Rained Out In Tennessee, Someone Calls 911 In Georgia

The black cloud that has been hounding us has taken a literal form and has had a good time of dumping monsoon type rainstorms on our heads with uncanny timing. There is nary a more pathetic site than two soaked pissed off brand ambassadors sitting under a huge red pop up tent in front of a trailer full of shoes while rain is pouring down all around us. Just ask the workers in the Chattanooga New Balance shop who peered out of their storefront window at us as we set there wondering whether or not the shoe sizers and director chairs could float. We finally got the call to break it down and head out after about 20 minutes of hard selling to the few brave souls who stopped by for some free socks. We changed our clothes and hit the road for Knoxville (100 miles).

Aside from a latenight drunken phone call from a few neighbors back home it was a pretty uneventful day in Knoxville. We decide to head back to Chattanooga on our way to Atlanta as it was Friday night and we were looking at a few days off. Well little did we know that Chattanooga , TN is suddenly a busseling little metropolis. We tried several hotels and all were either booked full or way over our budget. Disgusted and discouraged we headed out on the highway towards Atlanta all but giving up on any fun for the team.

A couple hours in and we decide to find a room. Checking in we hear some thumping music coming from the bar attached to the Best Westen and we decide a drink may salvage the night. By the time Boom arrives at what turns out to be a local dive bar I was a Newcastle deep. We order a replacement for me and a fresh drink for him and head upstairs to the patio to take the edge off. The place was reminicent of the movie Roadhouse except with a DJ instead of a house band behind a caged fence.

We're up on the patio for 10 minutes or so when some dute stumbles over to us with a weird smile on his face and spits out the following, "you guys wanna see some fudged up shit?" except he doesn't use the word fudged you know what I mean.

He directs our attention towards the stairs and intrigued by what this fudged up shit could possibly be we decended. A strange scene awaited for sure. A rather large woman with a rather large hair do (not so much a hair do as a hair don't Boom would say) was sitting on the floor and a man was kneeling in front of her with his face smashed between her rather large breast-e-ses-es!!! A small crowd was gathered around gawking at the site fronted by an even larger woman with even larger hair who stood and just shook her head in despair. The woman on the floor I now saw was holding a bar rag which was covered in blood and had her arms wrapped around the hurt dutes head. I thought maybe somebody popped this dute in the nose but it turns out that he was dancin a little jig on the bar, slipped on some spilt miller lite, fell down and split open his noggin.

By the time team NB arrived 911 had already been called by the bartender. Some local fella came down the stairs and scolded the bartender for calling 911 and said "They're freakin drunks, just kick em out." Suddenly a debate erupted on whether he needed 911 or not and someone called out for them to "cancel 911!" The bartended didn't think it was possible to cancel 911 because one time he called it just for fun and hung up right away and the 911 dutes called him right back. This seemed to make sence to everyone on the both sides of the issue so we all just sat around and stared and waited for the medics to arrive.

It must have been 15 minutes before our heroes mozied in the door and looked at the guy, both with looks on their faces that clearly said "we drove here for this???"

They helped the drunken Travolta wannabee out the door and the crew all started exchanging tales of the entire ordeal.

"He fell right near me, I tried to catch him!!!"
"He's gonna need 12 stiches to close that gash!!"
And my favorite was from the bearhugging woman who said "I'm a nurse, I'm required by law to help in an emergency like that." I wonder if the breast suffocation technique is something she learned in nursing school.

Things were calming down when suddenly the hurt dute came bursting (and dancing) back into the bar!! He was shirtless and bloodstained and appeared to be trying to make the "raise the roof" motion with his arms but he was either too drunk or too concussed to pull it off. The nurse and the concerned buddy for some reason whisked him away into the ladies room apparently for further medical care. Guess the dute told the medics that he didn't have insurance and refused treatment. I didn't see the medics faces when this happened but I assume they looked at one another, shook their heads, jumped back in their vehicle and went back to the parking lot to sleep.

Completely satisfied with the impromptu entertainment value of the night the 2 man promotional team joined with the locals for a few more beers until we all finally got the boot. We staggered up to our room, crashed in bed and told stories and giggled ourselves to a deep sleep that wasn't interupted until our customary "are you guys checking out or what" call at 11:30 am. Hungover but somehow reenergized we hit the road for Atlanta.