I’ll tell you about Texas. Back in ’95, me and my friend Haley went down to his Dad’s timeshare in Port Aransas, Texas, a little beach resort town about 45 minutes south of Corpus Christi, for a week of sportfishing on the gulf. So, the first night in town, we go out on the town, hit a bunch of bars. We come to this one bar, where they tell us they haven’t got their liquor license yet, so, by some strange twist of Texan logic, all drinks cost $2.

So we go and have a drink. And behind the bar, there’s this girl, it’s not politically correct but I can only describe this girl as a “Texas honey”—pretty, curly blond hair, cowboy hat. And we’re there a few minutes, and this older guy starts hassling us, making drunken accusations, saying we’re with the liquor board or something, and the only way we’re going to prove we’re not there to bust him, he says, is for us to do a round of shots with him. OK, no problem there! So he asks for four Tequila shots – one for him, one for Haley, for me, and for Miss Texas Honey behind the bar.

Now, I don’t drink tequila, because it makes me do stupid shit. So I say, I’ll have a shot of whiskey instead. And he says, no, he’s buying a round of tequila, do I want it or not, so I say, sure. Well, many rounds are bought that night, this guy is getting us tanked, and it turns out he’s the owner of the bar, and T. Honey is his daughter. He buys us drinks, she buys us drinks, eventually he stumbles out, it winds up just me & Haley & her, shooting pool and drinking round after round of tequila shots. It all gets a bit hazy. She kissed Haley once next to the pool table, I don’t think I kissed her but I do remember trying. I remember she was so drunk, she didn’t even X out the register before we left. I remember being in her truck, and she drove us to an all-night drive-through place and bought us a greasy breakfast, omelets and all, before taking us back to her down-home 100% American white trash trailer park. What I definitely remember is getting to the trailer park, to her trailer, and she’s got an above ground swimming pool in front of the trailer. I remember her telling us we had to be quiet, her dad was asleep in the trailer. So, me and Haley, we’re pretty drunk, I don’t remember if we asked permission or not, we just peeled off our clothes and dove into the pool. Things were jumping at this point…

Suddenly, it’s morning, and I’m back at Haley’s dad’s place, waking up with a tequila hangover. It’s 7 am, and it’s time to go fishing. I look at Haley, and I say, Haley, what happened? Is an angry redneck bar owner going to come after us with a shotgun?

And Haley says, with that definitive tone of assurance peculiar only to devils like him, “Mike, I remember the whole thing. We went swimming, we tried to kiss on her a little bit, nothing happened, she drove us home. Nobody is coming after us with a shotgun.” Ok.

We went fishing, and I spent the whole morning hanging my head off the side of the boat puking, to the amusement of Haley and his family. They thought I was seasick, I was fine with that. I ate my humble pie and spent the return trip on my back under the deck. I was thankful when we got home and I could sleep it off.

And that would have been the end of the story, except that two days later, I discovered that while we were in the pool, she had stolen $40 out of my wallet.

And THAT, my friends, is Texas.

I figure, if I didn’t drink $40 worth of free booze, at least I probably got $40 worth of story out of it.