The Adventures of Velcro, Sparky & Wingman
The way this whole story starts seems whirlwindy as hell at best. Two guys started coming into the bar a couple of months back, I don’t remember exactly when or at what point we got beyond bar talk. (It's been brought to my attention over the last couple of years that I ignored them and if it hadn't have been for my ass they would've stopped coming in.)They are the ones to blame for my recent Florida addictions. I remember I had my Quit Your Job and Move to Key West book out one day and the rest is history. Have you ever felt a pull that you can’t describe…something that makes you look at someone and in that look you can see inside of them…and they are looking back and seeing you the same way…somewhere your souls are high fiving each other? Well that happened…and there was a connection that can’t be wrapped up in words.
My vacation time looming I decide to head south and check out some real estate. Out of the blue this guy that started talking to me about my book says he wants to meet me there and take me to the Keys. To say that I didn’t see this coming would be a massive understatement. I’d already made plans for the trip and had to turn him down. We met for drinks a couple of days the week before I left…and I’m pretty sure in one of my drinks there was a hook and I swallowed it. My body was happy and warm and I was planning my exit to moving to Hollywood, but I just couldn't get him off my mind. When I got back I found out I had the rest of the month off and since I'd found me a realtor I made plans to go back and look at more places to live when I exited south.
We met up and Wingman headed on south with what I would have to call a kinda sorta Walter Matthau look-a-like but this cat was way more crazy and hilarious. Velcro stuck with me and looked at condos and houses and drove down later. The gps wench picked every highly log jammed wreck infested section of highway possible in her attempt of making us miss the first nights sunset. No such luck Judy bitch…3 turnpike attempts and a tour of the Dolphins stadium later we won and got to the Lorelei just in time to watch the sun drop into the sea with rum drinks in hand. I really did pretty good with my dashboard braking through Miami …considering. We shared Sailor Jerry drinks and stories the whole way…on a side note I also proved I could pee faster than most men…just not standing up. We walked along the transient docks and found a tiki bar in the back…discovered that if you are a 1000 miles away at a tiki bar in the Florida Keys with 20 people at it…you will sit down beside someone from your same zip code. Strangely small world. Wingman makes the bonehead move of handing off his business card…which he vocally regretted the rest of the weekend. Wingman and we'll call him CoPilot had gotten a rather substantial jump out of the gate on us even with the Sailor roadies and food is needed. Down the road to Uncle’s…somehow I’m deemed best equipped to drive and that leaves the boys to wrestle the fishing rod in the back seat. Far cry past funny and since that rod survived that night the I can only give my endorsements to GLoomis. CoPilot talks the most shit of any human I’ve ever been exposed to. We laughed at him til it hurt. He was talking smack to some guys wife at the next table. When she gets up to leave…he spins around to us and says “Oh my god she has a cane…I can catch this one”. I’m positive that before she got out of there she had agreed to look him up if she curbed the jack that was with her…he meanwhile is trying his damndest to get peg leg outta there before he winds up homeless. I ate stone crabs and some of Wingman’s lobster and yellowtail from Velcro…he even snatched the last stone crab from our man on the make. It was the best time, best food, best laughs I could remember having…little did I know it was only going to be getting better. Somewhere on the ride back amid fishing rod fight the poot monster attacked the back seat and there was talk of a finger in the butt when the defibrillator kicked in…things I never thought I would hear said out loud. The boys where trying to blame each other for the farts and all I was trying to do was keep the windows down long enough to get the car aired out.
Our first night together…not sure how the mix of passion and being comfortable and feeling like you’ve always known someone can come together like that when you really just met…but it did. It might be bad though that they guys were louder next door than us…when quizzed the next day the poot monster was blamed again.
Friday we piled onto the beach and I got my first ever January sunburn. Although we’re going to blame the sunburns on some tiki bar not having a roof if put in interrogation. We had fruffy tourist rum drinks with twisty straws (that I still have and probably will until I die) I do still have the straw. That afternoon after nap time we revisited our breakfast stop that overlooked the Atlantic and watched the little pitterings of rain and the charter boats coming back in. Wingman and I shared our first sushi. We barhopped from the Tiki Bar to Wahoo’s where Wingman ran into a chick he had hooked up with 30 some years ago. They both had the sudden realization that comes from thinking you know some of the same people only to be suddenly surprised when you figure out that you have in fact seen this person naked. She grabbed her husbands arm and they vanished into thin air. Wingman started drunk dialin’ everybody in his phone and reliving the moment. Ubber responsibility rolled all over us and we got back to the room before 10. A sailor or 2 and Velcro and I decided to venture back out to check out the full moon party. It was on the gulf side of the island, down by the water with palm trees and sand and torches doing the only lighting. Tank top & shorts… reggae band playing I Want to Make You Sweat…mason jar drinks with glow sticks…a shared latter back chair beside the water and the moon broke out of the clouds over the palms as if on comand. At some point a mardi gras kinda band of disappearing democrats paraded through the whole party with a huge line of drunken revelers behind. When they’d made their way all around and through fireworks started over the water. They rivaled 4th of July state side. And somewhere in all this … that hook I swallowed?...I felt it set.
Saturday morning we pile out with Wingman and head south to Key West on a day trip. Velcro U turns us back to a little café…he is the master of the U turn when he sees a missed cool spot. I proceed to fall in crush love with my breakfast. A pita with egg, spinach and goat cheese. I could eat my arm if you smeared goat cheese on it…omg I had completely forgotten how much I love that stuff. We covered the Overseas Highway and every subject imaginable…like how I like quick answers to the no less than a 1000 questions I ask a day. The quicker the answer the more likely I am to buy it. I learned that the satellite dishes on the poles are the Keys defense system…and I know what a Botel is now. But the little cars in a line on the dash mounted NASA computer…not so much. I even broke out the owners manual because my boys couldn’t appease me with their made up answers…still don’t know. Somewhere near the 7 mile bridge I hear the stick…stick…stick sound. Followed by eye contact and possibly one of the most random statements ever…”I love Velcro…its some amazing shit”…as he’s sticking and unsticking the little pocket on the leg of his cargo shorts. That statement landed him a name and made me giddy that I may have just found myself a fellow random zinger.
The Conch Republic is our first stop and I have my first ever cracked conch chased with screwdrivers. We figure out at Schooner’s Wharf that while in a tourist town you should check your entire surroundings…for web cams. And that there is no possible way that there’s a health department in south Florida since to get to the guys potty you must go through the kitchen that also has birds walking around in it. I scored a key lime pie on a stick (because I think someone likes me) and even managed to get my carb conscious guys to take a bite. We wandered the streets with tourists and laughed too much at some near moped misses. Another beer at Kelly’s where the rather fish savvy 3 of us got stumped by the fish of the day then headed back norther.
I’d been to Mangrove Mama’s once a few years ago and had clams that only compared to the one’s I had earlier in Hollywood . I was pretty excited when Velcro decided it was a necessary stop to make. We had rum drinks and grilled mahi. There was a Barstool Sailor sticker on the wall and when my questions get no answers google fills in all the gaps. We find out the Barstool Sailor is scheduled to play at Morada Bay ...scene of last night’s full moon party. A plan is hatched. But our perfect weather moon lit night had been replaced by a gale force wind and cold front. When we got there, Mr Barstool Sailor had been cancelled, so we had our knock your dick off rum drink and headed to Hog Heaven. Wings, hog balls, and a good amount of making fun of ugly people…Wingman took a picture of me and this guy who had somehow managed to bowl me over inside of 2 or 3 weeks. While we were making fun of what could be turning into a very scary orgy a cat comes in with 2 huge bags of stone crabs. Wingman waves him over scores them both for 30 bucks. Jury is still out, but the guess is that he jacked them from somewhere and needed drinkin money. Not something that needed worrying about…we had all the stone crabs we could eat.
Without sounding like a 5 year old I can’t explain how enamored I was with the back up camera. Upon leaving the Hog Heaven I had Velcro take a picture of the back up screen while I was lying behind the car on the ground making the little sensor scream. I had been drinking all day long…in my defense and no the picture didn’t come out…much to my disappointment. I dig that he humored me. I’ve always thought I would probably die at the hands of a minivan in a parking lot. It’s good to know that with all the new high fangled technology my survival rate is improving. At one point though Velcro asked while backing up where his entire surroundings were…as we rolled backwards in neutral…nice. Guess I still have to potential of getting plowed over.
Sunday we packed up and headed towards Hollywood stone crabs in tow, in search of butter. A detour stop at Alabama Jacks for drinks and back on the road. It didn’t take my Velcro long to start screwing with me…after we check into the hotel and after his semi heart attack from thinking we were going to have bunk beds, he’s standing at the door doing the hurry hurry come here quick thing at me. Pretty much had never requested that I move fast so I’m thinking its gotta be something cool…note to self…do not trust this side of the Velcro again. He makes me run to the door to see none other than an old dude in an itty bitty speedo…and of course he’s right on top of me by the time I stick my little unsuspecting head out the door. Now that I’ve been had I was only hoping that Wingman would walk out and get the full frontal effect that I’d just been suckered into… but his luck with timing was better than mine.
With newly purchased crab hammers we ate all the stone crabs we could hold and washed them down with Sailor Jerry. I was told I would never have to crack my own crabs again…and I’m starting to believe him.
Down on the boardwalk we drank beer and watched football at the straightest bar in town…not a queen in site. There was the over clapper that was entirely clad in Dolphin wear. He had on his fake Super bowl ring that could probably double as brass knuckles and at one point mid super clap it flew about 3 foot in the air and landed smack in the ashtray. This man should not ever get laid.
We headed back for drink refresh and found the trolley stop. When we got on we took the front seat and Wingman wandered back to a safe zone. “This thing smells like ass” says Velcro. The fart fog was almost visible…it would have caused airport delays. The trolley driver man had crop dusted us…bad. So we giggled like little girls and tried to hold our breath to down town. Whiskey Tango for football…someone along the way started feeding me margaritas just to see the show. Poor potato deprived Wingman is still talking about the potato skin he had…pretty sure it may have saved his life. Cab back to the hotel…no farts. We hung out by the fire with sangrias watching the big screen and all hopes of me winning the bet slip away. Jets suck and I love loosing a bet to Velcro…
Monday we kinda talked about having a massive burger at LeTubs but timing was off so we rode up to Dania Beach . We sat in the sun and drank Coronas. There was a dude there via 5 months on a bicycle from Wisconsin playing a duck taped up guitar and singing for travel money. The boys had commented that even on tequila I really don’t change so much when I drink…they changed their minds when 2 beers had me giggling and snorting when we got back in the car. I am really bad at keeping a straight face when I’m up to something. Velcro is breaking a sweat, cussing and cranking up the AC when I finally come clean about turning his seat heater on high. I’d been waiting to do it for days but couldn’t find an opening where I wouldn’t get caught…think I got called a little fucker…he he.
Another U turn at the Bahia Mar Marina launched me into a Buffett song quote Travis McGee rambling one sided conversation. The U turn also landed us at our lunch destination on the water over looking the marina. There were cotton candy vodka drinks that I was sworn to secrecy about…apparently guys don’t want people knowing about such indulgences unless there’s a body shot story involved. Later my keen navigation skills mixed with cotton candy vodka headed us down a one way street on the way to the craziest junk ceiling décor Irish bar ever. A manatee swam by in the waterway and Wingman and myself were pretty sure someone yelled Velcro’s name…could’ve been the manatee. One more beer stop and shared key lime pie gum that caused sexual sounds later I was at the airport.
Quite possibly the best trip of my life. There is no better feeling in the world than falling in love…especially so unexpectedly. If I could bottle it I would be a millionaire a million times over.
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