The Time My Friend Got So Drunk He Had To Get Lifted Out Of The Swamp With A Crane

DatOSU10929 years ago

Everyone’s got that one dumbass friend. The kind of guy who will step out for a beer and somehow end up drunk as hell halfway across town, pounding on random people’s doors and demanding that they return his shoes.

Mine was this guy named “Sam.” One summer, Sam decided he wanted to go and visit some of our chapters in the South and wanted me to ride shotgun. Besides being a moron, the most important thing you need to know about Sam is that he is loaded AF. His family owns like 10 million acres of timber land. So even when he fucks up royally, he can pay for it, and everything usually turns out fine. Most of the time.

This is the story of a little bar in Baton Rouge called Reggies, and what happens when two dumb-as-shit Oregon boys try to take on the SEC:

So we roll up to Louisiana State with the spirit of brotherly love and a couple 30-racks of Yuengling in hand. The guys there are sort of wary of us at first. They were expecting a visit from nationals to address some…uh…hazing concerns, but immediately realize we’re just two drunk idiots looking to have a good time. We pass the beers around and get to know each other.

LSU was playing at home that weekend, and the guys invited us to go tailgating with them. Being from the PAC12, we were completely unprepared for the glorious fucking majesty of an SEC tailgate. These LSU guys had a 2,000 sq. ft tent, with a dozen grills, barbecue smokers, and a line of beer-chilling refrigerators running off a couple DeWalt 14,000W generators. There were so many couches it looked like a furniture store, with a huge projector screen to watch the game on. And the kegs! Oh, the kegs. It was like a brewery tanker deep throated a SOLO cup truck, and what came up was a fantastic mess of booze, vomit, and red trash. It was the most beautiful thing I had ever seen.

I asked one of the members, a guy named Greer, if anybody was actually going to the stadium. He shrugged and said, “Don’t need to.” I also noticed some really baby-faced kids running around getting the guys drinks and food in full dress suits despite the sweltering 100+ degree heat.

“Are those…your pledges?” I asked.

Greer nodded. They had them trained up right at LSU. These guys were the sons of oil barons, shipping tycoons, old money, and they were groveling at the members’ feet like waiters. In Oregon, they shut down your chapter and call in counseling support if a pledge sneezes.

After the game we went back to the house to party. That part was fun (s/o to the South for having live bands at their parties), but when it was over, Sam and I were left wanting more. We asked the guys which bars to hit.

“Uh…you’re pretty much good with any of them. Only freshmen go to the bars though. Just don’t go to Reggies,” they warned us.

We were confused about the freshmen part but when we got there, it made sense: The bar was filled with 18-year-olds. All girls. Some of them were probably high schoolers. The bouncer at the door wasn’t checking IDs; he was just letting everybody in. When you went to the bar, you got a wristband, and the people with those were actually 21.

Sam’s face lit up. We were like the only two wristbands in there. He immediately got swarmed by 50 girls, and he didn’t give a shit that they were jailbait. Sam takes what he can get.

He went to the bar and got an armful of Long Islands, only to get immediately ditched when a better looking wristband guy came in seconds later.
Sam shrugged and downed the drinks himself.

“Hey buddy, you think you maybe want to slow down?”
“Fuck you,” he responded. “I’m on vacation.”

Sam wanted to try his luck at a different bar, but it was the same story. Finally, we came out, and saw the gently-lit, inviting sign of a place called Reggies.

“Let’s go in there.”

We were too drunk to remember the warning. Inside, Sam ordered a bucket of beers, but demanded that they pour them out and literally serve the beer in a bucket. Everybody in the bar cheered as he drained two of these in a row, and bellowed like the giant, hairy mountain men he had descended from. Then we ordered a tray of tequila shots.

The rest of the night was a blur, but at one point I turned around, and Sam was trying to pull the Confederate flag off the wall. We got tossed out on our asses and called a cab. Somehow. I don’t think either of us could speak English at this point.

The cab dropped us off outside the lake. Suddenly, Sam took off running for some reason, and fell into a huge pit by the side of the lake. It had rained a lot during the day and the mud was like quicksand, which Sam was stuck in, rolling around like a big, dumb, drunk baby. I reached down and tried to get him out, but there was no way. Some bitch walking by called 911, and the ambulance came. Slight problem: They couldn’t get him out, either. So they called a fire truck. Twenty minutes later, there were about a half-dozen police cruisers, two fire trucks, and another ambulance. The fireman brought out a huge crane on the back of the bigger fire truck, with a giant sling connected to it.

They said it was used to get cows out of the swamp.

I watched my friend being lifted in a cattle sling onto a stretcher, and I’m thinking, well shit. I’m going to have to find him in the morning. Sam, who was now mostly conscious, kept repeating “I’m…fine…I’m perfectly…fine.”

When I finally picked Sam up the next morning, he was talking to a tall black tranny he introduced as “Chi Chi.”

“Sam tells me you guys were at Reggies last night,” she said. “I used to go there a lot when I was on the football team. You two look like a nice couple.”

Sam was covered in mud and his clothes were ruined. He had to call his dad to pay the hospital bill and wire me some money because the dumbass had lost his wallet and all his credit cards.

We left Baton Rouge that morning, but much like Sam’s uncleanable khaki shorts, it left a stain in our hearts and shame in our souls that we can never completely scrub away. If you ever do find yourself in Baton Rouge, just know what you’re getting into, and for the love of Christ, don’t go to Reggies..