The Varsity

Warning:: This is a long ass post!

This little story starts near the end of the meet and greet. My family is known to gather together and hang. And I do mean hang. This particular night was the first full night of the event. And the rooms in which the dinner was held were closed around nine or ten. So a group of us "tweeners" decided to keep the party going. Since the meet and greet only had finger food, folk mentioned the need to deal with their hunger. So the idea that we should go as a group came up. And some wanted to explore for food on foot. I felt this was trouble but kept quiet. I don’t get to hang with them that often so a little (bucket of) sweat was a small price to pay to hang with my favorite cousins. The idea that won was a little stroll to The Varsity. The Varsity is a famous Atlanta drive-in restaurant which serves hot dogs and hamburgers and such. The first problem was that the Atlanta resident in the group lived on the other side of the city. The second problem was that those wanting to walk had just arrived within the prior six hours and hence didn’t know the lay of the land. The third problem involved someone mentioning that it was only three blocks away. I knew better since the wife and I had gotten a day early and had to hunt for food the night before. So we didn’t pay attention to how far it actually was since we turned a few times and were distracted by the driving of the residents. But we knew it was more that three blocks. We just hadn’t realized how far…

In truth the three block walk would turn into a 17 block odyssey. So Me and The Wife, The Prophet, Big P, The Chocit and Banilla Revolutionaries, The Ol’ War Vet, Six, The Fire Man, DJ Beav, and The Ghost Writer headed on out. Now to call the terrain in Atlanta rolling is being charitable. I would have sworn that I needed mountain climbing gear along with my towel. By four blocks we ran across the Checkers which was the nearest food to the hotel. And at that time NO one noticed that we couldn’t see The Varsity even though we were at the top of a hill. I felt like I was dying but it was down hill for quite a ways. Someone asked how much farther by then. Some security guard told us three or four more blocks. Of course we found a grocery store that far down. So a couple of folk decided to hit the ATM while the rest of us stood guard. Shortly after that we ran across a panhandler who wanted a quarter. When he got not joy he said this: "I can’t get a quarter from all of y’all?" Now you would think he would stop right then? Noooo… "A whole bunch of y’all and I can’t even get 25 cents?" Irritating but still ignorable. Then "Just one quarter, and I can’t get it from all of y’all?" At this point I noticed a several folk cut their eyeballs back in his direction. I started counting the number of fists in the party. I wondered aloud if there were enough so that nobody had to use the same hand twice when we counted to 25 on his head. Eventually he got the point.

A few more blocks found us passing a Cheetah’s. At this time Big P attempted to persuade us to stop there instead. To which The Banilla Revolutionary replied "We doing all this walking to get something to eat! And what we gonna eat, you won’t find up in there! Besides I am strictly dickly!" I wasn’t about to argue with her… And then the conversation degenerated into a debate on prosthetic body parts and hair. More to the point if the bubble butted lady in front of Cheetah’s had ass implants.

The next block found us walking toward three wanna-be-gangstas. Gold chains, hip-hop gear, the whole nine. Now the beggar incident was still fresh and they wanted to act like they didn’t see ALL 11 OF US! Again I started counting fists and started doing division… After they passed us they turned the hell around! And they started walking in our direction! I think at that point some of the others were counting fists too! I was just hoping they were lost. For their sakes… They found their way before they caught back up.

The next two blocks found us near where we were going. The Wife had peeped this dude who rode past us twice. He then parked his car like two blocks uphill and got out. He then proceeded to switch his ass downhill for three blocks to a club. There were two open doors in his general direction. Me and The Wife took bets on which was the club he was headed to. She won the bet when the shim who was waiting on him sashayed outta the one she picked. Although the place smelled like an old basement when we went by.

FINALLY! The Varsity! I have to say that I was underwhelmed. There was a grip of folk behind the counter so it had to be a pretty hot spot. Especially on the weekend right? Crowded? Yes. Good? No. Everything seemed puny. Maybe that is why we are so fat in Michigan, too large portions… But the Chicken Finger combo (Onion rings, coke) was almost seven bucks! But it looked more like a chicken toe combo! And the hot dog that we thought was a chili dog actually had hamburger meat on it. And it was far too small for $1.70.

We left there and started to decide if we were gonna walk or ride back to the hotel. The riders won that vote! But the ones who wanted a drink won first! So we crossed the street and shared a couple of big ass beers and saw some fashion mistakes that kept us entertained. Ran into a waitress from Detroit who had managed the club where Six tended bar back in the day. Saw a street dude who was also from Detroit. You know those dudes who are really smart but look messed up as hell? Then we saw a dude who looked like he escaped from an Ivy League pub or something. You know the kind who have the sweater hanging over their backs with the sleeves tied around the neck? Did I mention that it was about 90 degrees at the time? And he didn’t match? And there was one chick who was wearing this crocheted dress that wasn’t the right size? Looked like someone had knitted a cozy for a pickle barrel. And we saw that same damn outfit at the African Art Festival the next day!

After the beer we stalked this cab driver who pulled up to the gas station across the street. We piled in and I nearly choked when he put the $12 on the meter before we even started. I guess we had six or so folk over the minimum. Then we all felt stupid as hell when he turned the corner toward the hotel because there was a damn friggin MARTA station sitting right on the corner! We could have saved all of that walking, the cab ride AND got the obligatory MARTA Train rides in at the same time! Drinking and walking don’t mix.