Archive for April, 2010

Spring has Sprung! WOO HOO!

Ahhhhhhhhh!

It’s officially Spring here in Key West.. my first of many! The flowers are quite literally exploding all over Old Town. We’ve been walking in the evenings, and the smells we encounter are strong enough to knock you down. It’s really beautiful. Walking through Old Town Key West at dusk with a roadie during the spring has got to be one of the finest experiences out there. I highly recommend you try it whenever possible!

The weather is finally warming up after that cold-assed winter we had, and I’m beginning to think seriously about my beach hammock again.. Fort Zach, here we come!

WOO HOO!

Well, the spring breakers have finally abandoned the city, taking with them the late night WOO HOO!’s and the ever-so-popular drunken arguments between lovers that seems to be so prevalent in Key West’s nether-hours. The bars here don’t close until 4 AM, and when you add to that the gestalt idiocy of thousands of drunk college kids, you’re gonna get some anarchy!

The weather has been nice, so we’ve been leaving the windows open at night… this is great because it makes for nice sleeping, but…. being a block from one of the biggest party streets in the US during spring break, we definitely heard the party.

The nights typically started off quiet enough. I hit the sack around midnight most nights, so I’d slip into bed, pull out the kindle and start reading at just about the time things were ramping up on Duval. By about two AM I could hear the madness reaching a fever pitch.

There’s a phenomenon that happens when the alcohol intake of a crowd has reached it’s tipping point… especially for college kids on vacation; I call it the WOO HOO Phenomenon. They start high fiving and WHOO HO!’ing at EVERYTHING. It’s like drunken sign language.. they can’t speak very well anymore so they start howling at each other. I suppose it could also be a drunken mating call. Heck, it’s an all purpose exclamation!

“I’m Druuuuuunk! WOO HOO!”
“ME TOO! WOOOOOOO HOOOOOOO!”
“Hey dude, I just threw up! Gnarly!”
“WOO HOO!”
“WOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!”

At this point it’s spreads like wild fire, the drunk co-ed across the street hears the WOO HOO, and even though she has no idea what it’s about, she responds “WOO HOO!” as she stumbles into a lamp pole and drops the phone she was texting her BFF on into a pile of bum vomit in the gutter. Someone else hears her and WOO HOO’s in response. This chain reaction continues until the entire street full of drunk retards is WOO HOOing.. at what, they don’t know.. most people I think, are probably hoping it’s because someone saw a titty.

And Then…

The WOOOOO!’s and the WOO HOO!’s continue on through the couple hours between 2 AM and 4 AM. At 4 the bars finally kick people out, and the WOO HOO!’s start to become fewer and farther between; you hear them echoing off into the night as the mob disperses, until finally the only sounds left are the dulcet tones of drunk women arguing with their boyfriends.

Now, this is an interesting thing. I would think that the drunker of the two drunken arguers would be equally divided between men and women, but I swear I have never heard an argument between a guy and his girl where HE was the drunker one. And I hear A LOT of late night drunk-stumbling arguments going down the sidewalk. A LOT.

Without fail, it is the woman who is blind stinking drunk, mumbling about how he was talking to another girl, or he was drinking too much, or they don’t spend enough time together.. blah blah blah.. the content isn’t important, it’s the dynamic that interests me.

She’s usually yelling.. or trying to. She’s stopping every few steps and turning to walk away pumping her fists up and down, dropping shit, and/or just plain falling down. The guy without fail follows her, holds her up, holds her hair while she pukes, picks up her dropped items, holds her purse, and just generally tries to calm her down and get her to stop screaming while he ushers her back to whatever hotel they’re staying at so he can pour her into bed and just end the madness.

I’ve actually encountered this phenomenon personally. Christina and I vacationed down here probably 4 or 5 times over the years before moving here. Without fail we got into an argument in the middle of the night. And Christina, I love you.. but… well you get the gist. And we NEVER argue. There must be some special Key West argue pheromone or something. We’ve taken to just calling it ‘Key West Drunk’.

That being said, since moving here we’re back to our normal non-arguing life. I really can’t explain the drunk-chick-argument thing in KW. But it does makes for some super-entertaining porch sitting!