Dateline: Last Week, Monticello, KY

A lot of times on the road you find yourself in unfamiliar territory. You drive deep into some very rural counties only to find a county about 150sq. miles wide. You think these are just blips on the radar screen, but very often in my line of work, they are goldmines for business. Within a two block radius you can hit enough businesses to satisfy your weekly quota and then some. Well...Monticello, KY (Wayne Co.) is one of these places. It's also here you see things you wouldn't necessarily see in large, metropolitan cities...say for instance Atlanta. Or maybe you would, but not to this degree.

Riding last week I was coming out of one call and heading to lunch. Lee's Famous Recipe Buffet was calling my name. The Colonel and his 11 herbs and spices be damned, I'm a Lee's guy. After killing $40 worth of fried chicken for roughly $4.50 I made my way back into civilization. It was here I saw the most blatant display of public indecency / intoxication / redneckness I'd ever seen.

Two roughnecks were putting the finishing touches on a billboard. As the one gent descended from his perch, I guess he needed to relieve himself from all the Mt. Dews and Pabst he had been crushing some 50 ft. in the air. Did he find a tree to go under? No. Behind a parked car? Nope. He decided to whip it out and write his name all over the side of the road. Mind you, it was 12:30 in the afternoon. And as this guy was pissing away cars were driving by, honking their horns, this guy continued to urinate and wave at the crowd. Like, "Look at me. I can pee in public. And I have a third grade education to prove it." Either this guy is hung like John Holmes or just too stupid to realize what in the hell he was doing. I'll opt for the former.

Listen, as a guy, I've had to go at some inopportune times. Mostly on the golf course before the turn on the back 9. But I either find a Port-O-John or a tree. "I'm going to find my ball over there in the brush" I'll tell my friends but they know what I'm up to. But from here on out, things are going to be different. When I'm taking the Bluegrass Parkway home, I'm just going to whip it out in a construction zone. "Uhhhmmm excuse me officer, I was only pissing. I had my cruise set on 45MPH. Is my fine still doubled?"

Dateline: A Month Ago, A Gym In 'Bama

The hotel chain at which I stay during my travels has a corporate tie-in with a local gym. Stay at the hotel, flash your room key at the front desk of the gym, workout for free, any day, anytime. It's a pretty good deal. Seeing as most hotels have the standard 25 year old treadmill and a water cooler, the gym, packed with machines and weights is a more feasible option. About a month ago I'm running the treadmill when in walked a woman who was undoubtedly a stripper. Bleach blonde hair, extensions, skin so orange you'd swear she was jondis and a tramp stamp the size of a football on her lower back. Yep--this chick was a pole grinder. All that was missing was a gaggle of sweaty truckers throwing their life savings up on stage at her. Seeing a woman you know is a stripper outside of the club is a lot like seeing your first grade teacher shopping during the summer at the mall. It's kind of weird, a little intimidating but you the teacher is always nice, says hello and wishes you a nice day. That, and you know she's probably just out buying her husband a new pair of slacks. Not the stripper. The stripper doesn't buy slacks. The stripper is doing 45 minutes on the stair climber at level 15 to get her ass cheeks firm enough to pick quarters up off the ground. And then everyone starts staring too. Dudes, chicks, grandmas...all of them staring. It's like they've never seen a stripper before. I think these people assume the strippers just hang around the club all day, wearing their nipple tassels, grinding on chairs, paying their bills, without ever going home. I will admit, I stared too, but only because the chick looked like Lindsay Lohan on coke...oh wait...nevermind, she looked like Lindsay Lohan.

Dateline: Wednesday August 18th, 2010 (Santa Fe Cattle Co.)

I spent yesterday working in Birmingham. After getting up at 4am, driving all day, making calls and then driving to Ft. Payne, AL all I wanted was to relax. I first had some clerical work to do, emails to send and a 22-minute heart to heart with the treadmill. After that I made my way to the Santa Fe Cattle Co for a double whiskey on the rocks and a steak. Seems harmless enough, right? (Buzzer sounding) Wrong! First and foremost; I like to sit at the bar. You get quicker service, there's always a TV on and you're that much closer to the booze. But not here. The bartender here sucks. He's unfriendly and makes a shitty drink. Plus his name's Lamar. How many white dudes do you know named Lamar? About as many black guys you know named Chad. So right off the bat, Lamar is not my personal favorite. But seeing as I'm in Ft. Payne I either eat here or the Captain D's down the street. These are my only options. Tonight Lamar is in rare form. The 'double' he poured me had as much alcohol as a Smirnoff Ice and it takes him 10 minutes to me bring peanuts . Then stumble in quite possibly the two drunkest men in the state. The one guy is about 30, the other 55. The begin to tell me that they are stuck in Ft. Payne for the night because their car broke down. They were traveling through the mountains when the thing crapped out on them. I apologize for their troubles and go back to my meal. But these two are dead set on telling me their life story. As the story progresses (and they continue to down LIT's) details of their "car breakdown" begin to emerge. Apparently the older gentleman had just been sprung from prison on a 5 year bid for meth manufacturing. The younger gentlemen picked him up from jail...on get this...his motorcycle. As they drove down Lookout Mountain said motorcycle ran out of gas. And seeing as they had no money (Assuming b/c they had no meth to sell) they decided to walk into Ft. Payne to crash for the night. Call me crazy, but I believe a tank of gas for a Harley is quite a bit cheaper then a hotel room and 17 Long Island Teas. But hey I got a D in Calculus at Tennessee. At this point these two are falling all over themselves and I'm cashed out of my bar tab. Time to take it to the hotel and watch ESPN. That's when the 55 year old, former meth kingpin turns to me and asks if I'd be interested in sleeping with one of his "girls" out on the patio (habitually chain smoking). Between the three women there were a total of 5 legs and 24 teeth, so I took a rain check. Lord knows what happened to those two last night, but my money is on the two of them pushing that bike down I-59S as we speak with splitting hangovers.

A Re-Introduction

As many of you know I have been blogging / ranting for the better part of four years now. However, with my previous work schedule, regular blogging wasn't necessary. But now I find myself traveling...a lot. I find myself in small towns throughout the Southeast with little else to do than drink beer in my hotel room and watch 'Family Guy' reruns. Therefore, why not put my downtime to good use. I'm going to blog again, folks and this time I hope to keep up with it. I'll make you a promise: You continue to visit, comment and share and I'll continue to post. This blogs focus will be the places I go and the interesting people I meet. I already have a catalog of stories so this blog may jump around in its timeline. But it's not the timeline that's important. It's the gas station attendant with only 4 yellow teeth in Alabama that asks me if I'm single. Enjoy.