I don’t normally keep journals or post weird things that have happened to me, but this hour of my life was too weird not write about. This scary, lost hour of my life. Ok, it’s really not that scary, but it sure as HELL is weird…
For months and months, I have been anticipating the opening of this pool hall down the road from where I live. Not only is it a bar within walking distance from my apartment, but it is a…I guess it’s nothing but a bar within walking distance. So anyway, I have been waiting for it to open. It finally opened the weekend of Thanksgiving, but for some reason or another, I never made it over there. So tonight, Rhett and I are having a hell of a time figuring out what to do – today was my last day at my job at the CD store and I felt like getting ripped. I had already been drinking, so we decide to go and check it out. Bad idea #1.
So we go to Rack Daddy’s. (Yeah, I know, that is a lame-ass name for a pool hall.) As soon as we walk in, we have to give our driver’s license numbers to the girl at the door, so she can run them through. (We live in this lame, dry area – so the only way you can serve alcohol is to pretend it’s a private club.) So we sign the little slips of paper that say we are in the Rack Daddy’s club. I get a Bud Light, which is $3.00 – about normal. Rhett gets a Zima for $3.50 (I know what you are thinking, but he’s not gay – he dated my sister.) Rhett tried to pay with a hundred dollar bill and the chick just looks at him like he is stupid. To avoid confusion, I buy his beer. We go up to the bar and inquire about pool. $10 an hour – a bit fucking pricey, even for North Dallas standards. So we get the balls and go get a table…and here is where is really starts to get weird…
This place is less than a month old and it makes me uncomfortable. We get a table and notice that the felt is bright green and there are no stains on it. WEIRD, but expected. We look around and there is abso-fucko-lutley nothing on the walls. Nothing. No pictures of drunk regulars, no “artistic” pictures of pool balls, not even dogs playing poker. Nothing. I start to feel weird, then I realize it’s because there is no music. None. The eerie silence is broken only by drunken shit talking and ball hitting ball. This is getting bad. Rhett looks around and observes that every single guy there looks gay. Even worse. Not that I can get any action with his dumb ass around – but still…Then music fills our ears. Bad music. But that means there is a jukebox here….or does it?
We start playing pool…by the way, I suck at pool. I have always sucked at pool. Six years I have been playing pool – and I suck. I can count the number of games I have won on one hand. But still I play, not because it’s fun, but because it’s something to do while drinking and I like bending over in public. I win the first game of pool. Fluke? Probably. After the game, feeling good about myself for once, I go over to the jukebox. This is the shittiest jukebox I have ever seen in my entire life. It is one of those fuckers that only gives you 3 songs for a dollar. Fucking A! So I put my dollar in and start looking. This is the worst selection of CDs I have ever seen in my entire life. It is all country, R & B, butt rock shite! It is so bad that I put in a Chumbawumba song! (Not that dumb “I Get Knocked Down” song, but the one from Stigmata.) I put in “Everybody’s Got Something to Hide, Except Me and My Monkey.” (I hear you saying “well, it has the White Album, how bad could it be?” It only had one CD from the White Album – what the fuck happened to the other one?) Then I put in me and Erin’s song – “Lovin, Touchin, Squeezin” by Journey. (Yeah, I know it sucks, but there’s something about that song…) Of course, it is several shitty butt rock songs before I hear them, but at least I do get to hear them.
So, Rhett and I play several more games of pool – and I manage to win two more times and he wins three times. All the games were pretty close, but shit – I have never ever beat Rhett at pool, much less three times in a night. I know it doesn’t sound like a big deal, but it is. And it’s the shots I was making. I was making these amazing shots – like I would break and get two balls in. Or bizarre trick shots. It was just weird.
So we flee after an hour. We vow never to return to the evil that is Rack Daddy’s. This place was not like any pool dive I have ever been. Bad bad bad. Scary nightmare time. A place full of gay guys, no atmosphere and shitty ass music is nowhere I want to be – even if it is the only place in town where I can win a game of pool!