A quick little holiday story.

Last night, LP and I planned a great evening out: dinner at the Last Resort and then off to a grand holiday concert. Preface to the dinner... I had heard that there would be a Christmas parade in downtown (Clayton Street to be exact) and that it would begin at 5pm. Ok. Fine. We'll just grab dinner at 6 or 6:10, something like that, because surely all the parade craziness will be over by then. I mean what's the big deal, a few wagons and big trucks with frat guys and Santa on top, come on. When I turned onto Clayton, there was an officer standing outside his car with the lights on, but we both thought, hum, must be the after-parade-crowd-control-cop. Fast forward: after a great dinner we come out of lr to find people on both sides of the street marking what looks to be a parade route. It was 7:04pm, and the concert was scheduled to begin at 8pm, sharp.

We had no options...get in the car and drive, down Clayton, hoping no officer would stop us. It was as if we were the grand marshals (and I ain't talkin' about Tommy and John). We were riding along in the center lane as the huge crowds had already starting taking over the right and left lanes...cruising along, waving to the crowds, listening to a Charlie Brown Christmas cd, what a time! All was great, almost surreal, but all I could think was: please don't give me a ticket, please don't give me a ticket. When we got to the end of the street (it is a one way street, we had NO other option!) a great big bear of a man stood squarely in the the right-turn lane shaking his head left to right. I was puzzled, what does he mean, "no"? I briskly shook my head up and down as LP said ok, ok, hurry it up, no need to get in a fight with this guy.

At the end of our personal holiday parade, we both laughed and I thought: this has to make it on the blog. So if any of you yahoo readers out there thought you saw LP and I riding along in my non-US made sedan, you were right! And if anyone from Athens City council is reading this, you can schedule us again next year as the main attraction; I mean TCH and LP as warm up...I think most people left after we passed by.

Happy Holidays, people.

TCH