The Ice Chest That Burped

As all of you know, all four of you reading this, my brother and I went on a road trip over the winter. We started the road trip on December 16, 2010 and we ended it January 7, 2011.

(This is the path we took, like a Jesus fish going through evolution)

One of the things we decided is that we were going to bring an ice chest and eat out of the ice chest for our lunches. We figured buying some lunch meat, bread, and cheese was a good way to save money. I was more concerned with getting a few twelve packs of Coke Zero so I didn’t have to spend a couple dollars a day getting my coke fix.

So, we’re in Seattle and we decide it’s time to go grocery shopping for the road trip. Now, let me start with this: I’m a cheap asshole. I think Kevin may want to define himself as “fiscally responsible” while he would me define me as “downright cheap, like that Dickens character, who is the one? The one that’s cheap and hates Christmas? but Amy doesn’t hate Christmas, she’s just really really cheap.” So, what this boiled down to was a lot of budget purchases at the grocery store. It’s like “do we want name Hormel Turkey or this stuff called ‘Good Brand’ Turkey Meat that is fifty cents cheaper?” I will say this though, while I wanted to get the cheapest of the cheap when it came to our food, I would never try and cut my budget at Coca-Cola. We ended up in the yogurt section. Looking around, we saw this really good deal: Ten yogurts for ten dollars. It was too good a deal to pass up, so we found ourselves filling our grocery cart with off brand yogurt. We discovered as we were checking out that neither of us really like yogurt all that much, but we couldn’t pass up the deal.

So we loaded down the Ice chest with all the food: the yogurt, a handle of whiskey, two fifths of vodka and a 12 pack of coke zero. The essentials, if you will. On the way to Boise, we stopped and ate our first turkey sandwiches. It was in a little town in Eastern Washington that smelled vaguely of cow shit and was the home of Bonnie Dunlap, the astronaut. Imagine Kansas, but in Washington state. We arrived in Boise, visited with Pat and then took off for Utah. We stopped and ate again, and this was the point where we noticed that the ice chest was taking on a bit of a “funky” smell. The conversation went something like this

(This place smelled like poo, it didn't bother Baby Guidry.)

Kevin: The Ice chest smells kinda bad.

Amy: Do you think it’s the Turkey, like maybe it leaked or something?

Kevin: I don’t know…

Amy: Oh no, can’t be that. It’s in a zip lock bag *holds up zip lock bag*

Kevin: Hmmm.

Amy: Let’s just clean it out at the hotel tonight, I bet it just needs a little scrub down then everything will be fine.

So, we arrived in Utah at this crappy motel and we did the Utah thing. Which was, like, looking at a garish Mormon temple. I took the ice chest into the hotel room and emptied the contents onto a towel on the floor in the corner. Then, I took the ice chest and put it into the bathtub. I proceed to run really hot water into it and dump an entire thing of hotel shampoo into the ice chest. I gave it a little scrub with a washcloth. It smelled, you know, not bad anymore. I dare say it smelled good. I sent Kevin to get some ice and we re-filled it with all our stuff, including the 9 yogurts (because I ate one for lunch that day) and the rest of the food and drinks.

(Proof that I ate the GD yogurt)

As the days went by, the smell began to return. Three or so days later we were passing through Kansas City, Missouri. We decided to stop at one of those old school BBQ places. This was one of those places that you see on Food Network where they just do very insane things that don’t make much sense, but the food is so good that no one cares and they manage to stay in business in spite of themselves. For this place their thing was to take one tiny poor little piece of white bread and then load it down with meat, and then put another little piece of white bread on top. Their next step was to throw some pickles on the side and then wrap it in a large piece of paper. They called this “their BBQ Sandwich.” This was a “sandwich” in the loosest sense of the word, I would define it more as “a symphony of meat with some soggy white bread thrown in for shits-n-giggles.” So, Kevin and I walked in and ordered our respective meals. Kevin decided he wanted a side of pickles. He also got an extra side of meat to “eat for later.” So, all our stuff was wrapped in separate paper bundles: the “sandwiches,” the meat, and wet pickles. Kevin then put the pickles in the ice chest along with his side of meat. He ate his portion then I pulled off so we could switch driving, so I could eat my meal.

(Poor Bread)

I should say that during our “switch over” I parked on the side of a hotel. This is how this conversation went, and for those of you that don’t know, Kevin calls me “Doo”:

Kevin: Doo, why did you park here?

Amy: I don’t know

Kevin: Alright, I need to go find a garbage can, I’ll be right back. *walks through a grassy knoll to a gas station to throw stuff away.*

I decided to make my plate. I couldn’t deal with the “sandwich” so I just fixed myself a plate with the sides and I ate around the bread portion of the “sandwich.” Then Kevin got back in the car and it smelled very strongly of dog poo. This was how this conversation went:

Kevin: It smells like dog shit, I wonder if it’s me.

*gets out car, looks at bottom of shoe and sees dog poo*

Kevin: *calling back to me in the car* YEAH! IT’S ME! IT’S ON MY SHOES!

Amy: *Uncontrollable laughter*

Fast forward to the next day, the ice-chest ice is pretty much to that point where It’s like water with ice cubes floating in it, and on the top is a soggy bundle of pickles wrapped in paper as well as the bundle of meat. Now, because we were still a long way away from wherever it was that we were staying, we just had to deal with the “nasty pickle juice water” in the ice chest, that I swear to this day, was greenish.

(Wrapping up a bunch of wet pickles in this kinds of paper makes a lot of sense, and by "makes a lot of sense" of course I mean "none at all.")

We had a conversation that went something like this:

Amy: Why did you get that side of pickles, just to have it turn the ice chest into rank nasty pickle juice sludge water?

Kevin: I thought it was homemade pickles, I didn’t realize it was just jarred pickles wrapped in paper.

Then we sort of came up with this brilliant plan, because at this point, even though we cleared out the “nasty pickle juice water” the ice chest just smelled BAD. So, any time the ice would start to melt, we would fish out a coke or an energy drink, and the few drops of water that resided on top was then dubbed “(the) rank nasty ice chest water” or “the nasty pickle juice water.” (because even though the pickle tainted water left the ice chest, the gross that was the ice chest after the “pickle incident” lived on in our hearts and minds for the remainder of the trip.) I mean, it’s like you couldn’t ACTIVELY smell how bad the ice chest smelled on your drink, because we usually wiped it off before we started drinking it, but deep down you just knew: it was floating around in some of that freak nasty. The brilliant plan was to clean out the ice chest when we got into Louisiana. I think I decided that Bryan (our step dad) could help us with this. Like, he would somehow have the solution. The man owns a pressure washer; I was thinking we would just pressure wash the ice-chest in straight bleach.

(You can see the smelly ice chest in this picture. Instead of cleaning it out when we were in Louisiana, we opted to drink and hang out with friends and family.)

Did we do this? No. Why? Because we didn’t remember the entire time we were there. We where in Louisiana for, like, five days, which was the longest we stayed anywhere. (But, in our defense, remembering the ice chest smelled bad is kind of like remembering that you need to change your windshield wiper blades. You only remember when it’s raining and they are doing a crap job at clearing your windshield of rain. In our case, we only remembered the ice chest smelled bad in the middle of those long stretches of driving, which never happened the entire time we where in Louisiana.)

Once we got out of Louisiana and Texas, we were back to those long stretches of driving and then suddenly the ice chest became an issue. (And of course by “suddenly” I just mean “obviously, once again.”) Then, we stopped at a little Chinese food place somewhere between Santa Fe and The Grand Canyon. Here is a tip: never eat at a Chinese food anywhere between Santa Fe and the Grand Canyon.

I was still thinking that all Chinese food places are as good as Panda Express, so I got the brilliant idea to order an extra meal, and eat it later. So, I got the buffet and then ordered some Mongolian beef. They put it in that typical Styrofoam container, with the big compartment and the two smaller ones, and then put it in a grocery bag. I put it in the ice chest, which was once again getting to that point where it was a mix of water and ice.

A couple hours later we had a conversation that went something like this, while I was driving.

Amy: Can you beer me a coke?

Kevin: Sure. *turns around from the passenger seat, reaches into the back and open the ice chest, gags and almost pukes in mouth.* OH MY GOD!

Amy: What?!?

And then I smelled it. The Mongolian beef mixed with the already gross ice chest nasty smell. The smell had been taken to the next level; usually it was only the person that opened the ice chest that got hit with the smell, but this time it left the back seat and wafted throughout the entire car. I was like “get the coke and CLOSE THAT SHIT” so he did. We just kind of looked at each other in abject horror.

A couple more hours passed and at this point, I was in the passenger seat. I threw away the Mongolian beef when we stopped without even bother to try and eat it, and I’m pretty sure when I did this I was holding my nose and breath. We switched seats, and as I was in the passenger seat when I decided I wanted a coke. The conversation went something like this:

Amy: I’m going in!

Kevin: You sure you want the ice chest to burp at you?

Stomach: Foods Revenge for Eating It

People have heard me use the term “stomach” before, I think the point in my life when it was used by more people than just myself, was when I lived in Baton Rouge and I was going to LSU. My small group of friends at the time, which included my brother, all knew Stomach. (I put the qualifier that my brother was a part of that group, because he seemed to use it the most) The Sunday football watching crew was Me, Him, Colleen (his girlfriend at the time), Paul (his best friend from high school) who was dating Grace (who was Colleen’s old friend, who I also became friends with.) All these people knew what Stomach meant.

This is the definition

Stomach: When an individual eats so much of one particular food or type of food that they feel extremely uncomfortable, and it feels as if it is the only item that is in their stomach. The only remedy is time passing and your body processing the contents of what is in your stomach.  It occurs anywhere from one to ten minutes after a meal, and usually last anywhere from ten minutes to fifty minutes, depending on the contents. (Fruit, for example, comes on quick but then goes away pretty quickly, but if rice or bread is involved it takes a few minutes to expand in your stomach and it takes forever to go away.) Side effects of stomach include: Constant bitching, putting your hand on your stomach, and going “uuuuugh” “blaaaah” and other verbalizations that express and imply discomfort.

(A picture of where "stomach" occurs... in the Stomach)

Now, the first mistake that people make when I introduce them to this term, is that they get full and they go “oh MAN, I have STOMACH” and I’m like “Hmmm…not likely.” It’s not that the person isn’t capable of getting Stomach, and then expressing to me that they have it, but people just get a little Stomach happy when they are just “kind of full.” It’s the way moody people get diagnosed with Bi Polar, and the people that are actually Bi Polar are diagnosed Manic Depressive and the people that actually have Manic Depression are probably un-diagnosed swinging from the rafters at Caesars Palace in Vegas. Mental illness is NO. JOKE.

(Good stuff. Until it turns on you because you ate three pounds in one sitting.)

The first time I gave the condition that is “Stomach” a label, was when I was 16 or 17 years old and I ate four pints of Strawberries in one sitting. I mean, the only item in my stomach was A LOT strawberries and I was just like “WHYYYY.” Another instance of Stomach was the Christmas after I graduated high school, I was at my friend’s house and he was cooking hamburgers. I ate two because I was starving. I sat for a minute and decided that I could eat a third, needless to say I had Hamburger stomach, it was touch and go for a while. The main key is over indulgence and it being one item. You’re more likely to get stomach from one food item or one dish than you are to get it from a 13-course meal at a high-end restaurant.

(I didn't get stomach from eating here. This was the illusive "13 course meal" I speak of.)

If you talk to Kevin about it, he will tell you that it’s possible to get Stomach from an entire restaurant establishment. Which, in his case, can happen. I would argue that he has more “Thai Fried Rice Stomach” than “Thai Kitchen Stomach” but Stomach is such a personal thing, that the individual is responsible for the their own labels. I am not one to stunt creativity.

Now, some Stomachs are worse than others. My top most memorable Stomach experiences were, in no particular order:

1) Homemade Beef Jerky and Starlight Peppermint Stomach 

This one happened when I lived in South Carolina. I couldn’t tell you what movie it was that I snuck this stuff into, but I remember being like “fuuuuuuck” when it was all said and done. I made homemade beef jerky, so I filled a small zip lock back with a large handful. Then I was like “oh, I might want candy too!” So, I filled up another little zip lock bag with a large handful of starlight peppermints. I snuck them into the movie theater, found my seat and then once the lights went down I broke out the Jerky. Now, I put my Beef Jerky in the same category as my Nachos, where…I like them just as much, if not more, than other people. Which is the only reason for their continued existence, if we're being totally honest.  I finished the bag of Jerky rather quickly and then immediately bust out the peppermints. Without realizing it, I finished the entire bag of mints. Then, Stomach set in, and it sucked. Bad. I basically just had dehydrated meat, peppermint and sugar all mixed together. I may have only had it for ten or twenty minutes, but it felt like forever.

2) Crab Omelet Stomach

This was in Baton Rouge, one Sunday we decided to go to a local place for brunch. I think I went with my brother and Colleen. I’m not the biggest fan of Eggs Benedict, so I ended up getting the Crab Omelet. Now, the issue with this place is that all of the brunch items, I’m pretty sure involved seafood. I have issues with certain items mixed with eggs. Other than the obvious, which is chicken, I also don’t like beef or potatoes cooked with eggs. I could eat a steak and an egg, or eggs and hash browns, but all of it cooked together in the same pan, or wrapped in a burrito is not something I can deal with. After this experience, we can say, “seafood is something Amy will never eat with eggs again.” I was always fine eating crabs and crawfish growing up, but then I moved to South Carolina for a year, so I didn’t eat it for over two years (because even when I moved back, I couldn’t get my hands on it until my parents had a crawfish boil) ever since then, I’ve been more sensitive to seafood. In the sense that I’m just like “OH MY GOD SO MUCH SALT AND IODINE I FEEL SO GROOOOOOSSS” So yeah, the eggs and the crab all mixed together in my stomach made me pretty miserable for a while.

3)Hollandaise Stomach  

I kind of feel like this one was the worst. This was during father’s day at some point toward my Junior or Senior year at LSU. My brother and I met my dad at a restaurant in New Orleans. The menu said “Eggs Benedict with Garlic Cream Sauce” I was like “oh, how cool— they don’t put Hollandaise on their eggs Benedict, maybe for once I’ll enjoy eggs Benedict. I’ll have it!” Let me back up by saying, the issue I have with restaurant Hollandaise  (a.k.a. Blender Hollandaise) is that I made it all the time at my own job at the time and it’s gross like mayo is gross. I mean thank you FRANCE for deciding that egg yolk and butter together should go on top of eggs. So, I get my dish and sure enough this “garlic sauce” is about four ounces of Hollandaise. Was it garlic Hollandaise, you are probably asking yourself? No clue. Now, I’m saying that it was four ounces of Hollandaise because they were probably using a two-ounce ladle, which is a pretty common way to get sauce on a plate in most restaurant kitchens. At the place I worked at though, we didn’t always fill the whole ladle when saucing a plate. At this place though, they seemed to give me two heaping ladles of Hollandaise, one for each egg. I should ALSO say that, I never grew up eating yolk. It was the 90’s and my mom was worried about cholesterol because my step grandfather was having issues at age 70 from eating runny eggs his entire life, so she was, I guess, engaging in preventative healthcare or something. I just mostly had egg whites as a kid or got eggs over hard and avoided the yolk. This resulted in me not really digging yolk that much in my adult life. I can eat it, because I’m not a total freak, but I don’t love it, and it squicks me out if I have too much of it or if it’s too runny. So, between the mix of Hollandaise and runny yolk, I was in WAY over my head. I honestly don’t remember how much I ate, but I remember the entire drive from New Orleans to Baton Rouge (about an hour) I just kept looking at Kevin and saying, “I am NEVER. EATING. EGGS. AGAIN.” I know that at one point I was just scrapping the Hollandaise off each bite, and it was still far too much. I have eaten eggs since, but I have not and WILL NOT touch Hollandaise ever again, in my entire life. 

Chicken Nuggets: An Edible Vehicle for a Better Sauce

My brother and I were trying to figure out what to eat while driving through Arizona. We knew we wanted fast food of some sort. I suggested Dairy Queen. He was like “Gross, what do you get there?” and I was like “Chicken tenders” and he was like “you mean those crappy freeze dried ones? If you want chicken nuggets or strips, why don’t we go to Burger King?” and I was like “THOSE are gross.” Then we proceeded to just, not agree on the other persons definition of what constituted a “gross fried chicken nugget/strip.”

If I’m going to eat gross food, I want it to be freeze dried chicken strips from DQ, Kevin prefers nugget shaped chicken patties BECAUSE they include the dark meat. Now, I get that everyone has his or her opinions and personal preference: but it still grosses me out. I’m guessing, because in addition to dark meat mixed in with the white meat there is also that “other.” We ended up picking Wendy’s because that was a compromise of some sort. Where did we end up actually eating? Quiznos. I cut off an 18-wheeler to make the exit as soon as we saw the sign.

(Gross, but not as gross as Dyno-Bites)

But, it made me think about my relationship with chicken nuggets and strips. Now, there are the chicken strips my dad makes, which are the bomb. But, we can’t always have our parental units food, and considering I now live several thousand miles from my parents, I can’t rely on my dad’s homemade chicken tenders.

Using chicken nuggets and strips as a vehicle for some kind of sauce has always been my thing. I love Dairy Queen’s honey mustard, therefore I love DQ’s chicken strip box. I was really into this my senior year of high school. The guy I was dating at the time was a smoker, so we would sit outside the DQ and he would smoke and I would eat chicken strips. (I always made sure to be in my catholic school uniform, just in case my religion teacher were to drive by, just to see if I could get in trouble for sitting next to a smoker in uniform.) Now, I always knew the thing where smokers like to have a cigarette after eating, so I decided I was going to take a drag off his cigarette when I was done eating. I finished chewing my last bite and was like “ok, give me a drag.” I took it and inhaled a little too deeply. I started hacking and coughing and nearly puked. Good times. More recently, I snuck an entire chicken box combo into a movie theater under my jacket.

(Best BBQ Sauce ever, my gallon jug of it.)

Another way that I use chicken nuggets, is as a vehicle for Melvin’s BBQ, which is my favorite BBQ sauce in the entire world. This is not a subjective thing; it is a fact. This BBQ sauce is the best. This is one of those “my opinion is actually a true fact, and I will engage in bare knuckle fighting if you challenge me on this” situations.

(My Backup Gallon.)

Another fun thing to do is put chicken strips on top of a salad, in order to fully defeat the purpose of eating a salad. I’ve been known to eat the “Plantation Salad” from a place. I’m forgetting the name. But this salad has not only fried chicken, but also: cheese, boiled eggs and avocado, just to name a few ingredients. I also drown the entire thing in honey mustard. This is, the best salad ever, but it is only a salad in title, not in health spectrum.


If you made it this far, it means that you just read an entire blog entry about chicken nuggets. Congratulations. 

Mikes Hard Lemonade: Not at All Hardcore

I came home from LSU for my mom’s birthday. I had gotten my hands on some peach wine coolers, but her and my step dad were way ahead of me because they “learned how to make martinis and decided to drink them.” So, that’s when I decided to start making my mom “peach martinis.” This is the recipe for a peach martini, in case anyone is wondering.

Ingredients:

• 1 part Peach Wine Cooler
• 1 part Vodka

Steps:

• Pour into tumbler
• Add Ice
• Shake Shake Shake
• Pour in Glass
• Hand to your mom

I realize, now, that mixing wine and vodka together is not really technically a “martini” in any way, shape, or form.  All, “here is a grape martini, it’s a 2009 merlot and Grey Goose, ENJOY!” My mom being able to mix wine, vodka and whatever else she drank before I showed up is pretty hardcore, although to this day she will not touch a martini. Now, the reason why I mentioned that story is because I believe there are different levels of “hardcore” when it comes to drinking (i.e. What you drink, how much of it you drink, if your merry progeny is responsible for your most intense hangover in the last two decades since you had her.) Mikes Hard Lemonade, even though it possesses the word “hard” in it, is not at all “hardcore.”

(Drinking this on a pretty lake with mountains in the background is the least core thing ever.)

Now, that doesn’t mean it won’t get you both A) drunk and consequently B) hung-over.

My personal relationship with Mikes hit it’s peak the summer I lived in Sacramento. I found a pretty fun group, and hung out a good bit this one weekend. It was during the California State Fair. I was on a strict diet of Mikes that entire weekend. It was fun. But the main reason I latched onto Mikes over the summer in Sacramento was because of the insane heat. I actually figured out the other day that I’ve lived in every time zone at one point or another, and I can say without a doubt the most uncomfortable heat I’ve ever experienced is/was in California. South Carolina was hot, but it wasn’t all that bad because I lived five seconds from the beach. Louisiana was humid and hot, but I grew up there, so I could deal. Idaho had dry heat, but it was the arid north west, so while it got hot, people from Idaho’s definition of “hot” isn’t really as hot as hot could be. But in both Sacramento and San Diego, when it gets hot, you can feel your skin burning. This isn’t like “oh, I’ve been outside for four hours, I might be sun burnt” this is “I’ve been walking for one entire minute and I feel like my skin is literally sizzling.” It’s not at all as charming as the way the hot summer is described in the first chapter of the novel To Kill a Mockingbird, in case anyone was wondering, here is how Harper Lee paints the charming nostalgic picture of her childhood summer:

"Somehow, it was hotter then: a black dog suffered on a summer's day; bony mules hitched to Hoover carts flicked flies in the sweltering shade of the live oaks on the square. Men's stiff collars wilted by nine in the morning. Ladies bathed before noon, after their three-o'clock naps, and by nightfall were like soft teacakes with frostings of sweat and sweet talcum."

All those hot days, when I’m in my apartment sweating profusely I think, “why can’t I have a Harper Lee summer with a little bit of charm attached to the potential heat stroke?” because I feel like it would be worth it, you know? She also makes the South sound really charming; even though I’m pretty sure shit was super racist and, because the south is always behind the times, was probably still suffering from the Great Depression. Now, this is how I would describe the hot summers in San Diego and Sacramento, if I were writing a nostalgic novel:

“I notice the air conditioner is broken as I feel a bead of sweat drip down the small of my back. ‘This will be my third t-shirt change of the day’ I think to myself as I futilely tap on the little plastic thermostat box. Holy fuck stick, it’s hot as the dickens.”

(This sun is no fucking joke, yo.)

I haven’t experienced that kind of heat since last summer, then a little while ago BAM! HEAT! So, that caused me to go and buy some Mikes, because that’s my summer drink. I told Stephanie (for those of you who do not know who this is, she is another SDSU graduate student) that I bought a six-pack of Mikes when I was hanging out day drinking at Eric’s (Also an SDSU graduate student). I don’t remember the exact words that spilled out of her mouth, but this was the essence of what she said, “that is so the opposite of hardcore, and it’s taking a lot out of me to not clown the shit out of you. You disappoint me with your apparent lack of hardcore-ness”

(Small)

Now, you can’t tell, because she is sitting, but this girl is a few inches shorter than me, I think when she wears heels she’s my height. Stephanie in heels always freaks me out a little bit because I’m like “YOU ARE MY HEIGHT SUDDENLY” and feel all randomly threatened. Anyway, the point is that she seems like one of those girls that “doesn’t like the taste of beer” if we’re only using her appearance. (I also keep referring to her as a ‘girl’ even though she’s over 21, it’s like she’s just so subconsciously non-threatening, like a stuffed animal.) So, let’s compare her to the graduate student in our program that is a 6’2” male from Wisconsin.

(Not so small.)

Now, let’s compare their favorite beers:

• Eric: Bud Light Lime
• Stephanie: Hoppy McHopperson IPA (that she keeps in the trunk of her car at all times.)

If Eric can’t get his Bud Light Lime, then he goes for regular Bud Light. If Stephanie can’t get Hoppy McHopperson IPA, she goes for Guinness or a similarly dark stout. The point is that she drinks beer as if a 55-year-old man with a grey beard lives inside her. If I could get her and my step-dad in the same room, they would become quick beer friends.  I, personally, don’t like to chew on Hops when I’m drinking beer, but Stephanie has the hardcore-ness of a middle-aged man when it comes to beer. (Meaning, had we made first contact on, say, a beer forum instead of at orientation, I would have automatically assumed she was a middle-aged man, unless her handle was something like “I♥FluffyKittens&Rainbows22”)

I think my most potent Mikes Hard Lemonade memory, was when I got Mikes Hard Pink Lemonade. It was some sort of breast cancer thing; each six-pack of the pink lemonade donated some money so I was like “why not!” So, we had one or two in the refrigerator, and my brother and I are just hanging out, minding our own business. Then we had a car drive into our living room. This was, approximately eight p.m. … fast forward to 1 a.m. after the cops, firemen and guys who boarded up our house were gone, and we were in a hotel room (thank you Red Cross). We were told our apartment was not safe to stay in that night, until an electrician could come and see if the house is electrically sound (I guess, because there may have been open wires, etc.). My brother and I being, you know, who we are, ended up grabbing the frozen crawfish from the freezer and the two bottles of Pink Mikes from the fridge, and we drove to the hotel room.

(Drunk drivers are fuck sticks, much like hot weather. That bent metal tube in the foreground of the picture WAS THE STREET SIGN ON THE CORNER.)

Kevin propped up his injured leg on a pillow and asked me to grab him the Mikes. He then proceeded to get tipsier than a grown man of his tolerance and weight should have gotten off spiked pink lemonade. He came up with the best list ever, which I managed to get on video, and I will transcribe exactly.

Reasons Why We Live(d) in the Mother Fuckin’ Ghetto – by Kevin Guidry:

• “First off, a car ran through our living room wall”
• “Second, after we got, uh, over the shock of a car running into our living room, we got outside, 90 seconds tops…. And there’s like twenty people outside. That’s fucking ghetto.”
• “Third, there’s the mother of the kid that got hit by the car that came into our living, yelling at, basically, everyone really loudly.”
• “Fourth. Fourth reason our neighborhood is so fucking ghetto, three of our ghetto neighbors actually chased down the driver of the car, who was drunk as fuck, and just took off on foot. They chased him down, made a citizens arrest, if you will, of course the mom started chewing that dude out…. in Spanish. He was crying. Cops came. He’s probably in jail tonight.”
• “Sixth reason our neighborhood is ghetto is, while the police are roping off the crime scene taking pictures, CSI and all, we have two different neighbors come up to us and say ‘hey, when all these cops get out of here, y’all want to come to our house and get really fucked up? Just come on over.’ We had a person on either side tell us the same thing, and they were both just ghetto young white dudes, like our age white kids, and everyone smelled like they had been drinking.”

According to my forensic analysis of the grainy bottle of Mikes Hard Lemonade sitting on the night stand near Kevin, it was about half full, therefore it would appear this entire diatribe was brought to us by a half drunk, pink, Mikes Hard Lemonade.