So I went to Gaspirilla this past weekend in Tampa Florida. Its some sort of party where this pirate ship sails into the bay for the "invasion" of Tampa. Lots of beads and cannons going off. There are folks in all kinds of piratey clothes and its a big party. I went to my first one last year and it was a good time so I returned for another year of swashbuckling and seems they were cracking down on that type of weird behavior. Ok not really it had more to do with the forecast of rain that hindered most peoples foolish behavior. So I was gone for what amounted to three days and I am going to break it down by day here so lets go.
Friday:
I left for this adventure on Friday at around one o'clock. I was going to ride with my best friends mother and sister. And by ride I mean drive because trust me you do not want either one of these two driving you anywhere. Now we three rode together last year as well and I obviously repressed the memories or have suffered amnesia because there is no way in my right mind I would have subjected myself to this torture willingly two years in a row. I guess it is true what "they" say, "Time heals all wounds." Well it's going to take a whole lot of time to heal this last trip. But they do make for some good laughs on the ride when I am not yelling at them to shut up. Here is a conversation I had with one of my fellow travelers Friday on the way.
Passenger: Greg, I really need to go pee
Me: Ok, where do you want to go?
Passenger: At the next exit.
Me: I gathered that, but where? At a fast food joint, a convenient store? How clean does it have to be?
Passenger: It does not matter. I will pee anywhere.
Me: Oh yeah well why don't you just pee in your pants then? That's somewhere.
And then she did just a little from laughing or at least she kept saying she was going to the entire trip.
Then later the other passenger was on her phone having a discussion with someone that could only sound like some sort of desperate house wives kind of stuff except for like old people. Here is a transcript of that gem:
"Oh guess who called me? So and so (I say so and so because I did not catch the name or I have already started to repress this trip). Yes she did. And do you know what she wanted? My recipe for _____ (again I do not remember what the recipe was for, I mean I was trying to drive and find my happy place because I was trapped in a living hell). Do you remember when she said I was wasting my time cooking for Matt? Yeah but now she wants to cook the same recipe for bob. Oh I gave her the recipe but I added some things to it and left some other key ingredients out. Then she said for me not to mention this when we get to Atlantic city because bob was not going but billy was and he did not need to know. Mm hmm. Yes she did."
Then later in the trip I was told that I better be prepared to stop at five because someone needed a bottle of wine and to start drinking by then. Apparently it is some sort of old person soap opera type rule. Well I just want to say I have never in my life wanted to be driving towards or through Alabama as bad as I did then. Just to cross the time zone line at 4:59 just for it to be four o'clock again would have made my day. And something else that older folks do. They talk on there phones as if they are actually trying to get the person to hear them from across the country. I swear my ear started bleeding from the shouting into the phone that was taking place. I was on the phone with my sister at one point and she asked me who this passenger was yelling at because she could hear her outside of her condo and she lives in California. Which makes sense because the person granny there was talking to was in fact also in California. It is not fun.
Now if you don't know, it should take about five and a half to six hours to get from home to Tampa depending on stops. My garmin put our estimated time of arrival once we actually left town at 7:32. And that time continued to change, for the worse the longer we drove. It was like I was trapped in some sort of time space continuum that just would not let me move forward. And to make things worse, apparently we needed to conduct a Chinese fire drill at 70 mph in the car on the way. I remember doing this when I was a kid. Hey you've been riding up front for a while mind if we switch. That's not that big of a deal. But when its to "grown" adults doing it, its a little weird yet not atypical for this bunch. Well on what I think may have been our third stop on the way our ETA was 7:50 maybe. By the time we got back in the car it was 8:23. And we didn't stop to go eat oh no we stopped for gas. A tank of gas! This required an attendant, the other attendant asking the first one what the hell we were doing, me moving to another pump and ultimately having to pay for gas inside the store. Which almost started another whole issue when one passenger could not understand why she would now need to pay for the gas inside and not at the pump like I had been instructed to do at first. My response was "I am not even at the damn pump we started at so you figure out why we are having to pay in here. I decided I needed to try out a five hour energy while we were at this store. Oh and I needed to relieve myself and these guys had a key for the bathroom on this big wooden stick apparently to keep people from walking off with the key in their pockets. I almost made it when one of my fellow travelers said "Hey it wont flush" No sooner did she get it out of her mouth before the attendant snatched the key out of my hand and said "You no use the bathroom sir!" So now I have to go and pee behind the trash dumpster at this place because I'll be damned if I am stopping again.
Ok so we are two hours away from our destination and its obvious we are never going to get here. Well remember the gps i had previously referred to? Well now one of the riders has become obsessed with checking the estimated arrival time. I mean checking it every three or four minutes. This requires craning her neck all the way over to my side of the car and apparently putting her fave mere inches from the screen. I didn't know if she was looking at the time on it or if she thought it was a mirror or what the heck was going on but man it was distracting. Then after countless views of the time and pointing out to me that we were not making up any time whatsoever she noticed the display also informed you as to when you needed to turn. So she is really figuring out this gps thing real quick. Now one would be impressed with this until about ten miles from our destination, which is in the gps, she proceeds to tell me how I need to go to get there. And I am not talking repeating what the gps is saying. Oh no. She is telling me as if that gps is not even there. I can not get there fast enough folks. And then we finally arrive. Or at least to the gate of this community where you have to talk to a guard to gain entry. When asked where I was going I replied" Anywhere but in this car sir. I have been in a living hell for almost seven hours. If I can just leave you this car with the passengers in it and walk home that will be fine." He just laughed and said have a good night. How could I? Was he not listening to what I just said?
I was there at my friends place for maybe an hour before he and I both opted to go to check on one of his projects there in town that he had people working the night shift on. We returned home to a quiet house where everyone was asleep. Peace...
Saturday:
or so I thought. I stayed up the night before until about 2 a.m. Well at 6 a.m. my friend started yelling through the house how his sister was to dumb to turn off her phone's alarm before she went to bed and now the whole house was awake thanks to her and that she could "mess" up a soup sandwich. After which I could not go back to sleep. So I woke up just to find her awake too and then I had to leave to go find me a diet coke. I had obviously picked the wrong weekend to try and stop drinking a twelve pack of those before lunch because I needed one desperately. All in all the morning goes good until time to get ready for the pirate invasion. One person apparently was confused and thought that pirated were cowboys because she wanted to wear cowboy boots and a cowboy hat while the other one had on a hat and t-shirt that looked like they had a seizure with a bedazzler prior to getting dressed. Hey but what did I care, I was double fisting margaritas at this point. And for those of you that don't know, I don't generally drink. But this situation definitely warranted it. And I did not stop drinking margaritas for a long time that day. Here is how excited I was about that.
Not a whole lot really happened that was too exciting or maybe I was just overwhelmed by it all but here are a few things I remember. I lost a bet pertaining to eating which disappoints me yet won all of my money and then some in a bet about drinking. Apparently I can not eat three half sandwiches in four minutes. The bread was harder to chew than I had expected. But I could do shots of Captain Morgan's spiced run for $20. Nobody saw that coming. The guy that made the bet with me on the shots took one shot and after that he spilled everything he came in contact with. I on the other hand knew my best bet was just to sit on my stool for a long time rather than try to get up. And then by eight start drinking water and no more alcohol and I would be ok and you want to know something...Sunday:
I was just fine. Amazing how good you can feel if you drink enough water, eat three peoples worth of food by your self and go to bed by 10:30. So we left Sunday to try the return journey. The bar for the trip down had set the bar pretty low so I was optimistic. And all in all it was a smooth ride back. There was the one episode about some TCBY which looking back failed to compare to the previous year's DQ debacle where the elder of the two passengers apparently really wanted some DQ and when was no where to be found started spewing obscenities. But TCBY only got a lot of shouting in my ear about how the younger one wanted some. I got my payback later on our second stop which was for gas when I drove behind the gas station while she was still inside the store and hid the car. Oh the look on her face when she came out. It was not the oh my they left me kind. It was the That mother f^%$@# drove off! Man that was classic. I was also accused of going into a Jiffy John with another guest during the invasion. And as much as that would have been nice considering who I was accused of doing such an act with, I have no idea that the hell a jiffy john is. I believe it must be and old person's version of a port-o-john. But hey maybe you will be out in a jiffy. That's about it or at least that's all I want to write about tonight. I am tired and I need to get a little bit of tv in before I go off to bed. If I remember anything else amusing later I will add it but for now, Land Ho Bitches!
peace out
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