Jello Syringe - I Don't Want It, But I Get It

I apologize in advance for the length of this, but it’s a blog. You don’t have to read it. Stop now if you want. Welcome to part one of to-be-determined…

I’m fairly confident I burned at least 1,500 calories this weekend merely by pulling my ID out of my back pocket. After work on Friday, I set out to meet up with the other three members of Car B, the late departure for bachelor weekend. Eight young men in their prime, determined to roll high, brush off golddiggers, and hit on 19… heading to Tunica. One small problem: Australian Karen, who lives in my Garmin, was unable to locate the address for the Gold Strike Casino… No worries, we’ll just start driving and see what happens.

Before we can get carded in Redneck Vegas, we decide to get carded in Memphis. Car A took off to Tunica, checked everyone in to the hotel, and backtracked to Memphis. We in Car B headed straight for Beale Street. Looking to be a pedestrian on the most popular street in West Tennessee? Please stand in line to verify your age and to be checked with a metal detector by a man whose sense of humor was lost somewhere in the first 2,000 groins he patted down before he got to mine. Good news: I was over 21 when I got carded in the middle of Beale Street.

I have now been to Beale Street. As such, I never have to return. It was approximately 95 degrees. At 10:00 at night. As some groomsmen in training may have wanted to whet their whistles, we decide to go into Club 152. Don’t worry, my streak of never having been in a club did not come to a screeching halt. This was a bar with 2 floors above it that allegedly qualified it to be a club. A later discovery would determine that club status cannot be achieved if the only people on your 2nd and 3rd floors are bouncers. In order to make that discovery, we first had to get in. For your reference, basketball shorts are not classy enough to get into a Beale Street finger-quote club. However, Ronald McDonald taught Grimace to be accepting before he put him in a yellow shirt and sent him to be the doorman at Club 152… Because all my buddies were going in, the man who, earlier in the day, swallowed Shrek whole graciously allowed me to pay him my $10 cover. Such a sweetheart. His silent partner then checked my ID. Still over 21. Boom (Graves, 2009). [NOTE: Please do not be alarmed if, going forward, you see in-text citations in MLA format.]

While basketball shorts are clearly a fashion faux-pas, double lip rings, back murals and pedophile moustaches are all acceptable accessories. Anyways, after our 45 minutes of talking to one another like we would do anywhere else, only at a higher volume, we headed out. Out past the people leaving the GWAR concert covered in blood, past the Ab-Belt guy flipping down the middle of the road, past 74 policemen, and back to the cars to take the party down to Tunica.

Tune in next time for the Mississippi part of our Mississippi adventure...