Going With The Flow ...

Hello again kids, Jay the Cynical_Bastard here again.

Well, it looks like DDQ’s rampage across the Caribbean continues unabated.

When they visited Jamaica DDQ took to chasing every single man around asking him “Are you Ziggy Marley?” Then she kept walking up to bands at different bars asking “Hey, do you guys play any reggae?” Then came the announcement that there was a sudden rum shortage on the island. Pretending she didn't know who THAT could have happened DDQ decided that there wasn’t any reason to stay on the island anymore and headed back to the ship.

But, the next day DDQ got a little more comfortable with the Jamaican culture. In fact, she’s really gotten into it and has threatened to stay. Here is the picture she sent from Jamaica...



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I guess I should do something other than post really bad photoshop pictures. So, I figured that since DDQ has such a great relationship with so many of the bums that “live” near her apartment I would tell my favorite bum story. Well, one of my favorites anyway. My actual favorite might be the bum who came running at my roommates car with a baseball bat in Tulsa one night. But, I’m gonna tell the Las Vegas bum story.

I had gone to Vegas by myself cause I wanted to be able to do whatever I wanted, whenever I wanted to, and on my last day in town I decided I wanted to go to a strip club. Now, we all know that when it comes to strip clubs in Vegas there are a number of choices, but I wanted to go to one of the “high end” clubs.

I settled on the Olympic Garden. At the time they didn’t have the male dancers upstairs, just female dancers both downstairs and upstairs. Anyway, they billed themselves as “The Classiest Gentlemen’s Club in Vegas”. And “The World’s Largest Cabaret.” On top of that the valet at Fitzgerald’s recommended the place. So, it was pretty much a no-brainer.

The place was easy to find as it was right on Las Vegas Blvd just north of the strip. I pulled my little Mitsubishi Mirage rental car into the half-empty lot around 3 or so in the afternoon. I decided to go during the day because we all know that day shift strippers are much nicer. Besides, most brawls happen at night.

Just as I got out of my car and shut the door I turned around to see a bum walking up towards me. My immediate thought was that there was NO WAY I was going to be able to blow him off and walk past him and go inside. He came right up to me and instead of asking for money he actually had a business proposition. He offered to keep an eye on my car and make sure nobody messed with it for “a few bucks.” I thought about that for a minute and decided it was a fair enough deal. So, I gave him a five dollar bill and thanked him for his help and walked towards the front door. When I turned around I saw that he was heading for the Burger King next door.

Now, one thing to remember about rental cars in Nevada (at the time at least, the law may have been changed by now) is the automatic $500 dollar deductible on any damage done to the car when it is in your care. Even if your credit card and own car insurance covers you, you have to pay the $500 bucks. Then it’s up to you to try to get your credit card or insurance to pay you back. Not to mention the stack of paperwork that has to be filled out when you are supposed to be on your flight home.

So, thinking of things in those terms, five dollars wasn’t much of a price to pay.

Anyway, the club was nice and there were many, many beautiful girls working there. And just about all of them were really friendly too. But, I just couldn’t get comfortable though. I just couldn’t seem to give the ladies the attention they deserved and didn’t really enjoy the lap dances as much as I should have.

I kept having these visions of that bum lying on the hood of my car, scratching up the paint with his boots while eating a cheeseburger and fries that I had just bought him. So, after a while I decided to just go ahead and leave.

When I walked out of the club I immediately looked for my car half-expecting it to be gone or at least trashed. But, there it sat, just where I left it. Then I heard a noise and looked to my right and sitting on the curb right next to my car was that bum. He saw me and jumped up and said “I’m glad you came back out, I was getting ready to go get me some refreshments to drink. But, I stayed right here and kept an eye on your car for you like I said I would.”

I assumed that these “refreshments” were supposed to be paid for by me again, so I reached into my pocket and gave him a couple of ones that I failed to give to the dancers on stage. Then I thanked him for taking care of my car and he said I was welcome and headed out towards the liquor store.

As I pulled out of the parking lot I looked up at the big sign that towered over the street that said “The Classiest Gentlemen’s Club in Vegas” and thought “yeah, the one with a bum shaking down tourists stupid enough to drive their rental cars to the club.”

I decided I didn’t want to see what the parking lot of the “least classiest” club looked like.




*I think that DDQs labels need spicing up a bit too. ;-)