Happy Anniversary!

Today is Brian and I's 4th anniversary. It seems just like yesterday that we said our vows and devoted our lives to one another. I can still remember our wedding night as vividly as ever.

We went to the casinos in Shreveport, LA with some friends because we moved our wedding date up from July to March. At the casino, Brian and I found two slot machines (quarter slots) beside each other and decided to spend no more than $50 each and then go home. Brian spent his $50 pretty quick and I was down to my last $8.75. CHING! CHING! I hit the jackpot (to me anyway) of $375! The lady came and gave me the money and then I looked at him and said we were going home. Five miles down the road at 2am, one of our friends calls (they are driving behind us) and says our car is smoking. What? We pull over and there is oil spewing out everywhere. Well, of course there isn't an auto shop open at 2 in the morning so we decide to find a motel. We went to Wal-Mart and found a phonebook where we found the number to a motel (Best Western or something of the sort) with a vacant room. So, we go with one of the sets of friends to find the place but cannot so we turned around because we passed another motel earlier.

****NOTE: EVERYTHING FROM THIS POINT I WILL BLAME ON WILLIE NELSON****

The motel we turned around for was called The Country Inn. When we pull in, there is a guy there in his Scooby Doo looking van with several girls in and around it. Nope, they were not his friends and as we found out later, this must have been a pay by the hour place if you know what I mean. Brian goes to pay for a room with cash (should've been the first clue) and in return, received the key to our luxurious abode on a...Wait for it...PAPERCLIP! We head up the stairs to see our getaway for what's left of the night and open the door to shag carpet with burnholes, a tv on swivel stand without a remote, and a cable box from the late 80s or 90s that still had the slider that you had to use to turn the channel. At least the sheets were clean! Brian decided to take a shower while there. You know when someone is in the shower and then someone else flushes the toilet and it makes the shower water cold? This had the opposite effect, because when the person next door flushed, the water temperature would shoot up a few degrees and you would occasionally hear Brian go "OW!" To top it all off, the people that gave us the ride to the motel (Brian's best man and his date for the evening) decided that they would stay in the same room as us on OUR wedding night (didn't even offer to pay for another room but luckily there were double beds). Needless to say, I was kind of ticked off at the whole situation and the friend got more action than we did that night.

When daylight approached, we went to IHOP and got a good breakfast then headed to the auto parts store to get the $20 part that started our adventure. We finally made it home by 1pm, thank goodness!

And, why you say do I blame this on Willie Nelson? Because he was in Shreveport that night and the reason why we were on that particular road that led us to The Country Inn. You see, we had called several other motels before calling Best Western. Best Western was the only one we called that had a vacancy besides the hellhole we ended up in.

It wasn't funny at the time but it's a story for the ages. And, it's OURS.