Monday, June 13, 2005

Another Put-In-Bay Tale

It's been quite a while since I've posted, even though I meant to do so right after the annual Memorial Day trip to PIB.

The nephew and the friend (whose name I will not use here, for reasons which will become obvious) were my guests for a fun filled weekend on the island, their reward for cleaning and waxing my boat in April. The usual ground rules applied: be careful, if you run out of money you can drink on the boat, and I do not bring bail money, so stay out of trouble.

We hit the Roundhouse around 2 o'clock in the afternoon, just in time to see Mike "Mad Dog" Adams do his routine. Funny as usual, although Mad Dog could spruce up his act a little. I heard some of the same jokes last year.

After a few hours of Mad Dog, I told the boys that I was going to the boat to take a nap. I'm old enough and wise enough to know that I can't hang from 2 o'clock in the afternoon until the late hours. So I crashed for about an hour, then headed back to the bars.

We met up at Mr. Ed's, and it turns out an old friend of mine from Bellevue is running the joint. He was kind enough to send a few free beers my way, for which I was grateful (especially with Bud Light costing $4.50 a can), but it pretty much ruined me for the night. I went back to the boat around 10:00 or 10:30, popped open a can of beer, and reflected.

About a half hour later, the nephew hopped on the boat. "Uncle Sam, #$@%% just got thrown in jail!"

This was interesting news, although not totally unexpected.

I replied, "I hope he has bail money, because I told you guys I wasn't going to bail you out of jail."

"He doesn't need bail money, Uncle Sam, they're going to let him out when the bars close."

And so it went. He came back to the boat around 2 o'clock in the morning, and to this day I don't know what he did to get thrown in jail.

The next morning, after breakfast, I walked to the cop shop with the boys to see if there was something I could do to help. Would it be OK for him to sign a waiver and pay the fine so he wouldn't have to come back for a court appearance? No, he had to come back Thursday. In the end, it cost him a $200 fine, plus the cost of the ferry ride, and the rest is history.

I hope they'll still help me out next spring, so I can take them to Put-In-Bay for Memorial Day weekend, and I hope they are a little older and wiser, and they remember to bring bail money.