Once again pouring our remaining beer into plastic cups, we exited Bourbon Cowboy and ran right into two Soul players. Stacey got a picture with Mike Brown, who is the sweetest football player you will ever meet. If you look closely you can see Bogle in the background of that picture, and I feel like such an asshole because at the time we totally didn't even recognize him. We ran up to Mike Brown yelling his name and asking for autographs, but Bogle got no love. That's okay though, because in my eyes he was MVP of the Arena Bowl, and I shook his hand yesterday at the parade.

When we saw Mike Brown Double Down on Bourbon Street he kept thanking us and when Stacey asked him to sign her shirt he got all uncomfortable and moved it up so that he wouldn't be touching her boob. What a gentleman.

After that, the real fun began. We wandered into a bar called Bourbon Rocks and ordered a beer. This was one of those bars on Bourbon Street that does 3 for 1 beer specials. This kept happening to us. The first time I argued with the bartender and told her we only needed 2. But then she explained we were only paying for one. Stacey and I took our three beers and divided them up into our two plastic cups. This place was playing good music and I was in the mood to dance. Then I heard some sort of emcee saying crazy shit over the speakers and realized this person was in a deeper part of the bar. Stacey and I went to investigate. In the back room we found a woman with a microphone and a tray of shots. She was giving these out Let's Make a Deal style to anyone who met her criteria. She also kept talking about a make-out booth in the back and trying to encourage people to get out on the dance floor.

Stacey and I hung back near the door, sipping our beers and observing. The woman with the microphone spotted us and started heckling us to come all the way in and have a seat. We politely declined and somewhere around there is where the French-Canadian diplomat entered the picture. I may butcher this story because my memory is a bit hazy. Stacey, please correct me on anything that I get wrong. But I think I remember Stacey dragging the French-Canadian diplomat over to me and saying something like, "Hey, he is divorced too!" So the French-Canadian diplomat and I started sharing war stories about divorce and our respective exes. He was wearing a gold band on the ring finger of his RIGHT hand and told me that he was separated from his wife. He also told us he was down there for some sort of diplomatic conference and explained something about where his buddies where and why he wasn't with them. The microphone lady started calling us the "threesome" and trying to encourage us to leave our little corner near the door, but we weren't having it. At least not yet.

But then she started giving shots out for crazy things again, and this ultimately led to my downfall. Literally. I heard her say, "If anyone has a piercing..." and I started to run out on the dance floor. I'm not sure exactly how, either I tripped over the step up to the dance floor or I tripped over my own feet, but I ended up doing a belly flop and sliding across the floor on my chest, hands and feet up in the air. I slid to a stop and a little of my beer sloshed out of my cup but I managed to keep it completely upright. Then I heard the rest of what the microphone lady was saying, "...below the waist."

Great. Now I'm on the floor, I've made a total fool of myself by falling, and I don't even qualify for the shot she's giving away. I have a piercing but it is above the waist. Microphone Lady said, "Whoah! She's on the floor!" And that was when Stacey looked over and saw me face down on the dance floor with my mostly full beer still in my hand. She thought, "Oh shit, she really IS on the floor!" I picked myself up and walked back over to our little corner. Microphone Lady started yelling that I should come back up there. I ran up there so fast that I fell on the floor and now I'm not going to show my piercing? I went back up and explained my situation and showed her my belly button ring. Feeling dejected and foolish, I went back to Stacey and the French-Canadian diplomat, hanging my head in shame. Then Stacey reminded me that I have a tattoo below the waist. I shouted that to the microphone lady and she told me to come back up and show that off instead. So I did, and then she gave me two shots. One for falling, and one for the tattoo. Not bad.

When I came back to the corner with the shots I gave one to Stacey and drank the other one. My French-Canadian diplomat made a big show of pointing out to Microphone Lady that she completely ignored the fact that I made such a spectacular fall and DIDN'T EVEN SPILL MY BEER! She acknowledged this and announced it to the crowd, who all cheered for me.

Before long we were dancing in our little corner. The French-Canadian diplomat seemed thrilled to be dancing with not one but two hot girls, although Stacey and I were both hanging back a little on the other's behalf, trying not to step on each other's toes or give this guy the wrong idea about us. Somehow all of this led to the three of us out on the dance floor with the French-Canadian diplomat between the two of us, all of us dancing as people climbed under our legs. Microphone Lady was the first to climb through our legs like they were a tunnel and then she got up and started dancing in front of me. Then, before I knew it, Stacey had wandered off and I was left dancing with the French-Canadian diplomat, which eventually led to a very public make-out session right on the dance floor. After a few songs we retreated back to the corner where he continued to kiss me and also continued to try to grab Stacey every chance he could get.

In an effort to get away from this, Stacey grabbed some random boy and dragged him to the dance floor, but he had no rhythm so she abandoned him there and went wandering off in search of another victim. She found a guy sitting alone at a table smoking, and she stole one of his cigarettes and tried to get him to come out and dance. He was having none of this, and that's how I found them: Stacey smoking a cigarette with some guy who looked like he was about to cry into his beer. French-Canadian diplomat and I had gone looking for her because it was 6 o'clock and time for Huey Lewis.

We left the bar with the intention of making our way over to the concert, but Stacey immediately started telling us how ridiculously drunk she was and that she needed to eat. During some of her wanderings at Bourbon Rocks she managed to get two more shots out of the microphone lady, on top of the Heinekens that French-Candadian Diplomat gave us when he got three for the price of one. She was wrecked. I was feeling pretty good myself, and not really in the mood to eat anything, but if she wanted food we would find her some food. The first place we found was Krystal, which I remembered seeing earlier and pointing out because they are just like White Castle. Stacey was ready for any kind of food and in no mood to discriminate, so in we went. I hung back while she ordered her food and at one point I looked over and French-Canadian Diplomat was kissing her. I shook my head in disgust, at him but not at her. I think he took Microphone Lady's "threesome" comments to heart. I could tell right from the start that his intentions were less than noble, but seeing him shove his tongue in her mouth just a few minutes after he had been doing the same to me really turned me off to him.

I wandered outside because there was a parade happening. Mascots and people in Soul jerseys were marching down the street and throwing beads. I was excited to be a part of it all and grabbed up as many strands of beads as I could, thankful that no one was asking me to flash them first. Stacey came out with her cheeseburgers and I gave her some beads to wear too. French-Canadian Diplomat was now nowhere in sight, so I took the opportunity to escape from him and led Stacey out of there. We made it as far as Canal Street before she informed me that she REALLY needed to sit down and eat her burgers. I looked for a good spot, but she just ended up plopping herself down on the curb next to a tree. I sat down next to her, glad to be alive and at that particular place at that particular time. I was totally unprepared for what came next...