Before we broke up, Joanna and I used to date. We were together for almost 4 years, like in the Olympics. We decided to spend my last pre-9/11 birthday by going on a road trip. We had both never been to Louisville, Kentucky. And so we left Chicago on a Saturday morning with 2 goals: bluegrass and bourbon.
It was a Best Western or a Super 8 or something. Maybe we didn't even unpack. We got right to it. After all it was a weekend getaway.
Things got heavier and that's when the goddamn front door opened. What?! The afternoon light cut into our afternoon delight and cast a jagged spotlight on me. Somehow I leapt from my ass to the floor, where the bed shielded me from our uninvited guest.
Was it a murderer..with lots of keys? A clueless peeping tom? One of those weird men that collect TV Guides?
She was a woman in her mid-50's and she used two words.
"Aw shit."
Then she closed the door.
We laughed.
The scatter-brained desk clerk was quick to apologize. He had accidentally given this woman our room key.
Turns out the woman wasn't even supposed to be in Louisville. She and her husband were passing through when he had a heart attack at the wheel. He was going to be in the hospital overnight and she wasn't sure if he was going to make it.
We laughed again and continued drinking our giant Kir Royal.
No we didn't.
Well, off to find some authentic bluegrass on a Saturday night in Louisville!
We searched the dailies, the free lefty rags, and inquired of the locals. But there was no bluegrass to be had in Louisville that night.
Oh. Well, we just thought Louisvillebluegrassmumblebrumblebrumble.
In lieu of authenticity we found a karoake bar and got loaded. I did Cher's "Do You Believe." Joanna gave it a big thumbs down.
My birthday fell on Easter Sunday that year. Easter is my least favorite day. Easter is a bunny-shaped, bunny-shit-flavored assault on the soul. It's like being in a badly ventilated juice bar where a Jesus impersonator invades your space with disgusting pick up lines.
"How 'bout a different kinda stigmata: my bone piercing your punani..heh heh."
That's what Easter is.
Oh yeah, but we were going to take a country drive into eastern Kentucky and stay in a cottage. The drive was indeed calming. And we did indeed find a cottage.
"We'll settle in for the night, drinking bourbon on the porch overlooking this peaceful majesty! 26 and the rest of 2001 is going to be the best year ever!" is what I probably thought.
We went to the market and couldn't find any booze.
The clerk said it was a dry county.
But I had seen a sign in the window advertising Corona.
"Corona? Oh, that's for Corona cigarettes."
I had never heard of Corona cigarettes until that moment.
I have never seen a pack of Corona cigarettes since then.
We looked at a map and noticed we were only 25 miles from West Virginia.
So we put on our funglasses and drove away from the sun.
In West Virginia you bet they had booze...only the liquor was roped off.
No liquor on Sunday.
We looked at the map.
We noticed we were only 25 miles from Ohio.
In Ohio, where they have Cleveland, they must have booze!
And at the drive-in liquor store you can get liquor!!
You can even get authentic Kentucky bourbon!!!
Just not on Sunday.
Especially Easter Sunday.
Not in this county.
You faggots.
We snuck a 6-pack of beer into the cottage. Joanna watched Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom.
I tried to get her to videotape my account of the events. She kept panning over to the TV in the middle of my anecdote, and I mistakenly didn't see the humor in this.
We bickered.
The red light was on.
It's on a tape somewhere.
Earlier that day in the men's room, the rental car keys accidentally fell from my hoodie into the urinal I was about to use. After finishing up in a different urinal, I searched for a way to pull the keys out of the deep water without touching it. I had found a toilet paper roll and little else when an old man stepped up to the urinal with the keys in it and took a big old man piss right on the keys.
Yes, he was humming a song.
No, it wasn't "Happy Birthday."
And then 9/11 happened. So, y'know.
Can't win 'em all.
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