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No, I do NOT have a purty mouth.

Posted by todd Sat, 08 Oct 2005 16:42:00 GMT

Part 1 in a multipart series.



I'd never been to Arkansas. It's shocking, given how culturally diverse and metropolitan the state is known to be. There is a first time for everything.

Hello from Eureka Springs, Arkansas! Population 2,032. Don't you wonder how often they update that sign?

Now, a valid question would be "Todd, why the hell are you in Arkansas?". In fact I asked myself that very question as I was driving past the 47th group of cows on the way from the airport to the town. The closest airport was 50 miles.

The answer is simple, a hot girl asked me to come.

The trip was made largely to hang out with my old roommate, who is a bridesmaid in the wedding. Her now ex-boyfriend/date turned out to be pre-occupied with...well.. being married with 2 kids that she didn't know about, so I volunteered to stand in. (Oh yeah! She found this out using Google, which returned his home phone number, which in turn was answered by his wife. Sounds familiar eh?)

This is where being single really has it's benefits. See, I might be a busy guy.. not having time for all this "cleaning", and "doing laundry" stuff, but you have to have your priorities straight. A gathering full of women dressed to kill and drinking heavily, where I share a room with a bridesmaid?

I've had worse weekend plans.

So after sprinting across the Houston Airport to make a connection, I hit the ground in Fayetville, Arkansas. Brides Maid was off at the rehearsal dinner, so I drove into town and went exploring. Donning the local attire (Jeans and a baseball hat), it was pretty easy to blend in, and the locals seemed pretty talkative.

Christ there's only 2000 of them, they better be up for making new friends.

The first two bars I went into were nice, but fairly emtpy. Actually they may have been full, it was difficult to tell through the smoke. It was clear that I had not found the right place... in a new town, you have to find the locals.

It was like a game of Where's Waldo, but with long hair and beards. Leather was also very popular.

Anyway. Having traveled alone before, I knew the secret to becoming a local in 2 hours flat: Make friends with the bartenders, preferably female ones.

Luckily, this is a skill of mine.

See, a bartender is just doing their job. They don't really want to be there. They want to be somewhere else... generally, at another bar full of crazy service industry people. This is the bar you must find.

Seems easy right? Well, it can be, but there are a few rules to keep in mind.

#1: Make sure the bartender *really* likes you. These people are paid to be nice. They are not paid to send some asshole to their favorite bar. Read them wrong and you might wind up in a place that favors leather chaps.

#2: Get multiple opinions. You need a sample size greater than 1. Look, everyone has a favorite bar... but some people have really poor taste. You want to bar hop to a few places, and ideally have two unrelated bartenders (difficult in Eureka), tell you the same thing.

After a few hours, I divined that "Chelsea's" was the place I needed to be. Walking in, it reminded me of a place called the "Copper Coin" where I went to college, but with even more hicks. A folk band was playing, so Michelobe Light in hand, sat down at a table and watched the crowd.

It only took a few minutes and the rest of the table was overtaken by various oddballs, including Kathy. Kathy was older, and a librarian. Can you imagine a less interesting job than being a librarian in a town that size? Still, she was entertaining to talk to.

Turns out, tonight was the FIRST time she had seen the destruction of New Orleans on television. She didn't have one, and apparently didn't get out much. WHY she didn't get out much I'm not sure, because when we started talking about storms it became clear that there was little difference between being out, or in, where she lived.

We talked about ice storms, and I swear she actually said this: "Losing electricity would be bad for me, since I only have electric heat. I use one of those plug in heaters. I guess one good thing would be that the pipes wouldn't freeze. I just carry in water."

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YOU WHAT!

The woman had no running water in her house.

At that point I stopped asking questions, and went off to find Brides Maid. The rest of the evening was pretty uneventful.

Next up: Tie hunting. More Locals. Tips for Airline CEO's.