Labor Day Weekend 2005

I’ve been married to my wife for six and a half years, and in that time can you guess how many times we’ve been on a legitimate vacation? Not once! Whether it’s a wedding, a funeral, or spending Christmas with the family, something always seems to come up. Yet somehow this past Labor Day, with a little help from the Dangerous Dane, The Porn Stasher, The Lone Flip Flop, and the maker of the Wookie Arm, we were able to vacation with our friends in Fort Lauderdale. It was one last weekend of mayhem before we all went our separate ways.

Day 1 Traveling to Paradise:

I think the hardest part about going on vacation is actually getting to your vacation spot. Packing up all of your crap, getting a dog sitter and cleaning the house before you leave is a major pain in the ass. That’s why we started drinking the minute we got on our plane! We were on our way. We even had a hilarious gay flight attendant to keep us company! How do I know he was gay? Because when he found out we were going to Florida, he kept telling us all these places he’d been to and we’d ask him, "Where’s that place? Maybe we’ll check it out!" To which he’d reply, "Oh I don’t think you’d like that place…" Okay, secret message received. Regardless, he was a cool guy and he hooked us up with an extra Jack & Coke for free. (…wait for it…okay now that you’ve got that joke about my sexuality out) We were off to a hell of a start to our FIRST VACATION.

We finally touched down in Fort Lauderdale at about eleven thirty. Took 30 minutes to find our luggage, (which for some reason security had) walked across the entire airport to meet B&B at their gate, got their luggage, compared walking canes and then convinced a cab driver to take us on a 5 minute cab drive to our gracious hosts, Morten and Amanda’s fabulous condo. They were kind enough to let us stay for three days which turned out probably for the best because one more day and we may have gotten them kicked out, but we’ll get to that later. Anyway, we were there for less than ten minutes when Morten presented the boys with strip club hat’s from a swank location in Miami, now that my friends is hospitality.

20 beers into our first night, everyone’s fully lubricated and it feeling just like old times! The girls are talking, making drinks, the guys are slamm’en them back it was the perfect time for a trip to the beach. After 15 minutes of strategic placement, we some how managed to pile 6 people into the PROBE, with only one drink casualty, which by accident was left on the top of the car and spilt all over the rear window, but the 5 minutes to get to the beach compared to 3 hours (to Corpus Christi Texas) or 2 ½ (by train to New Jersey) was worth it, MAN what a view, I felt like Don Johnson in the closing scene of a Miami Vice episode. Sure it was dark but what there was to see was truly magnificent… (a night storm was rolling in and lightning up the sky). It was perfect right up to the moment the cops came and we all ran for cover like a bunch of freshman at a keg party. Luckily Amanda (the responsible one out of the bunch) was sober and remembered that she was ## years old. She took control of the situation and went to talk to the police on our behalf. Something about "taking a walk on the beach" I don’t know I was hiding in the bushes with everyone else. It was pretty pathetic, I mean, I don’t ever remember Crockett and Tubbs having to hide in the bushes in Miami Vice. Oh well, tomorrow was another day and so far we were off to a great start.

Day 2

Back to the Beach

We got up the next day, shaved the hair off our tongues, got some breakfast and headed to THE BEACH! Let me tell you, if EXCESS was the theme of this vacation, we certainly stuck to it. While at the beach, Brent and I got sunburned all to hell! We suffered the rest of the trip but it was worth it because we got to see land whales roaming about in their natural habitat! Good God I thought, this was the home of GIRLS GONE WILD!!! I felt like Buffalo Bill Cody. After a while of swimming, playing football, and a sand fight that got out of hand, we decided to get something to eat. So we rinsed off the chicks and headed to a restaurant on the beach. The food was good, the beer was cold and everything was great, except for the damn pigeons crawling at our feet! What in the hell?! Okay when you’re eating chicken wings on the beach, it’s more than a little creepy to feel a bird crawling around down by your feet. And another thing, I’ve lived in Manhattan, Seattle and all over Texas in numerous places with large pigeon populations, and if there’s one thing I’ve learned, it’s "DON’T FEED THE GOD DAMN PIGEONS!" They are RATS WITH WINGS, the more you feed them the more they’re going to run over your feet and crap on your head. I realize a lot of people in the Midwest don’t know what it’s like to feed live animals but, if that’s what your after, GO TO A DAMN PETTING ZOO!

Anyway, back to the fun. Since the first beach was apparently under construction getting worked on, we headed to another beach in hopes of better asses to stare at. Oh, I mean a cleaner beach with more people. So no sooner did we get to our new destination there and get set up, did it start to rain and they kicked us off the beach. What luck, needless to say this was followed by more EXCESS… DRINKING!!!!

e put back on our tourist’s hats and after several margarita’s, we went back to the Condo to freshen up and proceeded to go out to dinner to eat some seafood where we saw some big ass fish, posed in a sharks mouth, then headed for the Hard Rock Café Casino for a LITTLE night time entertainment, or so we thought. The ride there was entertainment enough. We brought DVD’s to play in the car, to get us in the mood. Once we got to the Casino it was insane. My God it was like an adult wonderland, I’ve never seen so many places to drink all crammed into one place in my whole life! Three football fields of gambling, bars, clubs with more hot people than an episode of the O.C. This place had everything. But as we wandered aimlessly through it all, destiny directed us to one place and one place only. Now I don’t remember the name of the bar that we went to, but the one thing to remember was that this place had stiff drinks and a mechanical bull. A combination made in heaven. I can tell you that they had stiff drinks and lesbians riding a mechanical bull! All night long people jumped on that bull and either one of two things would happen. If you were a guy, they took your money and then proceeded to buck your foolish ass off in two seconds. (If you were a girl, well, you got special privileges. Well the audience was privileged. The controller would whip the bull’s head down which in turn would cause the girl to fly forward with her ass up in the air. Then he would slowly turn the bull in a circle, then side to side so that your would be shaking left to right. This was reserved for the big booty, skirt wearing, thong showing professionals. Otherwise, for the women with big chests, the controller would whip the bull’s head up, which in turn would cause the girl to fly backwards. Again, the bull would begin to turn in a circle, then side to side, so that those big old boobies would be shaking back and forth, baaaaaack and forth. After about two hours of watching, what could possibly top of the night? I’m glad you asked because that’s when this hottie jumped on the bull which was cool but then ANOTHER hottie jumped up there WITH HER. Picture it… two girls straddling a bull while facing each other. Okay that’s enough. So then the bull begins to slowly turn in a circle, when they start MAKING OUT!!!!!!! Oh my god the crowd went nuts. I thought the Dangerous Dane was going to burst when his camera ran out of storage space. I thought about trying to get some pictures with my camera phone but one look from my wife told me that it wasn’t worth the trouble even for a great story. Still, watching the Dane freak out about his camera was even better than watching two chicks make out on a mechanical bull!

Anyway the next day I was thinking about the lesbians again and I realized when you’re at a bar with a mechanical bull, no one and I mean no one wants to see a dude ride it. Never again will I be able to watch Urban Cowboy without thinking of what would happen if John Travolta had jumped on that bull at Gilley’s looking all serious and ready to ride only to have everyone in the place boo him for the entire two seconds that he was on the bull, only to start cheering madly when Sissy and one of her white trash friends hopped up there and started swapping spit.

Day 3

The Old Men and the Sea

The next day we decided to go fishing, so we all got up early and waited three hours for the girls to get ready so that we could go have breakfast before we got on a boat and sail out into the ocean for three hours. Note to all men out there, if you ever plan to get together for breakfast and three or more women are involved, make SURE you eat breakfast before you leave because by the time you get out of the house, it will be lunch time. We eventually got out and went to a restaurant where once again the tourists were feeding the local animals. Only instead of diseased ridden pigeons it was a squirrel with the biggest squirrel balls that I’ve ever seen and three of his friends. I mean, I even gave him a French fry, they were just that impressive! This is also the same place that I learned Lobster burgers are disgusting!

Anyway we got out on the ocean and it was amazing! We all caught marlins and a shark came up and bumped the boat…no I’m kidding, but we all did catch fish. Micki caught the biggest but there’s nothing like the thrill of pulling a fish out of the ocean. I felt like George Clooney in the Perfect Storm, except for the part where they crash the boat and they all die. Brent did get seasick and probably wished that he was dead for a little while. Afterwards, we all went back to the condo and took naps, then awake to drink some more.

Later that night we had some more seafood at a nice family restaurant. There were no squirrel balls but the Dangerous Dane almost plugged a pedestrian on the way. Talk about a bonding moment, nothing like vehicular homicide to band a group of people together.

Sadly, this was the only night that no one partied. Everyone went to bed and cried because we were too old to party hard for four days in a row. So sad.

Day 4 Journal Entry:

Time to see some Gators! We went on the Sawgrass wildlife tour to see some live Alligators! Yep we saw one, road around for about 10 minutes and then tipped the driver because we saw one alligator. "Thank you oh hillbilly gator guru for driving through the swamp and finding us a gator to view. Your skills much like your lack of teeth are unmatched sir." Oh yeah and we got to pet a Panther before we left which was cool but not as cool as watching that Panther stalk around his cage while watching this little kid run around. You could almost see the wheels turning in his head, "God that kid looks delicious, just come a little bit closer, come on, come on." Eerie.

Next up was the Hooters in Miami and man let me tell you that those chicken wings were so moist and tender and juicy that they practically melted in your mouth. Throw in some ice-cold delicious beer that went down your throat just like liquid velvet and it had to be the best restaurant that we went to. Four boobs for sure! Oh I mean, four stars for sure!

Once we got back to Miami we all threw on some comfortable clothes, shared some times, watched Sixteen Candles, went swimming, had a vicious towel whipping fight highlighted by the Lone Flip Flop furiously hopping across the parking lot after the Wookie Arm. It was a good night but I couldn’t help feeling a bit sentimental because the truth is, with all of us going in our separate ways, who knows when we’ll be able to all get together again like this.

Patrick you should’ve been there.