I’m going to be that stick in the mud and talk about how I don’t really like Cinco de Mayo…cultural appropriation….capitalism…blah blah blah. But, I always ended up being talked into celebrating it anyway. I mean…May 5th…y’know….it usually ended up being the first time the band got together to drink on a patio for the year. Probably doesn’t speak too well of me, but I’d end up relenting and going out for enough margaritas to power a tractor and enough queso to plug up a sewer. Some years those night were relatively harmless. We’d get together, go have a good dinner, drink a lot, and stumble on home.
But, in 2011….man…what a night.
There’s a reason we used to call Brandon the ‘Nature Boy’ before we were terrified that Ric Flair would send us a cease and desist. I don’t know how he does it, but he just has a way of being persuasive with people.
There’s a Mexican restaurant in Mount Juliet, Tennessee – which is where all of us were located at the time….about 13 miles out of Nashville. There was never a wait at this place. Food was always served quick. It was wonderful – you could go into this place at prime dine time on Friday night, and NO ONE would be there. It got to a point when we started making jokes about the place being a drug front, ’cause how the hell could they stay in business with no patrons?
Anyway, we got to know the manager a bit and the dude was a complete and utter lunatic. The type of guy who is always running at 100MPH, ready to snort cocaine and jump out of an airplane. That kind of energy – super nice, but man..always completely fired up. He had been selling us on that year’s Cinco de Mayo party for weeks prior. We found it hard to believe that they could draw a crowd, but we eventually mulled it over and thought, “yeah, why not spend the evening at one of our regular spots?” Worse case scenario, we get the place to ourselves, and have a grand old time.
In one of the biggest twists of my life story….in a mystery that I still don’t understand to this day, we show up that May 5th and the place is filled to the brim. They’re hanging from the rafters in this particular establishment.
There’s eight of us, but since we had an in with the manager, there was a table reserved for us. I could not contain my disbelief. There had to have been 300 people at this place. The restaurant was full. They had two large party tents out in the parking lot that were full of people, and they were SERVING HEAT, folks. I tell ya – one margarita had me buzzed. Three and I was feeling good. By the time we made it to our 5th pitcher, everyone was toasted.
But, back to Brandon – see….you get a gathering of that many people in a small town and most of them are bound to know each other. That was the case on this night. We knew a third of the crowd, probably. While we were staying at our table and enjoying the night, Brandon was getting up and going to visit other tables. He had to have found a solid rotation of at least four tables. He would get a drink with us, get up, say he was going to talk to so-and-so, and pull the same trick over and over until he made it back to us.
We found out that he wasn’t paying for drinks…he timed it so that every time he went to a new table, it just so happened to be when they were ordering another round. “Put it on the old buddy’s tab!”
It was impressive – our table was the only one that caught on because….well…because we all actually know Brandon. By the time midnight rolled around, Brandon had bummed about 15 tequila shots off of people, and helped us put a dent in the margaritas. He was on another planet. We had a good laugh about it. But then we started noticing people leaving. Apparently, there was some sort of fire code issue, and the staff was starting to ask people to leave.
We’re trying to figure out what’s going on and I look over and Brandon is sitting at the end of the table just spitting openly into the floor of the Mexican restaurant. I told him, “Brandon, you can’t do that.” He looks at me, dead serious, and says, “do what?” To this day, I still don’t believe that he knew he was spitting in the middle of the floor at a restaurant. The staff was looking at us…err…I should say, they were looking at Brandon. But, whatever reason, they never said anything.
This was that part of the night when your instincts kick in and you recognize it’s time to get the hell out of dodge. I told everyone, “something’s going on…they’re trying to get people out of here….and Brandon is spitting in the middle of the floor….maybe we should take this opportunity to get the hell out of here.” Luckily, everyone listened. We had a DD that got us all home safely, and that was that.
We still laugh about Brandon spitting in the floor to this day. But, the most bizarre part of this story is that we never saw that manager again. We even asked for him after a while, and the staff just pretended he never existed. I don’t know if it had something to do with the reason they were shooing people home that night…if it actually was a drug front…or what…but it was as if a completely new staff came in and took over after that night.
To my knowledge, no one got laid that night either. Probably ’cause none of our dicks worked.
Stoney Keeley is the Editor in Chief of The SoBros Network. He is a strong supporter of Team GSD and #BeBetter. “Big Natural” covers the Tennessee Titans, Nashville, and a whole wealth of nonsense. Follow on Twitter @StoneyKeeley
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