Two weekends ago, myself and three friends spent Saturday afternoon at The Armory gun-range in Nashville. While driving back, we joked about how much fun it would be to go to Mardi Gras. Since one of my friends lives in New Orleans, it seemed plausible, but we all had work to do the week after and wouldn’t have time with Greek Life commitments amongst other things. Throughout the week we kept talking about it, and finally after getting all of our obligations in order, decided to go.
We departed from school on Friday afternoon to begin our drive. If you have never driven through Alabama before, please don’t; it’s a shithole. As we passed through Podunk town after Podunk town, we finally entered Bombingham. As part of the trip, each of us was to pay for gas at some point. However, one of our friends got out of paying for gas by agreeing to show us a porno of his girlfriend that he had recorded. After watching it, we decided it was too funny to keep to ourselves. While driving through Bombingham, we stopped at a red-light next to a truck. After getting his attention, we stuck the laptop out the window and clicked play. Let’s just say his face lit up.
Finally after a grueling eight hour drive, we arrived in the Lost City of New Orleans. A multitude of hurricane jokes accompanied the ride down, much to the dismay of our local friend. We stopped at a gas station to pick up 24oz Coors and started going to town as we entered the room above his garage where we would be staying. We crushed our first brews, met the family and then headed out for the first night on Bourbon Street.
The night is pretty hazy now, but I clearly remember starting off with a round of jello shots for all. Thank the lord that New Orleans is notoriously cheap for drinks (until the next night); getting drunk is cheap and easy on Bourbon when you can walk around with open containers like it’s nobody’s business. Highlights of the night included running into a KA friend from Ol’ Miss, watching my friend be lifted off the ground by his neck by a rather large drunk African American man, and hanging out in the kitchen at some restaurant while my friend took a piss. The cook was the epitome of bro and we took shots together while he was cooking grits. I also stole the cue ball from the billiards table at some bar – sorry. We ended the night back at my friends house after countless Hand Grenades and Hurricanes. Hangovers ensued the next morning.
Getting up Saturday morning was rough to say the least. We all hopped in the pool to relieve the pain and began our day. Expecting to get some New Orleans cuisine for lunch over in the French quarter, we all got in the car directed by my local friend. He brought us to the ghetto… Although the poboys were delicious, Vietnamese was the only language spoken in the restaurant and all the “natives” were giving the four white kids dressed in preppy attire some colorful looks. At one point, one friend had to leave to throw up in the back alley, while a few gang members heckled him saying, “you still have tonight, white boy.”
From there we headed over to the French Quarter, grabbed some bloody marys and walked around watching street performers. Notable quotes included, “give us money so we don’t have to go back to our old jobs, stealing white people’s flat screen tv’s” and overall general heckling of anyone who walked by. We headed over to Jimmy Buffett’s Margaritaville for some frozen drinks and jambalaya following. I recommend the Bama Breeze to anyone ever in a Margerittaville; it is damn delicious. We grabbed some cigars and headed over to Bourbon.
The following documents the best night of my life. We picked up a few “Huge Ass Beers” At 72oz’s these things were the equivalency of seven beers, and for $18 this was a steal. After chatting up some randoms and walking around for awhile, we were stopped by a group of four girls in the middle of the street. “We have to make out with you for a challenge.” As you can imagine, there was no hesitation by any party. We then parted ways.
One of the most iconic parts of Mardi Gras is throwing beads off of balconies down upon hot girls with the expectation of seeing some boobies. We knew we needed to partake in this so we set out looking for a balcony. After looking around for a little while, we found the Hustler Barely Legal Club. For the cheap cheap price of $30, we were allowed free exit and re-entry, bathrooms, VIP upstairs, balcony access and unlimited beads…and the hottest strippers brought in from clubs around the country just for the Super Bowl and Mardi Gras. We were sold. Upon entering the night began.
This is where everything begins to get a bit hazy. It is easier to summarize the Hustler club rather than tell each individual event in chronological order:
- One friend left and got a handie in the bathroom at an IHOP.
- The same friend later returned and made out with a stripper…for free.
- Dom Perignon tastes better when it costs $600.
- Another friend got blackout at 7pm, and proceeded to spend $800 on shots of AristoFrat. He spilled his drink on himself 4 times.
- A third friend tipped the man working the bathroom who washed your hands for you $150. You should have seen the smile on that man’s face.
- We through thousands of pairs of beads off the balcony, seeing an unsurpassed multitude of titties; big titties, small titties, white titties, brown titties, asian titties. It was glorious.
- Note: The best strategy to see boobs is to drop one pair of beads on their head so they look up and give you their full attention; then go for the kill drop.
- The balcony was shut down for 3 hours after 4 people were shot in the street below. We spent those 3 hours making it rain $1 dollar bills.
- Lehigh girls love it on the couch.
As we left Barely Legal at 5am, we witnessed two strippers pour whipped cream on each others “private parts”, eat it up, then just full on making out on stage. We really didn’t want to leave but we knew a 10 hour drive was ahead the next morning. Leaving Bourbon street, we decided to get some Domino’s Pizza. Inside Domino’s were the workers, us, 2 bros from FSU, some European guy, an SAE from New Jersey, an Asian couple, and two gangster African-American fellows. We all enjoyed each others company except for the African-American gangsters. I imagine they wanted to cap all us white folks. As we were leaving, one friend starts arguing with another and says “suck my big black [phallus].” The Asians started dieing laughing.
Finally we were ready to go home. It took a little bit to hail a cab which would take us back to the rich white part of town, but finally we got a cab. Our driver was a 20-something African-American driver who honestly looked like he just wanted to go home. Two of my friends tried to make conversation, but being in their drunken state, decided to talk about how much they hated racism. A bunch of white kids talking with a black cab driver about how much they hate racism…smooth. Following that one friend goes, “hey this kid here is my pledge. He’s basically my slave. I could sell him to you if you want.” The driver said nothing for the rest of the ride.
We finally arrived home at 6 in the morning and fell asleep around 6:30. We were woken at noon to the sound of one of my friends vomiting what can only be described as “black sludge.” We imagine it was the sin from the weekend, or he just picked up something from the stripper.
