Joe called at 10:00 again, and I woke up to a burning back. Very red. Between the, probably, close to an hour in the ocean, and four hours in the pool yesterday, it had gotten pretty toasty.
We met for breakfast, and were, unfortunately, quickly joined by Todd, so I was unable to get the “poop” from Joe about the goings-on last night after I went to bed. Eventually Todd went away, and I heard the gist.
Todd had told Joe his whole life story last night, including the fact that he is independently wealthy from money given to him by his parents. So, he doesn’t work. A couple of times he hinted to Joe that they should get in the car, and go to The Colesium.
Basically, he wanted a free ride there. Joe suggested he call a cab. He is independently wealthy after all.
A little while after I went in, Joel, who we’ve been calling “Fire in the Hole,” because his pubic hair is fire engine red, came in the gate with a “trick” with him. His (the trick’s) name was Vince, and they spent a little bit of time together in the pool, during which time Vince, who was a local, told Joe that “the place to be on Sunday night is the Jackhammer.” Eventually they excused themselves back to Joel’s room.
Eventually Todd went to bed, and “Giovanni” came out to the pool. Giovanni is, without a doubt, the hottest thing here. Joe and Giovanni ended up naked in the pool together, and after some time, Joel came back out of his room to escort Vince to the gate, and then returned to his room.
After a little while longer he came back out to the pool and said to Joe and Giovanni, “I know you both have roommates, so I just wanted to offer you my room, if you wanted to go back to it.”
Joe said, “I don’t have a roommate.” Joel, dumbstruck, stuttered, and returned to his room.
What a little Peyton Place this place is.
After filling me in on all this, we agreed to shower, and then go for a ride to a Starbucks we had passed on the way in. Before we left, Todd let us know that he’d be interested in “tagging along” with us tonight when we went out.
When we were ready, we left the resort (without asking Todd to join us) to go to Starbucks, where I hoped to check my email, catch up my journal, and perhaps have a short AIM conversation with Robert if he was logged in.
We drove down A1A to take a look at the place that Mike and Andy are managing, and eventually came upon it. It didn’t look all that great.
We came across a Starbucks down that way, which was a different one than the one we knew about and were heading for. It had a sign in the window that said, “Mobile-T Hotspot,” so we went in.
It was a very small place, and while Joe ordered for us, I booted up my laptop. When the wireless “radio” eventually detected the “Mobil-T Hotspot,” I learned that it was one of those “pay-to-use” systems, which sucked, and of course, I wasn’t going to do.
We talked about what we could do so that I could write for a couple of hours without Joe being bored, and decided on going to the Gallery Mall, which is on the way back to the guest house.
We did that, and I sat in huge, comfortable leather chairs and caught up a day’s worth of my journal, while Joe browsed the mall.
At the beginning of my time there, this very cute guy, in a tank top, was standing off to the side of the area, having a huge fight on his cell phone with, I’m guessing, another guy, perhaps his boyfriend. He was just shouting, and flailing his hands for emphasis while he was talking. Though cute, he looked and sounded like a complete jackass.
On the way out, we looked at t-shirts in Macy’s but didn’t buy any.
We stopped at Quizno’s on the way back to the guest house, and each got a sandwich to go. Back home, the standard fixture, Todd, was by the pool. We went to my room, and each ate half of our sandwiches, thinking the other half would be good when getting home from the bars this evening.
Joe spent the afternoon at the pool, while I caught up my journal a little in the lobby area. I also used the computer in there, and checked my mail, and for Robert on AIM. Robert wasn’t on.
I had an email from Phyllis, which kind of surprised me, because I was thinking that if I hadn’t heard form her by this point, then a visit wasn’t going to work out. However, her mail said they were looking forward to seeing us, and not to pick up anything for breakfast on the way there. Jimmy’s going to cook for us — which was great news, because he’s a great cook.
While sitting in the lobby area, this new guy came in, and he was not a happy camper. He had just checked into room 16, which is the room next door to mine (I’m in 17), and he was blow-drying his hair, when the power in his room went out.
“It’s so fucking hot in there,” he went on to tell me. “I just got here, and it’s already been a shit of a day. I got a $205 speeding ticket on the way here. That fat fucking pig gave it to me, and I’m probably going to get three points on my license.”
Then I get here, check in, shower, and I’m blow drying my hair, when the fucking power goes out.”
“I’m tired of this goddamn country. I have two houses, one just south of here, and one in Indiana. That one’s fully paid for. I bought it for my mother. And, I just found out that the one I currently live in, which I paid $120,000 for, I could sell for $320,000.”
“I’m going to put that on the market and move to Thailand. I’ve seen the property prices there. I can get a big house there, and for about $60,000. And a friend of mine, who lives there said even that’s too much. You can get a great place for $40,000, put $10,000 into it fixing it up, and turn around and sell it for $80,000.”
While this diatribe is going on, I’m just sort of looking at him, thinking, “Who the fuck cares?”
“Where are you from?” he asked.
“North Carolina,” I replied.
“Goddamn. It’s so fucking conservative there. Well this whole fucking country is conservative. That asshole Bush; that’s why I’m just ready to get out of this fucking country.”
Not long after that, Rick and Roger (I’m still not sure that the other guy who works here, besides Bill and Rick is named Roger, but that’s what Joe and I have agreed to call him) came back to tell the whiner that they’d gotten the electricity back on in his room.
Rick asked him in what outlet he had plugged in his hair dryer.
“That plug by the air-conditioner,” he replied.
“Well don’t plug it in there; that outlet is for the air-conditioning only. Plug it in in the bathroom.”
Mr. Negative said some caustic remark like, “Oh, I should blow dry my hair while I’m taking a shit then? And what happens if this happens again tonight when you guys aren’t here?” he proceeded with his sparkling personality. Anger issues.
“It shouldn’t happen again if you don’t use that plug by the air-conditioning, but if it does, the breaker is in room 17.”
I thought I misheard him.
He said, “So I’m just supposed to knock on the door of room 17 in the middle of the night, and ask someone to throw the switch?”
I said, “I’m in room 17. Please don’t be knocking on my door in the middle of the night.”
Before leaving Mr. Negative asked me about my laptop, and I introduced myself to him. “I’m Leonard,” he said, and then disappeared to his room.
I went into the actual office area of the lobby, which is where the computer is, and I used it while Roger taught Rick about the computer system. With me, another customer, sitting there, Rick says to Roger, “What kind of an asshole plugs a hair dryer into the same outlet as an air conditioner? What an asshole.”
After a while, I asked Roger if Bill was going to back in the morning before we checked out around 8:00, as we had a question about our bill. He ended up volunteering to look at it, and after quite the go around, we decided that although we signed four charges when we checked in, two of them were for the charges that were made back in July on Joe’s card.
I’ve never heard of a place that makes you sign credit card slips after you get there, when they took a deposit by phone. We’ll be sure to check Joe’s card to make sure they didn’t run those charges through a second time.
Happy Hour was from 4:00 – 5:00 today, as it is Sunday through Thursday. (It’s from 5:00 – 6:00 on Friday and Saturday.) It was very quiet out there, as most of the people in the place had left today.
I napped for about an hour, and then Joe and I headed out for dinner, and the Jackhammer, the only place to be on Sunday night, as you might recall.
We ate at Hamburger Mary’s, and I had the best hamburger I’ve had in a very long time. I got the Big Kahuna. Joe got the Meaty Mushroom Burger.
Our waiter was just hysterical. He was flitting about, doing intermittent line dance steps, while waiting on people. Kick, ball, change; kick, ball, change.
We got to the Jackhammer, and it more men per square foot in there than you could shake a dick at. It was way too hot in there, especially by the dance floor, and we quickly found out that it was your “Pec and Flex” kind of place for the boys who work 3 hours a day, and work out 6 hours a day.
The big draw here, other than the men, is the “$10 Beer Bust,” which is all-the-beer-you-can-drink for $10 bucks. Joe got him “a bust.” I ordered a bourbon and diet.
While exploring the many twists and turns of the place, this guy came up to me and hugged me. It was Mike of Mike and Andy, and Andy followed just behind him. We spent just a few minutes catching up, and then moved on.
By 9:00, I said to Joe, “I really don’t want to be a downer and ruin your last day here, Joe, but this really isn’t working for me. How ’bout we go to the car and get your phone. Then, I’m going to go back to the guest house, and you can call me whenever you’re ready to come home.”
After some discussion, we agreed to leave this bar, and go back to Bill’s Filling Station, where we had stopped yesterday, and knew they were having their $5 Beer Bust.
We hung out there for about an hour, during which time, I saw what Desperate Housewives looked like, and saw a portion of a show I was to later find out from Joe was Nip & Tuck. OMG. That man on that show. Whew.
I couldn’t follow either Desperate Housewives or Nip & Tuck even though the television was set to showing the closed captions. My glasses were in the car.
Joe met a guy named Jeffrey there, who was very nice. He followed us back to the guest house.
I went in for the night and worked on my journal for an hour-and-a-half. Oh yeah, and ate the other half of my Quizno’s sammich. Yum.