Ok so where was I? Ah yes, that night. Interesting night. Ok so we head downtown and go to two bars, the first I don't remember the name. It was some upscale European.....wait let me check my credit card receipt. Here we go, "Lite Affair Cafe." The decor was posh and trendy, filled with the stench of liberalism. By all that I mean I felt out of place without chic thin-framed glasses I didn't need. I found where everyone who spends 6 hours a day at Starbucks checking their email and sipping coffee unnecessarily slowly goes to hang out at night. To fit in I pointed randomly to the list of white wines and said "I'll take that one. And a Blue Moon." Pinot Grigio tastes like battery acid. See those martinis? $12 a pop, and our waitress looked like the British lesbian who hosted that show "Weakest Link."

Next stop: Charleston Beer Works. It was crowded and smoky, and felt like an unfinished basement, but we didn't care; this was the place to satisfy our binge drinking. We ran into people from Tech and got plenty drunk. Jon got drunk enough to smoke a cigarette, which is a visual indicator that he is really drunk, which he'd need to be to......

make out with a girl who just graduated high school. Listen to me talking like I wouldn't do it too. Shortly thereafter, he passed out in the most awesome pose ever. Look at his hands.

Me? Just getting started.

The next morning two of Katie's roommates were extremely cool about me waking up in their bed naked with a girl that didn't live their either.

Another hidden compliment was a roommate's observation that coinciding with Jon, Daimler and my visit, "This place is turning ito a frat house." I can't imagine why she'd say that. It's not like there was anything fratty going on.

Perhaps though, we were beginning to wear out our welcome.

So the next day we went back to the beach. We just did the normal, look gay in the water and lay around thing. The excitement started on the way home.

I'm at a crosswalk after like 30 minutes, and some guy walks up and tells me "You're leaking antifreeze." I said thanks and then rolled up the window and told the rest of my car that the guy was an idiot because it was just the condensation from the air conditioning, because I am a brilliant engineer. And then I saw the steam from under my hood, and my engine temperature indicator off the scale.

I pull over and pop the hood. Almost immediately, a drunk crackhead wandered over.

crackhead:"Looks like your steaming".

That was the last intelligible thing that came out of his mouth. I asked, "Yeah, you know anything about this?" He pointed to my engine block and said "Ther.....ther...." I coached him along. "Thermometer?" He nodded. "What are you talking about?" "He.....he...heater." I could see right through the blank stare on his face to the thoughts churning in his head like bubbles in molasses. I thought about getting a beer out of my car and rolling it down the sidewalk to get him the fuck away from us. We ate at a sub place while Daimler came to pick us up.

This was on Sunday. I knew that the next day, the 4th of July, everything would be closed, so the earliest I could get someone to fix my car would be early Tuesday morning. So we left the car there for the next two days, and became "those guys" without a car.

Each night I drank an entire bottle of wine by myself, as well as multiple beers. If these pictures look well composed and coherent, that's because of my camera. That night we go to a Coyote Ugly themed bar called Market Street Saloon, which is styled like bars in Nashville. Girls could get up on the bar and dance, and if no one else was, the strungout heroin addict looking bartenders would. They made sure Coyote 'Ugly' lived up to its name. I snapped a picture of this one riding a bicycle on the bar.

"Girls could get up on the bar and dance, and if no one else was, the bartenders would get up and dance on the bar until they got all gross and sweaty."

We got Katie up on stage after multiple shots and lots of coaxing. I'd have to say it was probably my favorite Sunday night of drinking ever.

The next day, the 4th of July, Daimler leaves. He is our only connection to these girls. We are officially freeloading, and feel like parasites. We don't even have a car, mine's still broken down.

Some of the girls want to go to the beach, so we go. This beach, Sullivan Island, is weird. There's this moat that is like 50 yards wide you have to cross to get to the actual beach. In some places it was so deep that it would be over your head.

So THAT's what it feels like to cross the Rio Grande.

I realize I'm never going to get laid again after telling what happened next. We had gone earlier to eat lunch where Katie worked. I had some fried crabcakes and fried grouper tacos. Morning after hangovers and fried foods do not work well for me. I knew I had to take a crap but it wasn't cooperating yet, just lots of stomach cramps and horrific gas (still at the restaurant). What came next I never thought I would do in my entire life.

Shortly after crossing the Rio Grande, the first wave of pain and nausea hit me. I knew I had less than 10 minutes, and no portapotties in sight, not to mention the moat between me and civilization. "Let's get in the water" Two of the girls and Jon came with me. I tried to distance myself from the group but this girl was on me like a cheap suit. I looked at her in the eyes. "I'm going to piss, get away from me." as the second wave of nausea and pain hit, giving me goose bumps. I was about to have a seizure from squeezing my sphincter so hard. I turned, swam, and shat.

After about 10 seconds of aggressive freestyle I was far enough away. I dropped my board shorts and ripped off the boxers underneath. Terds began floating up around me. I was upwind from the group, and in breaking water where the terds could have easily surfed back toward them. It was now a race against time, and a small girl and her father were swimming out towards me. I wiped my ass with my boxers and dove underwater to bury them in the sand. It didn't work; it was time to abandon ship. I put back on the board shorts, and swam back towards the group before the smell hit them. "Let's get the hell out of here, I'm starting to get pruney" I was just waiting to get back on the beach and have the father walk up to me with my dirty boxers on a stick and say, "Hey man, you forgot these." Thank god he never did.

No one the wiser, we went home, showered, and just hung out all day. It was time for us to leave. We realized it. Everyone else definitely realized it. But we had no car, and had to spend the night before anyone else would even look at it. So there was nothing to do but go out and get drunk again.

By the time we sobered up the next morning, it was like noon. I found a place that could fix my car, and we got dropped off there. Shortly after taking my car apart, the mechanic told us he'd fix it, "but it might not be today." Which meant we'd have to spend another night at the girls' place. This was unacceptable. So, he screwed me.

He said it was a "one and a half hour job"...which was actually done in thirty minutes. He charged me $127.50 for labor we basically verbally agreed was 1.5 hours, so that's a rate of $85 an hour. Some hookers don't make that much, and this guy wasn't even throwing in a handjob. When I looked at the bill, he was smiling. He knew he was screwing me, I knew he was screwing me, and he knew that I knew he was screwing me. Fuck it, it saved us a day of time, more imposition, and a logistical nightmare.

A $1,300 weekend, 12 hours of driving, a new digital camera, four straight nights of binge drinking and taunting rednecks, the beach, and one hell of a story to tell. That's what life's all about.

Time to post this piece of shit and head to Charlotte for yet another adventure.