What a week. Albany, GA and Greenwood, SC are both so far of the Interstates that I was beginning to feel like I was back in the woods of Pennsylvania again. How can these places be a two hour drive from major roads? Easily, they’re only 70 miles out, but the back roads to get there are 30MPH. I actually followed a fucking tractor for three miles!!! Georgia was bad but South Carolina sent me over the edge! We spent the night in Greenwood (not to be confused with Greenville, a real city) and by the time we finished work, Heffner and I decided it was time to get Crowned again. This place sucked, the work sucked, our FAA tech sucked, and we had just learned we had to be in Orlando the next day which meant another long-assed drive. It was time to get hammered! So, off we go in search of a liquor store. Now I know why they talk about backyard moonshine stills in the south. Because South Carolina has like a total of five liquor stores all spread out all over the state! We drove all over trying to find one. I finally decided to drive in to Columbia because we had to go that way in the morning and surely Columbia will have a liquor store right?!
On the way there, I saw something cool. Some redneck (back roads, remember) had suspended a VW Bug from two trees and had some lit up reindeer as if they were pulling it like Santa’s sleigh. I mentioned to Heffner that I wish I had the camera out when we drove by. I considered turning around but we were already too pissed off about everything else to bother. When I got home today and checked my e-mail, a friend had found a picture of that very same house on the web and sent it out to everyone. Kind of cool. Now there are two of those “Redneck whatevers” that I’ve seen in person. (The first was OpaLocka airport with the Redneck Control Tower) It just goes to show people are really seeing these things, not just Photoshopping them together. Oh man, I Photoshop edited a picture I took of Heffner this week but I can’t show it here. It’s hilarious but a bit too racially charged to put out in public… Plus, I wouldn’t want him to take any heat for something I did.
Anyway, driving into Columbia right? We drove around for 45 minutes trying to find a liquor store. I was just in Kentucky/Ohio last week and there was a liquor store every 50 feet! I guess there’s nothing to do up there but drink. Finally, we find one but it’s dark. We go to the door and sure enough it’s locked. The sign says they close at 7pm. WTF!? We see another one on the way to the hotel, closed at 7pm. We give up and check in. We ask the desk clerk about the liquor stores and he says it’s a state law, all liquor stores close at 7. He says the laws have exceptions but only in the “tourist” towns like Charleston or Myrtle Beach. So Heffner officially gives up, I go to the closest supermarket and pick up two huge bottles of cheap wine. Of course, the wine didn’t make a very good replacement and barely even got us buzzed. The next morning we check out and drive in to Orlando. While waiting on some of the FAA people, I start filling out my expense report and I look at my hotel receipt. Room charge, county tax, bed tax, and right there black and white, “Tourism tax”. Those bastards have the balls to charge me for tourism but won’t keep the liquor stores open later like in the tourist cities…? If I thought it would make any difference, I was going to drive back up there just to grab that clerk by the lapels, drag him over the desk and staple that bill to his forehead until he admitted that it was wrong. If you charge me a “tourism tax” I expect to be treated like any other tourist city in the great state of South fucking Carolina and that means I wanna buy booze at 8:30 at night!!!!
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