a hillbilly weekend

saturday was a marathon bartending shift (16.5 hours). i had to go in 1pm for a wedding that was to take place on the patio of J. Fitzwoody's. as people gathered in the bar to wait for the ceremony to begin (it was 90 outside so folks stayed in the AC as long as possible) everyone tried to order booze. Now I'm all about drinking but having a beer *in hand* while a ceremony is going on is just not right. this is far from the worst thing that happened though. more than 1 person was dressed for the ceremony/reception in sandals, shorts, and a TANK TOP. good lord. and i thought i was upset earlier when the manager said that we were to all wear our hawaiian shirt uniforms instead of a more professional shirt and tie.

sunday made these folks from the wedding look like snotty upper-class citizens. the hilljacks from sheridan, illinois put on a mud volleyball tournament to fund a new sign for the school (graduating class of ~40). first off, prior to 10:30am when the first game was played, most people were wasted and fights were already beginning to break out. looking around the 'parking field' i noticed that my SUV was grossly out of place. 70% of the vehicles were pickups. 15% were mix of smaller cars. and 5% (other than mine) were SUV's...but not just plain old SUV's. These were jacked up and had muddin' tires. So we play a few games and eventually get matched up against a team called 'the dukes'. first thought that came to my mind was the english royalty version of the dukes. yea...this is buttfuckin' nowhere illinois. they think england is a nascar sponsor. they meant 'daisy dukes' as in cutoffs...on guys...with their boxers hanging out. what's worse than playing a bunch of dudes wearing that crap? losing to them. i place this blame firmly on one of our team members who was so drunk at this point that she repeatedly fell in the mud for no purpose whatsoever. aka, she couldn't stand. so now that we've lost, we have to sit around for about 2 hours to wait for our next game (double elimination tourney). we wander around for a bit noting that all the women there have at least 2 tattoos and beer guts that put most men to shame. suddenly a rusted out dodge dakota pulls up with the big CB whips mounted on the bed and out come Billy Ray Nascar and Joe Bob Deere. Billy Ray is sporting cowboy boots, ass-tight jeans, no shirt and a big cowboy hat. he appears to be hitting his fashion peak early at the age of 21. Joe Bob is similarly clad in cowboy hat, cut off tee-shirt, shorts, and cowboy boots. yes, you read that right. shorts and cowboy boots. he appears to be the same age and Billy Ray. I think their urban counterparts are those who wear their polo shirt collars up with shorts and florsheim loafers (no socks of course). Yet another hick-tastic incident occurred when one party was packing up to go home. Ma was sitting on the passenger seat of the truck with the door open and Pa was in the back slugging down a final Miller Lite. Pa yells to Ma "let's go honey, drive us home!". Ma yells back that she "ain't ready yet". Pa tosses some beer from the can in her direction. Ma throws some water back. Pa then picks up a full beer can and throws it overhand at Ma's head. Ma turns quickly enough to only get hit in the arm and, rightfully, starts cussing up a storm and heads over to the driver's side.

It then became time for us to leave so after volleyball was done we jumped into feedbins filled with cold water to get most of the mud off and then hosed down from a water tank in the bed of a pickup to get the remaining. well, i thought i had gotten the rest off. two days later, i'm still finding mud/clay in my ears and hair.

what a weekend.