The right decision

Hilton Head Island is a fairly popular vacay destination for moneyed people, but my friend Adam, another AmeriCorps buddy, is actually from the area and has lived there most of his life. I was looking forward to hanging out with him, since he's one of the people I haven't seen since the program ended a few years ago. I got to his apartment and met his dog, who is unfortunately suffering from some kind of mite-caused skin disease that makes the skin all scaly and scabby. Basically it was kind of like a zombie dog, but its not contagious and the dog didn't seem to be in intense pain from the disease. And Adam was having it treated. It was something to do with stress and the dog had recently been moved around a bit, so that's probably what caused the outbreak. Otherwise it was a nice, well-behaved dog that responded well to commands and didn't try to lick me too much, so I was okay with it.

I got to the island a bit later in the day given my drive from Orlando, so Adam and I discussed our options and decided to head toward the mainland movie theatre to catch Hot Fuzz, from the same writer/director combo that made Shaun of the Dead, which was hilarious. Fuzz was no disappointment, either, and neither were the random people all gathered in the little plaza in front of the theatre who were line dance while a band played the electric slide. I felt like we had accidentally walked into someone's wedding reception. But I do love the E-slide, so I couldn't knock it too much. After the movie we headed to a local bar where Adam had once been a bouncer to have a drink. We had some good chatting time and eventually made our way to another bar where Adam's friend Zac was performing.

Now, Zac is a big guy, probably over 3 bills but he was fairly amazing. He was accompanied only by a bongo player and his looping machine. He would play a few riffs on his guitar and then start looping that, then do some beatboxing and loop that in too, and maybe some more rhythms on the guitar and once all that was going, then he'd start to play and sing the actual song. It sounded like a full band playing. He would even sometimes loop his voice and then do his own harmonizing, which was also really impressive to hear. It was pretty stellar to listen to. There was also this really cool oil on canvas painting on the subwoofers in front of the stage that I tried to buy, but Zac was reluctant to part with it without consulting the artist first. I told Adam to pursue it for me after I was gone, so we'll see if I have something to hang up in my apartment in Chicago.

While Zac performed some of Adam's friends came, Beth and Jarrod. Jarrod was a cute guy and we had an enjoyable time talking that night. ;) After Zac had played a bit more, the four of us headed over to another bar called Money Pennies, which wasn't really a bar but a club, of which I guess I must be a member. The benefit of being a club is that it didn't have to close at two with the regular bars. So we ended up staying there until something around 4-5 in the morning. We spent our time mostly playing a bowling arcade game. I won the best of three match, though by the end Adam was the only one still really trying and he was really close. I like to think that some of my mom's good bowler genes must've gotten transmitted down the line. At another point in the evening, a schwasted guy came out of the bathroom and came up behind me and proceeded to wrap his arms around me and pick me up and shake me. I kind of freaked out because it was totally unexpected and I was flailing about saying "Not happening!! Not something you're allowed to do!!" He put me down, but I was very nonplussed for a while. Then later I almost got into a fight with the bartender lady because she wouldn't let a guy go in the women's restroom, despite the fact that the men's toilet was clogged and on the verge of overflowing and spilling shit and piss all over the bathroom floor. They were single use bathrooms, one customer at a time. What's it matter if it's a guy or girl? Just let people pee!

We finally headed home and I laughed as I remembered I had told Adam that I didn't want to stay out really late because the next day's drive was fairly long, up to Hayes, VA and I was supposed to arrive by 5 to go sailing. I thought it would be a 7-8 hour drive, so I planned on leaving in the 8am range to make it by 5, with gas breaks and pit stops and the like. Obviously, that wasn't happening. I slept in a bit, but still got on the road around 10ish. It all turned out to be okay because when I called ahead to Candi to tell her I probably wasn't going to make it for the sailing, she told me that it was okay and the sailing had been cancelled anyway. So I knew that I had made the right decision to stay up drinking, and really, when faced with the options, when isn't the right decision to stay up drinking?