AI image used to illustrate this story by Frank Rocco Satullo
The week before Christmas, we arrived to experience this town, otherwise known as NOLA (short for New Orleans, Louisiana), and The Big Easy on a long list of nicknames. After an all-day drive, we checked in late to our hotel just across Canal Street and The French Quarter. We needed fast food, so we stepped outside and looked left and right. We only saw a sign for chicken, and it was down at the other end of a long, dark alley with another alley crisscrossing it. Hunger trumped safety, so we threw caution to the wind and blew down a dark and narrow street sandwiched between brick walls to get fried chicken. Once inside, we realized it was a liquor store. I don’t know if it was because we were so hungry that the rubber sole of a shoe would have hit the spot or not, but that was some damn tasty chicken.
I even woke up halfway through the night to steal my wife’s leftover piece. That’s when I must have knocked my prescription sunglasses onto the floor.
By the way, I don’t cuss a whole lot, but I had a standing deal with my kids that whenever they heard a bad word uttered from my lips, they would each get a buck.
I walked through the cramped hotel room that morning and heard plastic crack at my feet.
“!%^$@#*!%^$@#*!%^$@#…!!!!!
“Dad, you owe us both twelve dollars.” (Laughter)
“!%^$@#*!%^$@#*!%^$@#…!!!!!
“Dad, now its times two.” (More laughter)
So, we went to a nearby drugstore for superglue. On the way around the corner, we stepped past some sleeping bodies and weaved between those awake with their hands out. This was the business district, and many transactions were already taking place.
When we were walking out of the drugstore, a man with a burgeoning backpack whisked by us, with store management hot on his heels urging the backpack man to stop and return all that he had taken. They had him dead to rights, but he just kept walking—more like leisurely strolling—along the sidewalk on Canal Street in broad daylight with a deaf ear.
Translation: “Whatchoo gonna do about it?”
The answer apparently was ceasing pursuit and watching your merchandise fade out of sight.
Welcome to New Orleans!
By Frank Rocco Satullo, The OhioTraveler, Your Tour Guide to Fun!
