Say you’re strolling down Bourbon Street, you’ve had a fantastic evening, you have a lovely lady on your arm, you have a double corona between your teeth, and you have a fine hand grenade buzz going. Suddenly you spy a Lucky Dog cart. Now, being a great fan of Ignatius J. Reilly, what do you do? Why, you stop and have yourself a Lucky Dog, that’s what. You ignore the fact that the little guy has dirty nails and is handling your bun barehanded. Why, that’s just life! Joie de vivre! It’s a lovely world! You reflect on the city, the French Quarter, the book, and you’re happy. THAT’S what you do.
You then wake up in the middle of the night in stomach-twisting pain. You void everything that’s been in your system for the last 24 hours with great violence, repetition, and through every orifice you possess. You nearly miss your plane because you have to pull the rental car over repeatedly on the side of the very busy rush hour interstate and puke on the road, to the evident delight of thousands of passing motorists. You pay the fuel upcharge on the rental car because your puking left you no time to gas up the car before the return. You stumble on board the plane and sweat and shake with the palsy while you bury your face miserably in the barf bag for the entire flight, dry-heaving bile for two hours.
You wait in the terminal on the other end of your flight for two more hours because you came so close to missing the plane that your baggage had to take a later flight. Need I remind you that you’d be throwing up with great frequency?
And finally, you get so sick and miserable and desperate that you stumble out of the hotel or the rental car or some damn place and leave your very nice 4.1 megapixel digital camera to the whim of New Orleans fate.
They just opened a new Panda Express by my house. I last ate at one a few years ago in some airport somewhere and I remembered that it was really good. My wife told my I was crazy to eat there but I didn’t listen. Let’s just say that my wife was right and I know exactly how you feel.
Well, you probably won’t see your camera again, but it does happen.
I left a digital camera in Jamaica at the small landing strip airport in Negril and was able to track it down. I Western Unioned postage plus $20 (to be nice) to the lady and she shipped it back to me in Chicago.
Actually, the last time I drank a handgrenade, a very similar thing happened to me, and I hadn’t even smelled a Lucky Dog. Of course, the quart of rum and coke and the pina colada and the whisky shot I’d also had might have had something to do with it…
I found a fairly nice 35mm camera in a rental car one time. Before I turned it into the person behind the counter at the rental agency, I took a picture of myself making a goofy expression so they could see the guy who turned in their camera. I hope that they actually got it.
If only. I have absolutely no idea where I might have left it. I’ve called the hotel and the rental car agency, with zero results. I know I had it the night before, and I’m pretty sure it made it back to the room with me, but after that, it’s a blur. I woke up late for my flight to begin with, and added to the fact that I was desperately ill, I packed my things in a panic. There may be a maid who is one digital camera richer today.
Thanks. Aside from the misery of being sick, it was a fine trip, with much merriment. It’d been a long time since I’d been to the French Quarter, and I had a great time. And ever since my return, my girlfriend, bless her soul, has been keeping me in Sprite and crackers.
They probably have it framed in their living room. I know I would if I got the camera back with a picture of the person who found it.
I feel much better today, but I’m still weak. I woke up at 1PM, after collapsing into bed early last night. Man, food poisoning is the worst.
I thought this was going to be about the new NASCAR rule that allows the first car a lap down to get his lap back on a yellow flag. Not that I have a problem with that.
And I love Panda Express. Eaten there several times, and never got sick. Maybe I’m lucky?
Last time I bought a hot-dog from a street vendor on Jackson Square, he inquired: “Would you like some wine with your dinner?”.
I says yeah, and he whips out an open bottle of T-Bird in a brown bag and passes it to me. So I tip him big ($2) and we polish off his wine. I didn’t get sick, though. Something about the strong constitution required to consume the East Alabama water, I assume.
My last Lucky Dog story was a bit more amusing. Late one drunken night, a friend and I espied a Lucky Dog cart across the street. I got about halfway across the road, and from nowhere (or so it seemed at the time…I still can’t explain how I missed her approach,) I was accosted by a black prostitute who could not have weighed in at less than 300 pounds. She was wearing virtually nothing, and suddenly she was just there, her copious hand wrapped tightly around my testicles. The following exchange took place:
Prostitute: Where you goin’, baby?
Me (utterly taken aback): I’m going over there to get a hot dog.
P: Why don’t you forget about that hot dog and come with me?
Me (casting a desperate look at my friend, who is as startled as me, and yet amused, the bastard): I…err…um. Ah, that is…errrrrr…I only have five dollars.
Prostitute: Guess you better take yo’ ass on and get that hot dog.
Good gawd! My first (and hopefully only) experience with food poisoning came at the hands of the ladies staffing a government building I worked in once. (As an aside, as with school cafeterias, it was rumoured that the grade of service contracted for in our building was less than that for the temporary residents of the remand centre next door. But I digress).
The day after partaking of the daily special (meatloaf. I know!) the most strenuous activity I managed was the 20’ shuffle to the couch, in +1 minute time.
Having to drive, and then sit on a dipping airplane for two hours… I grow bilious at the mere thought! :eek: Had that happened to me, I think I would have bought plane tickets for next month and had room service bring me unending pitchers of ginger ale.
I have absolutely no idea where I might have left it. I’ve called the hotel and the rental car agency, with zero results. I know I had it the night before, and I’m pretty sure it made it back to the room with me, but after that, it’s a blur. I woke up late for my flight to begin with, and added to the fact that I was desperately ill, I packed my things in a panic. There may be a maid who is one digital camera richer today.