Nashville Knucklehead

Walk-in special

That picture is from Sunday morning before our departure to Florida It is the dash of Old Blackie, the 11 year-old fuel slut Chevy Tahoe that gets me where I'm going. We drove (I drove, the Idiot Drummer was merely along for entertainment purposes) to Tampa in one shot Sunday. It took about 11 hours. We exhausetedly scoured a couple of exits for a cheapish looking hotel within walking distance from a food establishment with a liquor license. We found the aptly monikered "Tampa Hotel" near Busch Gardens. "Ask about our walk-in special" extolled the marquee, so I did. 100 bucks. Some special. The Amsterdam Admirals were using the hotel for training camp. That's NFL Europe. I was giddy with fucking star-struck excitement about that.

The Idiot Drummer has suffered for years from sleep apnea, which is a fancy term for ungodly window-shattering snoring. His lovely wife finally convinced him to swallow his pride and go get one of those jet-fighter looking forced-air face mask devices that people with this condition wear to get a decent night's sleep. He said he is now allowed to sleep in the same bed with his better (believe me, much better) half. (Someday I will tell stories of the entire summer he slept in my walk-in closet because he snored so loud we couldn't share the room of the apartment as planned.) We drank a couple of beers at dinner, and as much bourbon as I know he drinks, he claims he now no longer switches over after drinking beer. I do not suffer from such foolish decisions, and a majority of what is pictured in the bottle above ended up in my gullet before bed. More than I intended. I was tempted to empty the humidifier tray of his jet pack and fill it with bourbon after he fell asleep, just to see if he would wake up drunk, but Knob Creek doesn't come cheap, so I saved the rest for later. I ingested enough of the brown elixir to fall asleep despite the fact that there was a man who looked like a cross between Babar the Elephant and Hannibal Lechter in a bed not three feet from me. I didn't hear a peep out of him all night. However, he informed me that early in the morning, I sat bolt upright in bed, yelled out "TITANS!" and immediately laid back down to sleep. I have no reason to doubt the veracity of his claim.

The Idiot Drummer said the reason he never got one of these devices before is because he was afraid that he would fall asleep in his bunk on the bus and the other knuckleheads in the band would gather around and giddily unhook his air tube and shotgun his facemask full of pot smoke, causing him to wake up quite stoned. I think he is only half kidding. I quit smoking pot a long, long time ago, but if we travel together again, I will take it back up once just to try that little trick.

posted by Nashville Knucklehead @ 5:26 PM