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First, let me put forth a warning. The end of this story is gross. Body fluid gross. Please don't read this if you are of a weak constitution. There is a warning in red letters where it starts.
That being said, let me set the stage.
The date: Feb. 25, 1990. (how I remember will become evident shortly)
The place: Tucson, AZ, Palm Springs, CA., and a few places in between.
This started on a beautiful Sunday afternoon. I was helping my wife get things ready for her sister's birthday party. She turned 30 that day and the festivities were due to start that evening at 7. About 6, I got a phone call from my boss. The limo driver at work was sick. Could I help him out with a unscheduled limo trip. He's wanting to give me 25% of the contract + my normal wage since it was my day off. I knew the real reason was that I was the only other driver with a commercial driver's license and that I was the only person legally able to drive interstate commercially, including the owner. When I asked what kind of money and where, he told me the contract was for $1,500.00 ($375 for me + $7.00/hour Yippee!) The trip was from a Tucson golf resort to the Hilton in Palm Springs, CA. Well, normally I would have said no, but the $500 cha-CHING flashed in my eyes and I said OK. My wife was pissed until I told her the money involved. God how she loved the Benjamin's!
Anyway, once I got to work, the boss rushed me out the door because he didn't want the contract late. (this was as big for him as it was for me, being the small-time business that it was) All he had time to tell me was the client's name, that they were VIPs and that they would be in the lounge. All things went well for a while. I found my passengers and loaded their luggage into the trunk, (and the front seat as it turns out. 4 women at 2 - 3 bags each just don't fit into the trunk of even a Towncar Limo) run their credit card through the manual card imprinter, had the leader sign it and we were off, only about 10 minutes behind schedule. I promised the ladies that I could make it up along I-10 with no problem. They assured me that they had no schedule and it was OK. This is where the fun started.
Before we even got onto the interstate, which is only 3 miles from the resort, the ladies roll down the partition and ask me if I could stop so they can get some alcohol at a store somewhere. Mind you, they had just been waiting in the lounge of a golf resort so they had probably already been imbibing. I stop at a convience store, the leader of the pack goes inside and buys a 12-pack of Bud and a bottle of Jack Daniels. I chuckle to myself as I watch this very proper looking, Chanel-wearing lady carry her redneck supplies back to the car.
Once we hit the interstate I found out who they were and why they were taking a 6 hour limo ride when they could be taking an hour and a half flight. As it turns out, my passengers were all wives of golf pros who were in town for the big tourney. I didn't play golf (still don't) but I recognized two of the names they dropped, all of which shall not be mentioned here, but would be household names to anyone who played or even watched golf back then. The reason they were taking a limo was that they found out that on that very day, A new law went into effect that banned smoking on all flights under 6 hours. Since the airline wouldn't let them smoke, they chartered the limo. (Come on! Even I can stop smoking long enough to fly anywhere I needed to go and I was a 3 pack a day man then, but when you have money, I guess you indulge yourself.)
About an hour into the trip, the leader again asked me to stop. I pulled off the interstate at Eloy, AZ and the ladies went in to use the bathroom and again Mrs. Drunk emerged with yet another 12 pack of Bud. Once we got back underway, the ladies began talking about everything and anything. They got progressively louder and obviously more drunk, to the point that I could barely understand them when they talked to me, let alone each other. The trip was going smoothly until just after I crossed into California. Our dear golf girls were again out of Bud. The only problem was that there was no place I could find to get any. There was very little in the way of conveniences in the middle of the desert, at least back then. So, not worrying about it or putting up any kind of a big stink, the ladies got the glasses from the bar and began on the Jack, but not before one of them asked me to stop in a dark spot so she could relieve herself. At least that was easy. There are plenty dark spots in the middle of the desert. I still remember the drunk giggles as they all piled out, leaned against the limo and fertilized a fairly large area of the desert just east of Twenty-Nine Palms.
By the time we got to the hotel in Palm Springs, the back of the limo was quiet, except for one of the woman who had been loudly snoring for the past 30 miles. When I pulled into the driveway of the hotel I had to get pretty loud to even make the ladies budge, let alone wake up. 3 of the 4 got out on their own as I was unpacking their luggage. Their fearless leader was still sawing whiskey soaked logs on the floor of the limo. As the staff helped the ladies into the lobby, they left me to deal with Mrs. Lush. Very simply, I crawled into the limo and shook her increasingly harder until I heard her grunt. I yelled that we had arrived and she could go to her room. With practically all of the muscle I could muster, I peeled her off the carpeting and got her out. Unfortunately I could tell that the spindley legs that carried her into two convenience stores and supported her as she relieved herself on the roadside, were not going to be able to get her into the hotel. So I picked her up and carried her drunk ass into the lobby.
GROSSITY ALERT!!
I got to about the middle of the lobby where the rest of the ladies had congregated, when a flaccid Mrs. Drunk-as-a Skunk, her arm and legs dangling as if she was a sleeping child being carried to bed by a parent, proceeded to stiffen in my arms and
ALL OVER ME! Just in case you don't quite grasp the meaning of "all over me," let's just say that everything that was part of me became soaked in recycled Budweiser with a JD chaser; My suit coat, my bolo tie, (mandatory in Tucson) my white shirt, INSIDE my coat and shirt, my hair, my face, in my ear, nothing was spared. Let's not forget the chair in the lobby I practically threw her into, the lobby floor. My pant legs and my practically new leather and suede shoes got a share of the golden goodness as well.
It's amazing how quickly the lobby emptied. Even the employees left, save for one brave desk clerk. When the other ladies in the group saw what their den mother had done, they all started apologizing, explaining that Mrs. Spewzalot does that when she drinks the hard stuff. How handy this information would have been had I only known it 2 minutes earlier.
All was not lost, however. The hotel offered me a room for the night but I refused, as long as they could offer me one long enough to shower and maybe get a quick laundering of my clothes. There was no way I was going to drive almost 400 miles back to Tucson in that condition. Even though I didn't look back to see, I know I must have left a trail of liquidic sweetness going to the room. Luckily for the crew at the hotel, the desk clerk gave me a room on the second floor. After I got my shower and was waiting for my clothes, I called my boss (at 4 am Tucson time) to let him know what happened and that I was delayed. I can still hear the chuckle in his voice, the bastard.
About a half hour later, my clothing arrived and I went to the lobby to see that the chair I had tossed Mrs. Old Faithful into had been removed and the ladies were no where to be seen. As I walked up to the service desk, the lady behind the counter handed me the keys to the limo, which they moved because it was blocking the driveway, and told me to check in the glove box. When I got to the limo, I opened the glove box to find a note on Hilton stationery profusely apologizing for the impromptu body cocktail I so desperately didn't need, and a check for $1,000.00. The final sentence asked me to use the money to buy a new suit.
I remember asking myself how much it would cost to have the memory erased.
Obviously I didn't have enough.
That being said, let me set the stage.
The date: Feb. 25, 1990. (how I remember will become evident shortly)
The place: Tucson, AZ, Palm Springs, CA., and a few places in between.
This started on a beautiful Sunday afternoon. I was helping my wife get things ready for her sister's birthday party. She turned 30 that day and the festivities were due to start that evening at 7. About 6, I got a phone call from my boss. The limo driver at work was sick. Could I help him out with a unscheduled limo trip. He's wanting to give me 25% of the contract + my normal wage since it was my day off. I knew the real reason was that I was the only other driver with a commercial driver's license and that I was the only person legally able to drive interstate commercially, including the owner. When I asked what kind of money and where, he told me the contract was for $1,500.00 ($375 for me + $7.00/hour Yippee!) The trip was from a Tucson golf resort to the Hilton in Palm Springs, CA. Well, normally I would have said no, but the $500 cha-CHING flashed in my eyes and I said OK. My wife was pissed until I told her the money involved. God how she loved the Benjamin's!
Anyway, once I got to work, the boss rushed me out the door because he didn't want the contract late. (this was as big for him as it was for me, being the small-time business that it was) All he had time to tell me was the client's name, that they were VIPs and that they would be in the lounge. All things went well for a while. I found my passengers and loaded their luggage into the trunk, (and the front seat as it turns out. 4 women at 2 - 3 bags each just don't fit into the trunk of even a Towncar Limo) run their credit card through the manual card imprinter, had the leader sign it and we were off, only about 10 minutes behind schedule. I promised the ladies that I could make it up along I-10 with no problem. They assured me that they had no schedule and it was OK. This is where the fun started.
Before we even got onto the interstate, which is only 3 miles from the resort, the ladies roll down the partition and ask me if I could stop so they can get some alcohol at a store somewhere. Mind you, they had just been waiting in the lounge of a golf resort so they had probably already been imbibing. I stop at a convience store, the leader of the pack goes inside and buys a 12-pack of Bud and a bottle of Jack Daniels. I chuckle to myself as I watch this very proper looking, Chanel-wearing lady carry her redneck supplies back to the car.
Once we hit the interstate I found out who they were and why they were taking a 6 hour limo ride when they could be taking an hour and a half flight. As it turns out, my passengers were all wives of golf pros who were in town for the big tourney. I didn't play golf (still don't) but I recognized two of the names they dropped, all of which shall not be mentioned here, but would be household names to anyone who played or even watched golf back then. The reason they were taking a limo was that they found out that on that very day, A new law went into effect that banned smoking on all flights under 6 hours. Since the airline wouldn't let them smoke, they chartered the limo. (Come on! Even I can stop smoking long enough to fly anywhere I needed to go and I was a 3 pack a day man then, but when you have money, I guess you indulge yourself.)
About an hour into the trip, the leader again asked me to stop. I pulled off the interstate at Eloy, AZ and the ladies went in to use the bathroom and again Mrs. Drunk emerged with yet another 12 pack of Bud. Once we got back underway, the ladies began talking about everything and anything. They got progressively louder and obviously more drunk, to the point that I could barely understand them when they talked to me, let alone each other. The trip was going smoothly until just after I crossed into California. Our dear golf girls were again out of Bud. The only problem was that there was no place I could find to get any. There was very little in the way of conveniences in the middle of the desert, at least back then. So, not worrying about it or putting up any kind of a big stink, the ladies got the glasses from the bar and began on the Jack, but not before one of them asked me to stop in a dark spot so she could relieve herself. At least that was easy. There are plenty dark spots in the middle of the desert. I still remember the drunk giggles as they all piled out, leaned against the limo and fertilized a fairly large area of the desert just east of Twenty-Nine Palms.
By the time we got to the hotel in Palm Springs, the back of the limo was quiet, except for one of the woman who had been loudly snoring for the past 30 miles. When I pulled into the driveway of the hotel I had to get pretty loud to even make the ladies budge, let alone wake up. 3 of the 4 got out on their own as I was unpacking their luggage. Their fearless leader was still sawing whiskey soaked logs on the floor of the limo. As the staff helped the ladies into the lobby, they left me to deal with Mrs. Lush. Very simply, I crawled into the limo and shook her increasingly harder until I heard her grunt. I yelled that we had arrived and she could go to her room. With practically all of the muscle I could muster, I peeled her off the carpeting and got her out. Unfortunately I could tell that the spindley legs that carried her into two convenience stores and supported her as she relieved herself on the roadside, were not going to be able to get her into the hotel. So I picked her up and carried her drunk ass into the lobby.
GROSSITY ALERT!!
I got to about the middle of the lobby where the rest of the ladies had congregated, when a flaccid Mrs. Drunk-as-a Skunk, her arm and legs dangling as if she was a sleeping child being carried to bed by a parent, proceeded to stiffen in my arms and
ALL OVER ME! Just in case you don't quite grasp the meaning of "all over me," let's just say that everything that was part of me became soaked in recycled Budweiser with a JD chaser; My suit coat, my bolo tie, (mandatory in Tucson) my white shirt, INSIDE my coat and shirt, my hair, my face, in my ear, nothing was spared. Let's not forget the chair in the lobby I practically threw her into, the lobby floor. My pant legs and my practically new leather and suede shoes got a share of the golden goodness as well. It's amazing how quickly the lobby emptied. Even the employees left, save for one brave desk clerk. When the other ladies in the group saw what their den mother had done, they all started apologizing, explaining that Mrs. Spewzalot does that when she drinks the hard stuff. How handy this information would have been had I only known it 2 minutes earlier.
All was not lost, however. The hotel offered me a room for the night but I refused, as long as they could offer me one long enough to shower and maybe get a quick laundering of my clothes. There was no way I was going to drive almost 400 miles back to Tucson in that condition. Even though I didn't look back to see, I know I must have left a trail of liquidic sweetness going to the room. Luckily for the crew at the hotel, the desk clerk gave me a room on the second floor. After I got my shower and was waiting for my clothes, I called my boss (at 4 am Tucson time) to let him know what happened and that I was delayed. I can still hear the chuckle in his voice, the bastard.
About a half hour later, my clothing arrived and I went to the lobby to see that the chair I had tossed Mrs. Old Faithful into had been removed and the ladies were no where to be seen. As I walked up to the service desk, the lady behind the counter handed me the keys to the limo, which they moved because it was blocking the driveway, and told me to check in the glove box. When I got to the limo, I opened the glove box to find a note on Hilton stationery profusely apologizing for the impromptu body cocktail I so desperately didn't need, and a check for $1,000.00. The final sentence asked me to use the money to buy a new suit.
I remember asking myself how much it would cost to have the memory erased.
Obviously I didn't have enough.
"You'd feel a Hell of a lot better if you'd just rip into the occasional customer." 
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