DON'T TRY THIS AT HOME, KIDS

Late Monday night and early into Tuesday, we were deciding how to pass the time in the miserable heat. We told a few ghost stories, but that didn't do the trick. That seemed a little too childish. Speaking of childish, we started a discussion on Bloody Mary. I sort of remember that legend from childhood. You do something with turning the lights on and off, flushing the toilet and saying that name three times.

After we move on from that, Jacob, Paul and Allen plotted a secret plot to scare Kelly. Paul didn't exactly fall through the plan. Jacob and Allen blew out the candles we had set up (which was the whole plan), and Paul blurted out Bloody Mary three times as a joke. The joke, however, was on him.


We're all sitting in the pitch dark now. Paul, being the idiot that he is, decides to move around and try to scare people. He tries Kelly first. No luck. But he does stumble coming off the couch. Not learning his lesson, he tries to scare Jacob. There are two versions to the rest of the story (I couldn't see anything), but in the end, Paul's head was split open by a wooden table tray. Apparently, this Bloody Mary thing is real. Just look at Paul's head.

Paul's version is that Jacob pushed him and caused the tray to connect with the corner of his head. Jacob says he didn't touch him at all. I'm inclined to believe Jacob. It was pitch black, and Paul is clumsy. He should have learned his lesson from stumbling not thirty seconds earlier. But I guess he was cursed for saying Bloody Mary, and something bad was bound to happen. Luckily for Paul, he slit himself where wrestlers make themselves bleed with blades. So, there was no long-term pain or significant bleeding.

THE RETURN OF THE TINA CURSING CORNER

Mom is telling me about the plan to have residents return to the city. "I heard on t
he radio something about Tier 1 and Tier 2. I don't know what the fuck that is all about. They didn't explain it."

About our neighbors cleaning up. "Those fucking assholes. They sprayed all their shit over to my side."

NOTHING SAYS AWESOME LIKE A HOT BREAKFAST

Some people got this Gustav hard, and so many are without power. But for the most part, I'm calling the result of Hurricane Gustav survival. Paul and I woke up early Tuesday
morning and decided to drive around again to see if anything happened to be open. Twenty minutes into the drive, the radio host of a local Baton Rouge station says that Frank's on Airline is open. We don't know where on Airline or what the heck Frank's is but Paul immediately turns the car in that direction. We found it pretty easy. It was the building with all the cars and the long line outside.



When we get to the front of the line, I ask the guy at the register how that heck they had this bad boy opened. He tells me that got to the building at 2:30 a.m. to prepare and opened at 6 a.m. They were staying opened until the food ran out or the gas ran out. I'm thinking the food happened first. The only item on the menu was Hurricane buffet for $8. It had scrambled eggs, bacon, sausage, grits and a much-hyped biscuit based on this sign outside the joint. It didn't dissapoint. If you're ever on Airline in Baton Rouge, stop by Frank's for a hot meal. Trust me.


TWO MISSING AT THE COMPLEX

One person and one animal went missing after the power outage. I'm talking to my mom on the phone and see this woman scrambling around Monday night. She asks me if I've seen her son run by. I tell her no. She then precedes to walk back-and-forth in a twenty-foot space yelling Patrick in her French accent. Why she wasn't covering more ground, I'm not sure. I tell my mom I have to go and gather the troops to look for Patrick.

Bert and I follow Patrick's mother to the other side of the complex because she thought she heard Patrick's voice. That's when somebody came out of the woman's apartment to tell her that Patrick was safely back inside the apartment. Crisis averted. Except that Jacob and Paul didn't bother to plan out where everyone would look or ask Patrick's mother for a description of the boy. They ended up going all the way down to a gas station down the street because they thought they saw a little kid. Oh, and it was raining fairly hard.

On Tuesday, the major crisis was Jacob's hamster (I think its name is/was Grendel; it's some mythological creature). It chewed its way out of its box and now was gone. We look everywhere in the apartment and no dice. We think it might have left the apartment; we left the door open to avoid the rooms getting too hot. Jacob was really upset. He had the hamster for more than a year. I didn't realize he was so broken up until I saw him sitting alone in his room. After that, I felt terrible about the Bake-ism I had made during the search.

Bert: With all of us moving all around, the hamster is probably scared and hiding. It won't move until we stop moving so much.
Me: Unless it's already dead.

Note: We still have yet to find the hamster.

LONG LINES AND A LONG GAME

To pass the time Tuesday, we played an epic team game of Trivial Pursuit 90s edition. Epic becasue we didn't seem to know a heck of a lot about the decade that we grew up in. Kind of sad. Allen and I were teamed again. We seemed to make a comeback and had a shot to win, but we missed the pink and blue pie every time we landed on it. When we landed on it. I think I knew other people's questions more than I knew mine. Booo.

After the game, we head over to Walk-On's because the waitress there told us Sunday that they would have power using a generator and be opened Tuesday. We weren't the only ones who knew that, though. You had to order food at the bar, and the line almost went out the building. Bert says we should drive around and look for other food. Long story short, Paul and I end up back at Walk-On's an hour or so later in the same line. We didn't order because the place was shutting down soon because of the curfew. I ate a PB&J sandwich.

PARTING SHOT
During the hamster search, Jacob yelled at us for cracking jokes about his pet.

"This isn't funny. I love that little motherfucker."


THE DAILY TOP LIST
My five favorite Beatles songs.

5) That'll be the Day

4) Ob-La-Di, Ob-La Da

3) Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band

2) Come Together

1) Nowhere Man