Strange Twist

Saturday evening after the gig, we had wilted like a head three-week old lettuce. We came home and parked ourselves on the couch. I must have drank two quarts of water and I still felt thirsty. I read where the weatherman said that the temp and humidity teamed up to make the air feel like it was 113 degrees in the shade. It felt more like 212 degrees to me.
Just before dark a thunder storm slammed down from the north making it sound like we lived under a bowling alley hosting a tournament for drunken Shriner's. I'm not knocking Shriner's because they do incredible work, but they know how to have a good time.
I was working in Mobile back in 1980 putting the town back together after Hurricane Fredrick had his fun. Jilda joined us mid-summer at the Howard Johnson's and she brought our German Shepherd Duke to keep her company at the hotel while we worked.
Somehow I managed a rare weekend off and we headed west down the coast. Our original plan involved us going to Biloxi, Mississippi for a swim in the ocean, but one thing led to another and by 10 p.m., we found ourselves on Bourbon Street in New Orleans.
If anyone has ever walked down Bourbon Street at night, you can see almost ANYTHING. We passed a guy on stilts that was about twelve feet tall. He had on a pair of pants that came all the way to the ground so if you had slammed down one too many Hurricanes, you'd think he was actually that tall. He was ambling down the street dancing to music we could not hear. We passed a bar with a picture window. When you looked inside, there was a woman on a swing and she was butt naked.
Now here's where it gets weird. Since our original destination was the beach, I had on a pair of swimming trunks and a tee shirt. Jilda had on a cut off tee shirt and a bikini. We didn't raise an eyebrow with Bourbon Street revilers, but when we tried to enter Pat O'Briens to get one of those world famous Hurricanes, they wouldn't let Jilda in. I it wasn't because of Duke, our German Shepherd, it was because Jilda was wearing a bikini. We were dumbfounded. We had to stand aside to let a woman walk in wearing a pair of short overalls made entirely out of black electricians tape, but Jilda could not enter.
"OK, I'll stay out her with Duke, you hustle in and get the drinks" she snapped. Stupidity make her snippy. So I went in and ten minutes later when I came out, she was totally surrounded by Shriner's who were apparently in town for some kind of convention. They were asking - "How much for you? Another said "how much for the dog?" Another ventured "how much for you and the dog?"
It is fortunate that she was unarmed, or she would still be in Angola Penitentiary...or worse yet, could have been fried as crisp as a spring-fed catfish by Gruesome Gurtie, the state's legendary electric chair.
I never know when I sit down to do a blog entry where the stories will end up. I think some of insightful, some are poignant, and some are down right strange. It's obvious this one falls into the latter category.