My knee hurts. I'm hungry!

Atchafalaya: noun. A Chocktaw word meaning "long river".

Not to be confused with Atchafalaya's... which is a hole in the wall bar in downtown Provo I happened upon this weekend. But lets start at the very beginning... a very good place to start.

Friday night, I got off work and got right on the bus to go get some prescriptions filled at Walgreen's. After browsing the makeup aisle for about an hour and a half I decided it was time to go do something productive. Michelle came and picked me up, and we promptly went back to my apartment to plan something wicked awesome for the last Friday night before school. Three hours, one phone call and an Arby's pick 5 for 5.95 later, we found ourselves sitting in my apartment, having completely wasted our night doing nothing.

So Saturday, we decided to go out on the town and do something. What is there to do in Provo? Nothing of course, except go to a bar with some of Michelle's already partially intoxicated hair school friends. Ya! What could be better than getting in for free before 10:30 and staying completely sober amongst the smokey boozey crowd? I don't know man, but we were NOT going to be staying home two nights in a row on Labor Day Weekend!

So we walk up to Atchafalaya's, and waited in line (Aka 6 people) to get in. It was my first "can't get in without an ID" event ... so we're all getting our ID's checked... and the bouncer took an abnormally long time with mine. He kept looking at me, and then at my license, and then would squint at me, and then flash his little light back to my ID... after about 30 seconds I finally said,

"I got fat.. do you want to talk about it?"

And he seriously almost cracked a smile... and gave me my ID back and told me to have a great night. I was proud. I sassed the bouncer at my first bar. Mom, I know you're proud too.

We get in, get stamped, and I surveyed the room. It was smokey and dark, and there were maybe 10 people at the main bar and 15 others throughout the club. Haha. It was hoppin to say the least. I got the grand tour from Michelle's friend Kendra.. dance floor, bar, pool tables, fooseball, lounge, and sparsely populated karaoke room. It's actually a pretty big place. So we meandered back to the bar and just stood there lookin pretty until we couldn't stand the smoke being blown in our face by the pre-pubescent looking "male model" friend of a friend any longer.

Karaoke was calling my name.

We went back in to the Karaoke room, where the same weird guy was still belting out some unknown classic 20 minutes later. After some coaxing, I was somehow talked into signing up to sing "I Wanna Dance with somebody" Whitney Houston style. I mean, after the dizzy and drunken spanish ballad I couldn't look that bad right?

So I take the floor, and take the mic, and just start beltin it out. Really though, it was so fun! Then Mr. smokey with his shirt unbuttoned down-to-there came over and started giving me some tips about projecting my voice and he tried to steal my show. I was thinkin to myself.. "Who do you think you are?! I'm Whitney Houston!...(bih)"

All my friends were dancing and having a great time, when suddenly I see Michelle seriously eat it on the dance floor. She got pulled back up by all of the other girls because once you fall over you're kicked out. Such is the rule for drunkeness at this fine establishment. But she didn't look like she was having a good time anymore, and she limped back over to sit down and she had tears running down her pretty little face.

Confused, I tried to convince a drunk girl trying to freak dance with me to take over for the last part of the song. But she was sober enough to refuse, so I handed the mic back to the MC and was like... "um. I'm done. My friend fell down..."

He gladly took over (he was the weird one singing all alone at the begining of the night) and finished out the last belligerent oohs and rolled chords of the song.

I made my way over to Michelle, and we decided it was time to roll out. When I say roll out, what I really mean is that Michelle again blew out her knee and was in some serious pain. We hobbled her outside. I'm pretty sure everyone thought she was drunk.

Good times in Provo. Michelle is recovering, and I made my big musical debut. I was a huge hit with all the drunkards. Don't worry. I'll remember you when I'm famous.