to Hustler AND the ride home, Scotty already said! I'll go with this group and we'll hook up with them, it'll be dirt cheap for all.
FUCKING WRONG.
The night went horribly....these damned kids we were with....couldn't control themselves after a few drinks. One guy thought it was a great idea to pull the back of a stripper's skirt and try to spit down it. Another tried to provoke a cop, even lightly punching at him. Another wandered off and as we went after him through an alley in a less than pleasant area, he started yelling at some Mexicans crowded together in a corner, and a gun was fired once in our direction (thankfully he listened to that). Worst, though, was someone deciding "Hey. Why go inside and around the corner? I can pee off the balcony here and noone will see! I bet I can get that guy on the top of the head!"
.....it was a cop.
So we were almost all arrested for that (by a SWARM of cops), and we even had weapons drawn on us. That's some dangerous urine, folks, and some BORED cops.
I wish I could say that we only had weapons pointed twice.
Earlier in the evening, we were told to call no later than 1:30am but no earlier than 1:00am to arrange for our cab company to come get us. The corner of Bourbon and Orleans seemed a good spot. Around 1, I manage to get the guy with the phone to call and I hear him making the arrangement.....yay, back to funtimes and we'll head that way in about half an hour.
There's a curfew in effect, 2am, or your ass is in jail. They don't play around on this. New York police, New Orleans police, and National Guard do a sweep up/down each street. So we're standing at that corner at 1:55 and I say "Um. Call that company and find out where our cab is." Huh?! How could we not have been there, we've been here for 20 minutes! You went by several times!? No cab has come through here! What address do you have?!.....ohshit. Can we get one out here NOW? Um. No cabs and no way in. SHIT.
It would seem that our friend gave them a HORRIBLY wrong address. This kid, on his first visit to the Quarter, decided he knew the area better and remembered just fine where we were. So he ordered for a cab to pick us up at the corner of Bourbon and Oz. Well, let's see....there IS no Oz street, for one; for another the Oz is a gay bar several blocks down the way and NOT the place where we were standing. The place clearly labeled. We frantically start calling cabs as we have rifles slung our way by passing police and told we have 5 minutes to clear out. No cabs available. Noone can get INTO the Quarter. Ohcrap, we're going to jail. We start to cross the street to get away from the next sweep of cops and....nearly get run over by a taxi! HOORAY! It's not ours, it's not a company we dealt with, it's an inner city company....this guy KNOWS he can rape our wallets, there's 7 of us with no other choices but jail.
"$12 a head!"
The kids were SUPPOSED to have made sure to keep $6 handy for the lift home. None but ONE of them had bothered to do so. Some of them had a buck or two. One of our guys had his wallet lifted. Scotty and I were the only ones with money. How much for just us three, Jimmy Scotty and I? Per head AND mileage. So eitherway, I'm wiped out of money, Scott only has $20 on him and I've only wrangled $8 from the kids. It's going to break me eitherway, I might as well get this morons home instead of letting them rot in jail.
So....I DIDNT get smashed, because we were herding the kids we DIDNT see booblies, we almost got shot and/or arrested, AND had I gone by myself it STILL would have ended up being cheaper. Fucking GREAT.
Wow. Just. Too many stories to tell, and already this page is getting long. I'll tell more if I have time before heading back this weekend.
EDIT! I forgot to include the double awesome whammy of back-to-back "I Don't Like The Drugs (But The Drugs Like Me)" and "We Are All On Drugs". Not on anything myself, but damned if it didn't get a chorus!
A few weeks of straight work passed MUCH faster than I expected. And I'll be doing this through the rest of the year, with two short breaks (for which they'll bus me home so I don't "exhaust myself" and I'll...work here.). Major pay, raise for it, free food, FUCK YEA.
Day 1: On The Road Again:I'd worked almost an entire overnight shift when people showed up to get shuttled to a nearby city for pickup. People thought I was crazy for not sleeping but umm....I get paid for working. They pay us for travel time, during which we have sleepers. So, why not work for money then get paid to sleep? I'd packed a backpack and small sack of clothes/supplies intended for at most one week of use...what SHOULD have been a 3 hour drive turned into 14 hours. We had to pick up people who were late, we had to stop for McDonald's (and then Burger King, for people who don't like McVomit's), then we had to stop to pee, THEN we had to stop for lunch, then we had to stop for gas, then we get to the outskirts of New Orleans....delay while we drive around looking at the damage a bit, and then we....get lost. That's right, we went to the wrong place, and had to go ALL THE WAY back across the city to our place....then....ohno. We can't unload yet. We have to go drop off the females first. So another hour driving there through horrible traffic and the most frightening single lane bridge EVER:it runs alongside a tall railroad bridge, and these bridges are horrible rusted. Eventually we make it to our "home", our "dorm", the "male facility"....
The destruction in Nawlins (and the surrounding areas) is worse than you can see on the news, and this is after (how long of a?) cleanup began. Entire apartment complexes crumpled, garbage piled two stories high, roads ripped up, stained building sides from the water, nasty stuff. Large portions STILL don't have power.
So, we're technically in another day for Day Two:You Made Your Bed, Now Lie In It. We had to set up our living facilities (unlike the females). We're outside of New Orleans, near Kenner. Imagine an empty grocery store. You walk in. Straight ahead, in the back, are the double doors to the back rooms. Ahead, and to the left side, are 150 beds just laying in rows. We would get to build ALL the frames for those and also linen them (something I didn't bother to do, as it's been so long since I owned a bed I really dont remember how nor do I care for anything other than a blanket). To the right is a large border-on the other side of it is our "rec area". We got to install this next, and naturally it's where I had the most fun:THREE 51" plasma HDTVs and EIGHT 30" HDTVs; 4 XBoxs and 4 Playstation 2s; and....two DVD players. And LOTS of Direct TV hookups (which NONE of us could figure out). Several couches, recliners. Lots of fun to hook that up, then they brought in somewhere around a hundred various games and a hundred DVDs. Immediately behind that was a cheap "weight area", which basically was a broken BowFlex, a bench (with no bar or anything), a few weight bars and MAYBE 200 pounds worth of weights (at the MOST) to go around. Behind that, though, was my favorite part. SIX refridgerators and SIX deep freezers, and SIX tables....all loaded with food and drink, replenished DAILY. Orange and apple juice and water every day, croissants and philly steak sandwhiches everyday, chicken breasts, BLUEBERRY MUFFINS, chicken salads, all KINDS of good stuff.
LOTS of microwaves. In the back room was a row of nonfunctioning computers (that we could never get running), and an elevated platform which had 8 sink/mirrors and maybe a dozen private shower stalls. The showers were GREAT, the water only came in three temperatures:hot, hottest, and more than any human could stand. It never ran out of hot.
There was a problem with the water though:it was HARSH. I would quickly learn I was not the only person who was having serious skin dryness issues. Parts of my arm looked lizardlike, and there's no feeling like laughing and feeling skin break. Now that I'm away from it, I'm starting to heal up, but damn. I wish I were INTO pain so that I could be excited to see my dick scabbing. At least this time it's for a different reason...
The female "dorm" had a MUCH better setup. All 150 h ad their own cubicle, a dozen net connected computers, a library, chefs cooking fresh for them nightly, all the other amenities we had, OH. AND TRANSPORTATION IN THEIR OFF TIME.
Time to hit "bed", work starts at 5am....
Day Three:Hello, I Love You Won't You Tell Me Your Name? First day was basically hauling stuff from out of a warehouse.....for over 12 hours....assembling some "things" (dont remember what they're called) that hang from a ceiling and rise/lower with hooks. However, damn. Just. Wow. Kenner, Louisiana; YOU are the MILF capital of America. Any woman with their daughter was at LEAST %150 hotter. LOTS of distracting eye candy. Minus points:no goths (for the WHOLE trip) and no redheads. Day went by pretty quickly....
You know, fuck the day by day. Let's say that work was 12-16 hours a day of various work at various locations. Deconstruction, reconstruction, assembly, painting, hauling, loading/unloading 18wheelers, installation, electrical work, all kinds of stuff. I'll hit the work highlights, then the nonwork highlights.
Nearly got into a fight with a hopped up meth addict....guy REALLY took his job too seriously and NEVER stopped for break/lunch, got his "recharge" on the job, etc....a peon with a big head. REALLY pissed people off, but noone else had the balls to say anything (not that I made much progress)...but when management appeared and an arguement began, I joined in on management's side, explained what had been going on and a more efficient way to do things but this guy wasn't listening and was THREATENING others. Etc etc, meth head picks up a wooden crate and HURLS IT at a guy.
Forklifts that can only drive backwards are an interesting experience.
One place had been completely submerged in water....on the third day there, I'm recruited to powerwash and disinfect all the carts becase noone had done that yet....we'd been using them for DAYS. I touched that infected thing with my hand, and touched my wang too! Nice of them to "remember", then tell us never to tell anyone and not to speak about allowing contaminated materials in. Of course, using the filthy water supply to clean it didn't make much sense, but hey...
The "dorms" had some interesting problems. Someone stepped on a pair of used condoms in one of the shower stalls, one of the guys was arrested after being found sneaking ABOVE the shower stalls and taking pictures, etc. Some morons tried to steal a shitload of discs and game consoles....and most of them got away, unfortunately. Being paid extra, fed housed and entertained, and STILL you want to take MORE?!
One guy didn't shower or change clothes for the whole 2 weeks. Just kept spraying himself with aerosol deodorant. NASTY. His stink made eyes burn.
I played with an XBox Three Shitty. I'm sure you can guess my opinion of the thing after a few tries and a few games, and I never touched it again. "Next gen" doesn't look much better than current gen. Microsoft, I suspect your underpowered and undersupported console will fall right back to second place.....
Had a surprising series of GOOD times, though. Made a few good friends, Chris (who looks EXACTLY like Kid Rock, remember that detail), Jimmy (who resembled Adam Corrola), and Scotty. In fact, of the many trips to local bars or to the French Quarter, the BEST of those days came with Chris:picked up a few neat shirts at Gargoyles and lunch at Angeli's (ohyes. feta cheese chicken pizza.)...and then it was time to walk Bourbon. The PLAN was to kill some time, down a few shots, and head to my mecca (which, sadly, the awesome picture didn't come through since the camera didn't survive the trip)....the Hustler:Barely Legal strip club. Ran into Rod Stewart and his wife on the street, upon being recognized and spoken to he murmered something covered his face turned around and walked in a different direction....then ducked into a building when more people recognized him. Damn, I just asked how it's going. Chris ended up being mistaken for Kid Rock at one point, which was pretty funny and got us some free tits. "Holy shit, Kid Rock on the street!" Most of the night ended up a blur, but here's the shorthand version. Club. Thought it was a CD playing, it was a LIVE BAND, holy HELL they sound great, and wow. That singer is bringing in men but the dozens. Let's grab a few drinks! Look, 4 for 1! Wow, they're good, let's see if they know....you know of King's X?! Yea, I'm a big Alice In Chains fan too. Oh, you KNOW some KX tunes?! Play them, please?! They were mostly playing 70s tunes and some hair fluff, but we drank and chatted for a few hours before getting OUR chance to sing along and shine....and it went from there. They started playing louder, faster heavier stuff as we refused to surrender the singing.....clarification. I can't sing. I can SCREAM. Drinks and shots started flying, things became blurry, I remember at one point slamming down the cash for a dozen drinks between Chris and I and having them gone within the span of two or three songs-tsated like shit, but it went down fast. Made my throat more raw. This would go on for....5 or 6 hours, we screaming out heavy versions of hair tunes and early 90's grunge hits (I even got to sing my King's X!), the girls were....well, shit, honestly, I stopped paying attention to the strippers(!) to concentrate on headbanging and not smashing into Chris while we tore the floor/stage up, people screamed, it was great! Again, I love music...I should be a part of it...it should have been MY show with MY music, not me hyping up drunks to other people's tunes and tits....but the holy mecca was yet to happen. ALL DAY I'd had "Cum On, Feel the Noize, Girls Rock Your Boys" stuck in my head.....and then.
*thump!* *thump!* thissoundslikeQuietRiot *thump!* *crash!* IT'SFUCKINGQUIETRIOTCHRISGETOVERHERE!
We quickly killed the drinks and ordered more and launched into one of my favorite guilty debauchery favorites.....drunk out of my mind, ignoring the grinding of the girls, ignoring the cheering of the crowd, ignoring where my head was flailing, screaming and belting it out....
The festivities ended when Jimmy showed up and convinced us to come with him to the Hustler club....I had tits where I was, I had MUSIC where I was, I was already smashed....why would I leave?! But we did....Hustler is a mecca. It was there that I recieved the biggest torture of the evening:while flailing about I didn't really have time to notice or care about the opposite gender, I felt each strike of the bass pedal as a pulse in my heart, my ears told me that I have to hear myself over the buzzsaw of the guitars, my vision told me that the ground was down and everything else was a neon blurgasm, my sense of balance told me to sway to stay put.....but once we reached there? Once I was sat down and forced to notice, once I was straddled for a lap dance (oh how I HATE lap dances. it hurts to be so close and not be allowed to touch.) it occured to me I was trapped and to allow any of my arousal (reawoken from it's long slumber by my nose and the slight brushes of soft skin against my own) to show through could make things....bad. She spread her lips and ran it down my nose-I'd never thought about trying to penetrate someone with the tip of my nose before, and even after wiping off the fluid the scent of her rose stayed with me until I showered it off.
Good thing the visit to the Hustler ended early due to Chris passing out on the table and security asking us to leave.
I think I went down to the Quarter a total of....5 times? And the bar across the street from where we stayed gave us GREAT discounts (a dollar a pitcher?!), most of the guys were very disappointed by the nearby strip club (hi guys, you won't find silicone barbie dolls are a place called Fat City), GREAT pizza place next door, etc....mostly good times.
Except for that last night.
Night before Halloween....the Quarter SHOULD have been bustling. I'd NEVER seen it so dead. I'd debated whether or not to go, anyway, since getting smashed before taking a bus ride home probably wasn't the best idea. But there was a group of guys going, it'd be cheap to get there and back, why not....
Big mistake.
There was a taxi company that gave us a good rate to the Quarter, if we got a couple guys together (at least 4, no max) it was 5 bucks each, each way. Much cheaper than the average of 24-30 that other companies quoted us per way, who also charged an additional fee per head for groups or an INSANE flat per head rate to/from the Quarter. I decide sure...for under $20, I can get smashed again, I'll meet up with Jimmy and Scotty and they'll pay for entrance to Hustler AND the ride home, Scotty already said! I'll go with this group and we'll hook up with them, it'll be dirt cheap for all.
FUCKING WRONG.
The night went horribly....these damned kids we were with....couldn't control themselves after a few drinks. One guy thought it was a great idea to pull the back of a stripper's skirt and try to spit down it. Another tried to provoke a cop, even lightly punching at him. Another wandered off and as we went after him through an alley in a less than pleasant area, he started yelling at some Mexicans crowded together in a corner, and a gun was fired once in our direction (thankfully he listened to that). Worst, though, was someone deciding "Hey. Why go inside and around the corner? I can pee off the balcony here and noone will see! I bet I can get that guy on the top of the head!"
.....it was a cop.
So we were almost all arrested for that (by a SWARM of cops), and we even had weapons drawn on us. That's some dangerous urine, folks, and some BORED cops.
I wish I could say that we only had weapons pointed twice.
Earlier in the evening, we were told to call no later than 1:30am but no earlier than 1:00am to arrange for our cab company to come get us. The corner of Bourbon and Orleans seemed a good spot. Around 1, I manage to get the guy with the phone to call and I hear him making the arrangement.....yay, back to funtimes and we'll head that way in about half an hour.
There's a curfew in effect, 2am, or your ass is in jail. They don't play around on this. New York police, New Orleans police, and National Guard do a sweep up/down each street. So we're standing at that corner at 1:55 and I say "Um. Call that company and find out where our cab is." Huh?! How could we not have been there, we've been here for 20 minutes! You went by several times!? No cab has come through here! What address do you have?!.....ohshit. Can we get one out here NOW? Um. No cabs and no way in. SHIT.
It would seem that our friend gave them a HORRIBLY wrong address. This kid, on his first visit to the Quarter, decided he knew the area better and remembered just fine where we were. So he ordered for a cab to pick us up at the corner of Bourbon and Oz. Well, let's see....there IS no Oz street, for one; for another the Oz is a gay bar several blocks down the way and NOT the place where we were standing. The place clearly labeled. We frantically start calling cabs as we have rifles slung our way by passing police and told we have 5 minutes to clear out. No cabs available. Noone can get INTO the Quarter. Ohcrap, we're going to jail. We start to cross the street to get away from the next sweep of cops and....nearly get run over by a taxi! HOORAY! It's not ours, it's not a company we dealt with, it's an inner city company....this guy KNOWS he can rape our wallets, there's 7 of us with no other choices but jail.
"$12 a head!"
The kids were SUPPOSED to have made sure to keep $6 handy for the lift home. None but ONE of them had bothered to do so. Some of them had a buck or two. One of our guys had his wallet lifted. Scotty and I were the only ones with money. How much for just us three, Jimmy Scotty and I? Per head AND mileage. So eitherway, I'm wiped out of money, Scott only has $20 on him and I've only wrangled $8 from the kids. It's going to break me eitherway, I might as well get this morons home instead of letting them rot in jail.
So....I DIDNT get smashed, because we were herding the kids we DIDNT see booblies, we almost got shot and/or arrested, AND had I gone by myself it STILL would have ended up being cheaper. Fucking GREAT.
Wow. Just. Too many stories to tell, and already this page is getting long. I'll tell more if I have time before heading back this weekend.
EDIT! I forgot to include the double awesome whammy of back-to-back "I Don't Like The Drugs (But The Drugs Like Me)" and "We Are All On Drugs". Not on anything myself, but damned if it didn't get a chorus!
How is your penis doing?
that is one uber long post. *smile*