We were halfway to the Applebee’s when the call came in. Our road manager, Brad answered the crackberry hanging off his belt.
“Hello?”
“What?”
“Oh no… Jesus… are you kidding me?!”
“Ok, I’ll tell them.”
He hung up the phone.
“Dude, Cody just called from the Applebees… they don’t sell any booze in this county on sundays!”
My life flashed before my eyes… we’d just found the perfect Sunday day off stopover area. We had everything we needed… a nice hotel, an applebee’s with cute waitresses and a big screen TV full of football and it was all for not. I’m not saying it’s necessary to tie one on to have a good time, but come on. How were we to watch football all day and not drink beer? It’s un-American! something had to be done.
Quickly, Brad whipped up some tear soaked sob story to tell the guy at the hotel to explain why we wanted to check out of the rooms we’d just checked in to a half hour ago. He bought it. We made sure the rooms were looking as if the new merch guy, Andy hadn’t just taken a shower and christened the toilet and told Frank (the bus driver) that we’d have to get to another county as soon as possible, kickoff for the Cowboy’s game was in an hour! Frank put the hammer down and we soon found another place that was even better than the first one. It had a movie theatre, a steakhouse with a big screen, and an even nicer hotel. Perfect, right? Wrong.
I wish I had a camera when the waitress told is they don’t sell beer, liquor or any kind of spirits on sunday in the ENTIRE STATE of Mississippi on Sundays. We were screwed. Frank was too tired to make it to the state line, and besides it was hours away… Fortunately, we had a few cases of beer on the bus and some leftover bottles of rot gut liquor left over from a long forgotten shed party with classy names like “Kentucky Deluxe” and “Ron Rico.” The only problem now was the TV situation. Of course we have two TVs on the bus, but since we were more than two hundred miles from Austin, we didn’t get any local channels. (the ones that play the games) The games were on in the steakhouse, but there was no beer. The bus had beer, but no football. We put Jazz, who had a small fortune riding on the game, in charge of convincing the hostess to let us sneak a few cold ones in to the restaurant concealed in styrofoam cups. Much to our surprise, she agreed under the condition that if the manager caught us, she didn’t know nothin’ about it. We sat at a booth sneaking our beers in to cups under the table like a bunch of high schoolers getting drunk on a field trip. We tried to make the best of it but it just didn’t feel right. We stayed long enough to catch a quarter or two but then one at a time began shuffling back to the bus, heads hung in disgust and dismay. What kind of god-forsaken state was this? How in the world could a government, the same government that brought us freedom, apple pie and Jessica Simpson allow such a travesty? We can put a man on the moon but you can’t get a cold Bud on sunday in Mississippi? BUSH LEAGUE! I plan to write a strongly worded letter the the Governor of Ol’ Miss and tell him what I think of his barbaric, outdated, drinking laws. A second letter is going to have to be drafted to our management, booking agent and entire staff, enforcing a ban of our own. “NO STOPOVERS IN MISSISSIPPI ON SUNDAY.” In fact, just to be on the safe side, we might put a ban on the state entirely.

The following day, we woke up in Atlanta, thank god to find the greatest little bar right down the street from the hotel. We set up camp and ordered up some tall glasses of beer and some brunswick stew, something I’d never had but now am a huge fan of. Everything was going great until we started playing Keno, ten bucks a whack, four numbers at a time. Nobody won. Everyone played except Cody, who was busy chatting up some old rummy at the end of the bar. After a while, Cody decided to show us how it was done, and picked ten numbers, and tried to flag down the waitress who had been telling us all night what a waste of money this was… she blew him off a few times and by the time she got around to placing the one dollar bet, the next game had started and Cody had missed his window. Of course, he hit eight out of ten spots, 500 to 1 on a dollar bet. Too bad the waitress had moved so slow… the same ticket hit one out of ten on the next game and proceeded to bitch about it for the next two weeks. I couldn’t say that I blamed him.

After a fun filled night at Smith’s Ye Olde Bar, we rambled around North Carolina for a few days, the second to last stop being in Boon, a nice little town that in the changing leaves of November was just gorgeous. However, a Second strange drinking law was soon staring us in the face. The club that night was owned by Appalachian State University so legally, they couldn’t sell any liquor, however, it a patron brought in a six pack he or she could give it to the bartender and have it served back to them, so long as no one brought more than a six pack… Now I come to the point off all this. Why on earth don’t we have some across the board, standard drinking laws in this country? Over the years we’ve seen some strange ones. For example, for a brief period in Idaho, you could buy beer until midnight, and then you could only buy whiskey till closing time. Now that’s a great way to keep patrons sober! I was once forced by a waitress in Montana to chug the last half of my pint before she would set the next round on the table, as it was against the law to serve someone two drinks at a time. Another great way to keep people sober. So I say we start a revolution. I say we appoint a team of professional bartenders and drinkers to write a standard, countrywide drinking constitution. Furthermore, I say we find these professionals in the great state of Louisiana, preferably New Orleans.
That’s what I say.

WB