Hey! Where y'all goin?

Guest Post #3 - The Choz

Our intentions were good. It was supposed to be was a spring break trip to St. Pete beach Florida. Instead it became a trip that none of want to remember, nor can we forget.

Day 1

In March of 2006, The Dub, Ukraine, Dan and myself set out to St Petersburg, Florida, to try to re-live our spring break glory days. The trip started off great. After landing in Tampa, Condor picked us up in his land yacht and we headed to his house in Bradenton. Upon arriving we played beer pong and polished off two cases at an alarming, Okoboji summer of 2002 like, pace. Then we headed out to a local strip mall bar and introduced the people of Bradenton to our favorite bar game…credit card roulette. A few hours later the bar was about to close and it was time to head back home. Dan made a quick stop to the bathroom to throw up in the urinal and we headed back to crash. The trip was looking good.

Day 2

Time to head to our hotel on St. Pete Beach. We check in and hit Harry’s beach bar. At this point we began to hypothesis about what percentage of Florida residents have tattoos. After a few pitchers and a lot of people watching we determined it to be 85%.

Dinner time was coming up and we decided to hit up Hurricane’s for some seafood. The Dub had some familiarity with the area and recommended the spot. After dinner we found a bar that looked like the type of place we could camp out for the night. The bar was Shadrack’s. If Shadrack’s was in Chicago it would be located right next to Mothers Two on Division. We walked in and I ordered four beers. The bartender told me that would be $4. This was going to be a good night. 4 hours and $75 dollars later we were smashed. It was about 2 am and we had to be up in 4 hours. Deep sea fishing awaited us. So we left the bar and flagged down a cab. The cab turned out to be the family truckster from National Lampoons Vacation. We climbed in the back window and headed back to the hotel.

Day 3

6:15 AM….Wake up call time. We are not sober. We need to get to the dock to meet our boat captain by 7. We get out of bed, get dressed and grab the necessities. Those necessities being two cases of beer and sunglasses. At the time two cases of beer sounded very logical for a 5 hour fishing trip.

We arrive at the dock at 7 am. Captain Mike of the Far Horizon is waiting for us. We hop on the boat and meet Captain Mike’s first mate. His name was Byl. Byl had been a fisherman all of his life. You could make a wallet from the skin on the back of Byl’s neck.

Captain Mike took the helm and we were off. He told us he knew of a great spot in the gulf to catch some big fish. It was going to take about an hour to get there, but he said it would be well worth it. This is where things started to get bad. Dan and Ukraine decided to enjoy the journey from the crows nest area of the boat. The Dub and I stayed in the lower deck of the boat and looked at pictures of previous fishing trips, everyone looking happy and content with their catch. Captain Mike made sure to point out the picture of him with “The Mailman” Karl Malone. Now that I think about it I bet that picture was damn fake.

About 15 minutes into the trip we realized the sea was angry. The Far Horizon began rocking back and fourth and quickly Ukraine and Dan headed back down to the lower deck. At this point the hangovers began to set in and so did the sea sickness. Needless to say only I made the whole trip without giving back to the ocean. One hour in and we hit our spot. I throw out my line and immediately get a hit. I get the fish almost up to the boat before it falls off. That was the last bite we got for 3 hours unless you count the 4 inch fish we snagged with a hook. Captain Mike was a liar. Byl was still cool.

As we headed back to shore Captain Mike gave us some tips on the dog races that night to make up for it. Fuck you Captain Mike. He then gave us a ride back to his hotel in his kidnapper van. Back to the beach for some more beers and then a needed nap.

At 5 it was time take showers and get ready for Phillies spring training game. The game was pretty uneventful. The only exciting part was watching the ball girl. She was a hooters waitress who was sitting along the left field foul line. She maybe watched 15 seconds of the game and those 15 seconds didn’t include the two line drives that narrowly missed her face. After the game we had a few beers and called it an early night. The next day was going to be big. It was NCAA basketball tourney time and Iowa had the #3 seed. It was also St. Patty’s day. Yes Sir.

Day 4

March 17, 2006. This day changed us forever. The Iowa game was at noon. The front desk told us that Ricky T’s down the street would be a great bar to watch the game. Ricky T’s was an Irish pub located on the beach. Sort of a paradox.

We get to Ricky T’s and the car bombs are flowing. The Iowa game starts up and we get some credit card roulette going. Iowa is up 10…car bomb…Iowa hits a 3..car bomb. Northwestern State you don’t stand a chance.

It was true Northwestern State didn’t stand a chance until they hit the game winning three with 0.9 seconds left. Thank you Steve Alford for setting the program back five years.

Time to go drink away the pain. We head out to Ricky T’s beach bar affiliate. If only I had a time machine to fix this mistake. Despite the loss we were in great spirits heading to the beach bar. Fueled by car bombs we blew into the bar like a hurricane. Dan quickly grabbed the microphone from the fake Jimmy Buffett that was performing and the rest of us hit the bar. Half the bar was amused by our antics the other half was probably concerned for their safety. One person in the bar found us particular amusing.

Turns out this person at the bar was Satan himself. At the time I was not aware Satan looked like the old man from Jurassic Park. The old man made sure to keep the drinks coming for us. He told us some stories and seemed to be re-living his past binging days through us. He disappeared for about twenty minutes then came back with more shots for us. We were happy to take them until we tasted them. It was the worst fucking shot I have ever had. I think there might have been an egg in there. We all looked at each other and second guessed the old man’s kind gesture. It wasn’t until a few seconds later we began to wonder why the shots we took were from hotel room cups. We decided not to worry about it and kept drinking. The party stopped when The Dub got cut off. If you know us as a group you know that if The Dub is the first one cut off we are in for trouble.

We head out of Ricky T’s and start heading down the beach to our hotel. As we are leaving the old man who handed us the worst shots on earth (that he made in his hotel room) stands out on the bar patio and screams “Hey! Where y’all guys goin?” We kept walking. This was about 3 pm. Next thing we all know we are in the hotel room and its 8pm. We all wake up at the same time. I am on the floor. It soon became clear what happened. We were roofied by the old man from Jurassic Park. After that the rest of the trip sucked. I was hung-over for almost a week. On the flight home we came to a conclusion on what the old man’s plans must have been. It was obvious he was trying to harvest organs from myself, Dan and The Dub. It was also obvious he wanted to bang Ukraine.

Ricky T's " where the locals go to get roofied"




The End.