It's Great to be a Tennessee VOL!

Usually in the fall, there’s nothing better than some good ole Tennessee football. This year is a little different than the others. Cuz we friggin’ suck. Aw but I do still love my Vols more than anything.

I’ve been going to Tennessee games for as long as I can remember. And man, were we terrible back then. Thanks, Johnny Majors. For showing up drunk and doing nothing.

I remember my mom and I went to see Tennessee play Florida one year. I was really little, and it was a home game. We lost, of course, like we still do to those rotten Gators, but we lost bad – got shut out I think. All the UT fans were sullen and sad, shuffling quietly back to our cars, while the Florida fans were shouting and taunting us. I didn’t understand why they were being so mean. They should be happy they won. So I asked my mom why they were doing that. She said, “Cuz they're a bunch of assholes.”

Yes, no matter what, we love our Tennessee Volunteers. Glorious or hideous, we’ll always love em. And that’s why we dragged our 1-3 asses down to Neyland Stadium Saturday in hopes that we could beat a team we’d never even heard of. We tried to give them the game, but they didn’t take it so we won 13 to 9.

Q: How would you compare Tennessee’s defense, offense and special teams?
A: The Good, The Bad and The Ugly.

Q: What are UT’s chances of returning to the Georgia Dome this year?
A: Gone With the Wind.

Q: What do you think about Vanderbilt being the only undefeated team in the SEC?
A: Revenge of the Nerds.
(This one could apply to Duke’s football team too. Sorry, Blue Devils, but we need our coach back.)

I think the best thing about going to a UT game is the rednecks. I love rednecks. I’m not even trying to be mean or make fun of them. I'm serious – I really love Tennessee rednecks. A man dressed in camo (besides orange and white, camo is Tennessee’s third color that only true fans wear) gave us directions on Saturday. Once I went to a game and parked in a yard where the guy taking the money offered me a swig of one of the surrounding counties’ finest. That’s moonshine, y’all. And you know I took it.

To tell the truth, I think I like the Yankees so much because going to Yankee Stadium reminds me of Neyland Stadium. Turns out New Yorkers are not that different from rednecks. They have a lot of spirit. They get really into the game, shouting and yelling all the time. They even boo their own team because they demand absolute perfection. The loudest shouter in all of Neyland has seats near ours. "Dadblammit, REF! Open your EYES!" He’s also a deacon at our church. And everyone, from the smallest kids to the girliest girls, knows the players’ names and the team's stats.

Q: How many UT fans does it take eat a 'possum?
A: Two. One to eat and one to watch out for traffic.
(The funniest thing about this joke is about ten years ago a State Rep. from Knoxville sponsored a law making it legal to eat roadkill in the Great State of Tennessee.)

I think I love fireworks so much because fireworks mean Tennessee scored. Even the air above the stadium celebrates in orange and white. Seriously - look at that picture. Literally every person in the stadium is wearing orange. You really have to love your team to wear Big Orange. It doesn’t look good on anyone and is so bright it reflects sunlight. It’s blinding.

Q: Why did fans choose orange as Tennessee’s color?
A: So we could go huntin' on Friday, go to the game on Saturday and pick up trash on the highway Sunday.

I got my master’s at the University of Georgia. A school in the Old South nestled inside the Classic City. I loved it, but be clear on this – my two favorite teams are Tennessee and whoever plays Georgia. Those fans are nasty mean. A five year old yelled “Fuck Tennessee!” at me while his dad laughed. One guy called me a stupid bitch. I told him he was a sore loser, which you know is true. Though I hear it’s worse in Gainesville. One girl I knew had bricks thrown at her car. SEC Football = Full Scale War

And my belief that all girls in the SEC knew their football was totally obliterated. Most of those Georgia girls don’t even know what team their school is playing next weekend. But they do love their little red and black sundresses. A confusing tradition. How can you walk up concrete steps and stand on bleachers in heels? More importantly, why would you?

In Tennessee, we wear jeans and the aforementioned Big Orange. We leave our heels at home for church Sunday morning, where we go to pray for next weekend's game. Our purses are not cute for their sole purpose is to stash Jack Daniels. We shout as loud as the boys. We cuss when we get mad at the special teams (cuz it’s always special teams' fault – the only thing special about them is they should ride a short bus to games). For all good boys and girls, football is life.

Q: Why aren’t there any prostitutes in Tennessee?
A: Cuz they’re all VOLUNTEERS!

That’s a terrible joke.

Rocky Top is the single greatest anthem of all time. I think it’s even better than the national anthem, and I don’t care if a Republican calls me unpatriotic for saying so. It’s got everything. Moonshine, wild women, mountains, rocks, dirt. We love our fight song so much, we sing it incessantly. We sing it in the car on the way to the game. We sing it at the tailgate. We sing it while walking to the stadium. It’s our ringtone, our ringback tone, our personal theme song.

We play it when we get a first down, a field goal, a touchdown, a good call or when Fat Phil finds the last Krispy Kreme. I was trying to explain how much we love Rocky Top to a friend once and decided to count just how many times we played it in a single game. 33. And that was a game against South Carolina when South Carolina was bad (pre-Spurier, Carolina Girl!).

When we finished the upper deck onto our stadium after winning the NCAA National Freaking Championship in 1998, fans that sat up there were disappointed with their seats because it was too hard to hear the Pride of the Southland Marching Band. Which meant it was too hard to hear Rocky Top all 33 times per game. The band listened to the people, and now there’s a traveling mini-band whose entire purpose is to make their way across the upper deck playing Rocky Top.

Rocky Top you'll always be
Home sweet home to me
Good ol' Rocky Top (woo!)
Rocky Top Tennessee,
Rocky Top Tennessee

GO VOLS!

We'll always love you. Even when you’re bad.

* I wanna give a big "Go Vols" shout-out to govolsxtra.com for linking to this little blog of mine. Visit that site for all the latest updates about how the Vols will resuscitate the football program. And if any of the powers that be are reading (eh hem, this means you, Mike Hamilton!), please get Fulmer to retire so we can bring David Cutcliffe back home to be our head coach. Fulmer's a good coach and a great vol, but it's time to say goodbye. We want Cutcliffe!!! NOW!

Back Where I Come From

Oh my gosh. I love Tennessee. It is hilarious. Especially, I think, to people who are not from here, but as an old Tennessean, I think I have the right to laugh a bit louder.

We had a terrible thunderstorm last night. That's not funny, of course, but the rednecks reacting to it just cracked me up.

My mom and I went to visit my grandfather yesterday, and he lives about two hours from Knoxville. Mom drove up there so I was driving back. I kept desperately searching the radio for the new Sugarland song (Ooo ooo ooo ooo ooo!) when we heard a severe thunderstorm warning for the area we were driving into. We heard that at an exit along the interstate we hadn't yet approached, there was a powerline down on the other side of us so we knew we'd hit some traffic. Those rubberneckers. Gotta love em.

All of a sudden, it hit! Thunder, lightening and a monsoon of a downpour. My mom is, of course, freaking out next to me offering helpful suggestions like "Slow down!" and "Be careful!" About as helpful as when I advise Peyton Manning to "Throw the ball!!" and tell my Vols to "Get a touchdown!"

The worst was yet to come, though, because soon it started hailing. This really sent her off. She continued with her helpful remarks.

"Oh my gosh! It's hailing! Can you see that?"

"I don't see why it has to rain so hard. Do you??"

"There's a truck next to you!"

Yes, thank you. My mom is the ultimate backseat driver. Her gasps and tight grip on the door didn't help much either. She was really concerned about the hail, which is understandable, but there's not much that can be done about it at the time. I really hate it when people pull over on the side of the road during a storm. Be tough, and weather it out, people. Parking on the highway for half an hour just seems useless and chickenshit to me.

"It's hailing so hard, I think we should pull over." - Mom

"Ok, it's your car. I will if you want me to." - Me

"It's hailing! Ooo look at the size of it!" - Mom

"Yeah. Do you want me to pull over?" - Me

"It's raining so hard! Watch out!" - Mom

"Mom. Do you want me to pull over or are you ok?"

"Look at the hail! It's soooo BIG!" - Mom

I decided to keep on driving, but became rather alarmed when she started shouting, "Be careful! My brakes don't work!" Not the thing you want to hear as you're navigating on an interstate in a thunderstorm. I yelled back, "Why am I driving a car with brakes that don't work!?! Are you crazy?!?"

I had the radio turned up because music calms me, and eventually they stopped playing songs and started talking about the traffic and the power outages. Then the rednecks started calling. To the station's credit, the first caller was legitimate and offered important information. She was stuck on the other side of the interstate, where it was closed, and told people the best way to turn around and get away from it. After that, though, every Jim Bob and Ellie Sue wanted to hear their voices on the radio.

"Yes, we have a call from Ellie Sue. Are you there, Ellie Sue?"

"Oh sure, uh huh. I'm here. I'm out here on Cedar Lane. There's a tree down."

"Ok, a tree down, you say?"

"Yuh. It's down, but itaint in the road or nothing. Ain't blocking traffic any. But there is a wreck. It's at the traffic light."

"Oh...ok...the traffic light?"

"Yuh."

"Ok, then thanks for calling."

I asked my mom why the woman thought anyone needed to hear about a road that had only one traffic light. She said, "All the rednecks have cell phones now."

More ridiculous calls followed. And they aired all of them. Rednecks (and I can call them that because they're my people) just love to be on the radio or on TV. Before a UT football game, every drunk idiot calls up from his tailgate just to say "Go Vols!"

And I just hate it that whenever a tornado hits in the Southland, they find the most ignorant redneck - always fat, sometimes in a moo-moo, sometimes with a mullet and/or handlebar mustache. I remember I was in Birmingham about ten years ago when a tornado ripped through downtown Nashville. I remember this exactly. A man with a blond mustache and mullet, wearing a ripped up t-shirt and jeans, was on CNN, and this was what he said:

"Uh huh. Well, we was comin' on outta that there Nascar Cafe, and I looked up in the sky. And you know what the first thing I thought was? I thought about that movie Twister, ya seen it? And I thought about how them Hollywood movies are spot on. It looked just like them twisters in that movie. Just like em, I say."

Oh, thanks for makin' me proud to be from the Great State of Tennessee.

In the town where I was raised
The clock ticks and the cattle graze
Time passed with Amazing Grace
Back where I come from
Now you can lie on a riverbank
Paint your name on a water tank
Or miscount all the beers you drank
Back where I come from

Back where I come from
Where I'll be when it's said and done
I'm proud as anyone
Back where I come from

We learned in Sunday school
Who made the sun shine through
I know who made the moonshine, too
Back where I come from
Blue eyes on a Saturday night
Tan legs in the broad day light
TV's, they were black and white
Back where I come from

Back where I come from
Where I'll be when it's said and done
I'm proud as anyone
Back where I come from

Some say it's a backward place
Narrow minds on a narrow way
I make it a point to say
That that's where I come from

That's where I come from
Where I'll be when it's said and done
I'm proud as anyone
That's where I come from
Back where I come from
I'm an old Tennessean
And I'm proud as anyone
That's where I come from

She Thinks My Tractor's Sexy

I’d like to dedicate this little diddy to a good friend – Brad – who loves Kenny and even looks like him. And I don’t mean he looks like him as in my mom says so and Brad says so. I mean that people often approach him and ask if he is Kenny. Just when he’s wearing a baseball hat because, unlike dear Kenny, Brad still has a full head of thick hair. Brad also took me on my first tractor ride. Romantic, right? And I was ironically wearing a shirt that said, “It’s Better in New York.”

Well, I'm what I am and I'm what I'm not
and I'm sure happy with what I've got
I live and love and laugh a lot
and that's all I need

A friend told me a few weeks ago that he guessed it was “ok” that I liked country music since I’m from Tennessee. This friend is from New Jersey so I guess it’s ok that he said that. Really, there are many great things about country music. A good country song tells you a story. It’s honest and true. And makes me feel like I’m at the lake drinking a cold beer in the summertime. Everything you need to know about life, you can learn from a country song.

Yesterday was a country music extravaganza. We saw five bands and heard 7 ½ hours of country music. It was awe-some. After LeeAnn Rimes had us up and dancing, my cousin C and I took a bathroom break. We were standing in a long line for the women’s restroom when we saw a woman laying into a guy. It was a very loud, very public fight. I heard her say, “You’re a fucking asshole,” “You lie, you’re a liar, you lied to me,” and “How could you do that?”

The girl was beautiful, but the guy looked like a guido from Long Island. Probably needed someone to Nair his back, had a big ol’ beer belly and even had a thick gold chain. The worst was that he seemed totally unphased and even bored with the fight. Just had this look on his face like, “What?” I have no idea what this girl was doing with him, but if we’re honest with ourselves, ladies, we’ve all slummed it before.

C and I are loud mouths so we start shouting things like, “You tell him, honey!” “You can do better!” “You’re too good for him!” All the things we’d want to hear if we were fighting with a loser. Gotta support a sista, right? “That’s right! Tell him what’s up!”

Commitment
Someone who'll go the distance
I need somebody with staying power
Who will make me go weak in the knees
Commitment
And everything that goes with it
I need honor and love in my life from somebody
Who's playin' for keeps

Eventually, we got the women standing around us to join in, and we were all cheering her on. Guido took off with his tail between his legs. Unfortunately, so did the girl. We all clapped and cheered for her, but she walked off in tears. Poor dear. I hope she wasn’t fighting while LeeAnn played “Commitment” cuz I think that day it would’ve been her anthem. We saw a real live country song in action.

Now the greatest thing about a country music extravaganza is all the drunk rednecks. Sure, we looked like idiots too in our matching orange shirts and cowgirl hats, but we were sober. The woman in a moo-moo behind us was so wasted she started hugging everyone and professing her love. She told my mom about three times, which was almost scarier to my sweet mama than walking past a gay club in Chelsea, and finally the woman asked Mom if she loved her too. My mom said yes, and the woman used Mom’s cowgirl hat to stand her beer bottle on. If that’s not redneck love, I don’t know what is.

Life's too short, let's get to livin' it
Let's give it all we can give it
Let your hair down, turn the music up
We gonna paint the town flat, tear it up
The party starts here get in line
Beer thirty, a honky tonk time

The couple in front of us were equally entertaining. The man was wearing a t-shirt with the sleeves cut off so we had a better view of his fat arms. The woman was wearing a tiny tank top that showed off her granny bra and muffin top nicely. I kept debating which was classier – showing the granny or the muffin top. It’s a toss-up. Both were wearing camouflage hats. The man had a camo cowboy hat on, and the woman a camo fishing cap. Welcome to Georgia, y’all.

After awhile, C and I needed another beer and bathroom break. Before we left, Camo Fish showed up with a footlong hot dog covered in mustard, relish and chili. Yum. We definitely missed the best part of the day, but I almost think hearing our moms re-tell it was funnier. Apparently, while we were gone she put on a little phallacio show with the dog. Imagine my surprise when I return to hear my mother say, “That woman just gave that man a blowjob with a hotdog.”

I don’t know what that means, but hearing my mom say “blowjob” was disturbing enough. She has no business even knowing what that word means. Between fits of giggles, Mom explains that the woman held her hotdog up to the man’s mouth and pretended to give it a blowjob. When I said, “Ew, with the mustard and relish on it too?” Mom told me Camo Fish licked all of that off. Slowly. Tell the truth, fellas, is nothing hotter than a woman sucking up chili?

At this point, another couple standing in front of us turns around. The girl is a Georgia fan, and the guy is a Tennessee fan so they ask C if they can take a picture with her. Apparently, it’s some kind of lame bet, and the girl’s punishment for having terrible taste in football is to be photographed with a Vol. C says sure and makes friends with them before telling the guy it’s about time he put a ring on his girl's finger and made an honest woman out of her. He says, “Is that so?” and C tells him he’s “of age.” He turns around, and we are no longer friends.

Til you put a girl in it
You aint got nothin
What's it all worth
Without a little lovin
Put a girl in it
Some huggin and some kissin
If you're world's got somethin missin
Just put a girl in it

Finally, our star shows up and rocks our faces off country style. As soon as Kenny’s on stage, my mom starts asking when he’s gonna tell her his tractor’s sexy. Her favorite song. He plays all his greatest hits, and I find I am strangely turned on by this small man and his tight ass. I decide it’s his big hot arm muscles and crooked grin. I always prefer guys from the North to Southern guys, and there are many good reasons for that. But damn, there were some hot men in cowboy hats last night, and I decided to add “cowboy” to the list of hook-ups I should have before I settle down.

Camo Fish and Camo Cow are having fun too. All the people around us are standing on their fold-up chairs so, of course, we are too so we can see. Camo Fish is swaying with a beer bottle in one hand and a Gatorade in the other. She’s water-backing like a true alcoholic. Throughout the set, I tell her a total of four times that her beer bottle came dangerously close to my head. Her excuse is that she doesn’t drink. O…k…well, ya sure are now, sweetheart.

When the sun goes down, we'll be groovin
When the sun goes down,we'll be feeling alright
When the sun sinks down over the water
Everything gets hotter when the sun goes down

Eventually, the inevitable happens. Camo Fish falls. On my mother. It’s a domino effect, and everyone topples to the ground. My mom shoves Camo Fish forward with a fury I haven’t seen since I was little and drew her a picture on the wall. Camo Fish apologizes and minutes later fights with Camo Cow. He storms off, and she gives him the bird. Oh, I love rednecks.

In defiance, she climbs back up on her chair, and everyone in our section exchanges worried glances. The guy next to me with a unibomber beard and acid trip t-shirt motions that we should push her off. We ask her to get down. She does and then says, “Y’all are cute. Are you in some kind of a club?” pointing at our shirts. I respond, “Yeah. Family. The kind you can’t get out of.” She says cool and stumbles off. Applause all around.

It was a great concert. Kenny proved why he’s always Entertainer of the Year and even played my mom’s favorite song. All in all, another great family outing.

She thinks my tractor's sexy
It really turns her on
She's always staring at me
While I'm chuggin along
She likes the way it's pullin' while we're tillin' up the land
She's even kind of crazy 'bout my farmer's tan
She's the only one who really understands what gets me
She thinks my tractor's sexy

Country Comes to Town

My mom, aunt and cousin will be spending the weekend with me. My cousin is coming late, of course, so she won’t be getting here til tomorrow.

But my aunt and my mom arrived today. It took them forever to get here. We’re going to see Kenny Chesney on Sunday, who is from our hometown. My mom thought, “It’d be nice for Kenny to look out at the crowd and see orange,” so she wants us all to wear Tennessee t-shirts to the concert. I think it’s nice for Kenny that we bought tickets to his concert. They wanted us to match so they stopped at three, count them - three - Tennessee paraphernalia stores until they bought four matching Tennessee t-shirts and four matching Tennessee cowgirl hats. Which, evidently, will be our costume for Sunday. Oh, the hilarity that will ensue.

Tonight, however, was hilarious all on its own. They called me soon as they got off at the exit for my apartment, even though they weren’t going to my apartment - they were going to a hotel. My mom asks me where their hotel is. I say, “I don’t know, Mom, is it the one you stayed at before?” She said she didn't have directions, and that I needed to look it up. "The Sheraton Atlanta Downtown," she said. So I turn my computer on, and she asks me what the address is. “Mom, I just turned the computer on. It needs a minute to boot up.”

“Her computer is booting up,” she explains to my aunt, “Well, we don’t know where to go. We’re turning on Spring Street because I don’t know what road the hotel is on.”

“Ok…well, it’s not on Spring Street, that I know.”

“It’s the Sheraton Downtown. It’s near your apartment. We walked to that restaurant we liked.”

“Ok, Mom, I remember. I just looked it up. You need to go around the block. But I don't think it's the one you stayed at before.”

“Will you stop! She keeps talking to me. What?? Where am I going? I’m just turning around the block because I know it’s not this direction.”

“Great, Mom, that's good. Actually it is, but that road turns into a one-way. Did you turn? Where are you?”

“Ok, now we’re on Peachtree. No, Peachtree Place. Is Peachtree Place ok?”

To her credit, there are 36 streets in Atlanta with the word “peachtree.” “No, Mom, that’s not right. You can stay on that road, but turn right on Peachtree Street. Just Peachtree. Not West Peachtree.” It is a bit ridiculous that everything has the same name.

“She said we need to be on Peachtree.” A response to my aunt's "Where are we going?" from the passenger seat. “Ok, now we’re on Peachtree. What do we turn on next?”

“You’re gonna go for awhile, I think about two miles, and then you turn onto Andrew Young International. You’re going to turn left.”

“I don’t know. It’s the Sheraton, right? We’re going the wrong direction. I think it’s the other way.”

“No, Mom, it’s this way.”

In the background, I hear my aunt tell her there are three Sheraton hotels in Atlanta. And she’s correct. Sheraton Downtown, Sheraton Buckhead and Sheraton Suites which is up north on Cobb Parkway. “She says there are three Sheratons. I don’t think you’re taking us to the right one. It’s the Sheraton Downtown.”

“Yeah, Mom, I got it. It’s about two miles ahead. Keep driving.”

"But there are three Sheratons. Are you sure you're taking us to the right one? We're on Peachtree, but where do we turn?"

"Andrew Young International. You need to turn left."

"Ok, which way do we turn?"

"Left, Mom. There are three Sheratons, but this is the only one in Midtown. This is the only one near me. There's one in Buckhead, and the Sheraton Suites is far away, north of the city."

"Well, your aunt says that there's one in Buckhead and there's one, what is it, T? The Suites, that's probably the one we stayed in."

We argue about this for several minutes, and she tells me, "The internet is wrong." She's frustrated and says she’ll call me back. Thirty minutes later, she calls back to say that the Sheraton Downtown moved, and they don’t like the new one so my aunt will be staying with me tonight and somewhere else tomorrow. They also are tired of driving and "need" margaritas.

Eventually, they get to my apartment where my mother tells my aunt they have to change clothes. She always bosses my aunt around, and she obeys! It’s like a comedy routine. She says, “We’re in the city now. Atlanta is a city. And they dress up here.”

So we all dress up. To eat Mexican food.

We get to the restaurant and order a pitcher of margaritas. Within mere seconds, my aunt and mom are completely shitfaced. My aunt tells me about the first time she got drunk. This is hilarious because she’s very conservative and very Southern Baptist. Then the two of them tell me about a time when two guys that lived near them in Oak Ridge, Tennessee (yes! Home of the atomic bomb!) took them out to clubs because they’d never been to clubs before. The guys made them go to allllll the clubs in Oak Ridge (that would be three) and “drink the special.” My mom and aunt got so drunk they puked the whole next day.

Next, my mom asks me to tell them a story about me being drunk. I tell them the Drunken Mess story because I know they’d like it, and they do. I also tell the story about when I was in high school and had the lamest party at the neighborhood clubhouse while my parents were out of town. My mom’s heard this one, but my aunt hasn’t.

Suddenly, my aunt’s eyes get really big, and she says, “Do you know what she said about us?”

Before I can say, “What?” she tells me, “Your mother said that because we’re tender hearts, we get picked on.”

I look at my mom, and she says, “It’s like with animals. The runts always get picked on.”

Ha. Great. My mom just called me a runt. My aunt laughs and says, “It’s ok. She’s drunk.”

My mom’s eyes get big and wide and she says, “Tuh huh? I ams noooot druthunk.”

Meanwhile, the waiter comes back and starts to pour more margarita into our glasses from the pitcher. Before he can, my mother announces, “There’s a knat in there.”

He looks confused and says, “Ma’am?”

“There’s a bug. A little knat. In the margarita pitcher.” We were sitting outside on the patio. I tell him it’s fine, and she says, “We are in Georgia, you know. They have knats.”

The poor guy apologizes and says he’ll come back with a new pitcher. When he does, my mom tells him he didn’t have to do that, she just wanted to tell him there was a knat. He nods slowly and looks at me, pleading for help, before backing away from the crazy redneck women.

My aunt has had half a margarita and is as drunk as I’ve ever seen her. She knows it too. She tells me that any minute now, she’s going to find some Italian women to dance with. We took a cruise on the River Seine several years ago, and she had so much wine, she spent the whole night dancing with drunk Italian women. She then says she doesn’t think I can drive us home.

My mom says she can. And that she can see better when she drinks because alcohol cures her astigmatism. We laugh at her. She then asks about my friend, “the construction worker,” and if I saw him before I left. I am entirely confused. I say I don’t know anyone who’s a construction worker. She says, “Oh yeah you do, that boy, what’s his name? The neighbor? You went to dinner with him?”

I shake my head and say, “Mom. He’s a defense contractor. For the government.”

She says, “Yeah, I know.”

I laugh, “Do you know what that is? He’s a government contractor. The government hires contractors to do different jobs and projects. They don't build anything. Like in Iraq. All those contractors that have been getting in trouble? Or do they tell you that on Fox News?”

My aunt interjects that Fox News is good, and the other networks are “liberal hippies.” I then attempt to explain to my mother that a defense contractor doesn’t build tanks and tell her examples of different projects contractors work on. She shakes her head and says she needs more salsa and for me to ask “that man” for more salsa.

My aunt wants to know what E is up to. I tell her that poor E is at a rehearsal dinner, and she's the only one there without a date. And they're not even serving alcohol. My mom cocks her head to the side and says that she likes margaritas. "Yes, you do, and isn't it a pity they don't have margaritas at that rehearsal dinner?" She nods as she slurps down the last of her 4th margarita.

My mom asks when I’m going to see my ex because she wants me to get my keys back. I tell her I don’t know, we haven’t talked for a couple weeks. She tells me about a guy she used to like who lived in the apartment next to her. Here we go, another drunken pearl of wisdom from Mom.

“And you know what I did? I brought a bottle of wine to his apartment and asked if he had a bottle opener. And then after the wine was open, I asked if he wanted a glass!” She laughs so hard she puts her hand over her face. “And that’s what you have to do. You have to use your head.” Just to make sure there's no confusion, she points at her head, “You have to be clever. So for the next one. Be clever. Do you still talk to that pilot?" My mother's one attempt to set me up.

“Yeah, I do. Thanks, Mom. Are we ready to go?” My aunt is concerned I can’t drive because she’s drunk. My mom offers to drive, and I tell her that she can’t drive because she thinks she sees better under the influence. She proceeds to count the moons in the sky. One and a half. I drive. When we get back home, my aunt gives me $60 to go to the store for milk and ice cream. This is going to be a great weekend.