Meet Me at the Yacht Club

It's that time of year again. That's right, Memorial Day, a day to remember wars or Presidents or Martin Luther King Jr. or something. For me, Memorial Day is a time to reflect on the good old days before the outer loop was built, before those OTB shopping centers anchored by a Kroger started providing food for people OTB, and before miserable Cary even existed. I spent this Memorial Day at Wrightsville Beach, one of the few acceptable places to go when one leaves ITB. What makes it an acceptable place to go? The fact that about 75 of my ITB friends went with me. It's important that we outnumber all of the losers in Wilmington who rank just above the typical downtown Raleigh gel-head on the "I'd rather kill myself than be seen at the same bar with (insert type of loser)" chart. I'll put the chart up later if anyone is interested. Instead of being infested with gel-heads, Wilmington is full of losers who go to the bar wearing either a combination of a designer baseball hat, some type of surfing branded t-shirt (or some lame t-shirt that they got off some lame website), and jeans that don't fit. Either that, or they look like they just got off the set of an X-Games commercial. Since none of their clothes seem to fit, I'm guessing they just wear hand-me-downs or shop at Goodwill. They obviously can't afford tailored clothes.

Typical Wilmington

Now that I've got numbers, taking my 60' Carver Yacht, with my 38' Regulator boat alongside it, out to Masonboro is standard procedure on Saturday, Sunday, and Monday. I take the yacht out so I can watch television, have my own bedroom for hooking up/drugs, and so I can shower before going to the bar. The 38 footer is just to drive to the bar, that way I don't risk getting another DUI. My 60 foot yacht...

Masonboro, you must be this long to ride...

After stopping at Dockside to get lunch, I head to the yacht club where I make the dock hand get my ice and beer, fill up my coolers, and gas up my boats. At this point I'm ready for a day of non-stop debauchery. I always bring at least 10 extra life jackets. No this isn't for safety, this is for when some drunk skank passes out on my boat and I have to leave her in the water so her loser surfer boyfriend can paddle over and pick her up. I also take 7 cell phones because I will inevitably lose 3 in the water, 3 at the bar, and hopefully be able to hang on to one to use on the way back to ITB so I can call everyone and tell them how shitfaced I got.

The only downside to Masonboro is that it's free. There isn't a wall around it, or a way to make people pay to anchor their boat there, or even a boat length requirement. As a result, even after taking the proper measures to ensure that I would have the most ITB experience possible, commoners still managed to be present. If only they charged $500 a day to allow you to anchor, none of these surfer commoners would be able to afford it, based off their shitty $7 an hour jobs at surf shops or shit hole restaurants at the beach. Tragically, these losers can show up in their Corona board shorts at any time. As much as I hate sharks, for many reasons, one being that they're basically the al-Qaeda of the Atlantic Ocean, terrorizing people (you never know when they're going to strike) such as myself, preventing me from ever setting foot in the ocean, it would be nice if they could pick off one or two of these commoners every now and then. After spending the day on the boat getting hammered and listening to hardcore gangster rap that I can in no way relate to, I shower on my boat, (because I can), and then head to the beach bars.

I go out to the beach bars at night because downtown Wilmington is full of military tough guys who want to beat the shit out of me because of who I am, (someone who is better than them). I like to stick with 22 North or Jerry Allen's because they contain the least amount of Wilmington surfer dudes. Even when I get thrown out of these places for urinating in the sink when the stalls are full, they still let me in the next night because I spend so much money there. One place I'll never go again is Red Dogs, mainly because of it's close resemblance to a welfare line.

Welfare line a.k.a Red Dogs at the turn of the century, nothing has changed.

Walk into Red Dogs and you'll immediately notice the presence of 40 oz. beers being served in brown paper bags, unattractive girls carrying "fishbowls" full of liquor around, the lack of a Visa machine, and a large number of typical Wilmington commoners. Red Dogs does not accept credit/debit cards, they only accept cash as a method of payment. What kind of bar only takes cash? I'm assuming they do this because their clientele can't afford a standard checking account or the $6.00 fee that comes with it each month. I don't carry cash because there's a high probability that a homeless person has come in contact with it. Also, if I'm ever caught off guard by either a.) someone trying to rob me, b.) a homeless person asking for money, or c.) someone from a charity asking for donations, they're all out of luck, unless they've got a Visa machine handy. Avoiding Red Dogs and staying at 22 North enabled me to have another classic Memorial Day weekend. I can't wait to do it all again on July 4th, the day we won independence from the British, sorry Victor no hard feelings, I'm still waiting on that $17 million and change.