The Barn Door & Diet cokes –

Chaz's viewpoint - Donna loves diet cokes. It might be her favorite drink Now, most of you are in shock, since there is no alcohol in a diet coke, so why would Donna drink it. Well, in our circle, actually among the “WE” of Chris, Shaun, Donna, and I, Diet Cokes have another meaning. It started many moons ago on the trip to Wheatland…

We were on our way in the first of several motor homes that we have used to go to Wheatland. We (Chris, Shaun, Donna and I) started out fairly early on Thursday, about noon or so. Our plan was to go camp in Farmer Bill’s field, so we could get in line early.

For those that don’t know, Wheatland officially opens its gates at noon and its first come first served to get a camp site. Thus there is a general mad rush as people try to get in the same locations and generally we do. It used to be that we would get up there Thursday night; pull up on the shoulder of the road; and spend the night either in a friend’s motor home or in the front sleep of the car. As more and more people started doing this, problems arose. Starfish began arriving.

For those that might be confused right now, starfishes have no brain and mainly just eat and sh*t. This applies to a lot of humanity, so I call them starfish. It’s better than calling them stupid as over the years they have learned the “stupid” is not a compliment.

So starfish began arriving and being starfish they started doing stupid things. Now, this is a regular public dirt road with families living on it and locals trying to live their lives. Of course, that doesn’t matter to the starfish. They began playing music really, really loud, since everyone loves the music they listen too. They walk up and down the road screaming and yelling at each other. While I understand that they have to do this to penetrate the mass of fat they call a head, it does annoy other people. What probably made the sheriff dept take action was they started a bonfire in the middle of the road. Once again the starfish ruined for everyone else, so now there is no parking on the road.

{Note - The county sheriffs are pretty cool. They generally let us line up after the school buses go through on Friday morning. They realize that this event brings a lot of money into the area economy, so try to make it as pleasurable as they can while controlling the starfish}

Anyways back to the diet coke story, we now camp in a farmer’s field. We like to get there early to get a good spot in line and catch up with our Wheatland friends. We had left the Detroit area about 11 or so and the gang minus me (driving) was drinking heavily. It is about a 3 hour drive and we were about 45 minutes out from Farmer Bill’s field, when Donna decided that she could no longer hold the beer. Yes, the pee-pee dance was in full effect. While we do have a bathroom in the motor home, on the trip up it is usually blocked in by “stuff”. Since our various suggestions of relief – open the door and hang on, use a bottle, etc was met with the “you such an ass” look, I began looking for a place to stop.

Of course, we were between cities, so there wasn’t much going on in the way of places with restrooms. I did find this nice area with a good stand of pine trees, but she refused my offers to pull over. As we crest a hill, we see buildings that might be a gas station. I point this out and Donna begins urging me to go faster, go faster. As we get closer, I realize that it was an old gas station that has been converted to a party store. Well, they might let her use their bathroom, so I start to slow down and Donna’s prayers were answered. Off to the side and a little behind was “The Barn Door”. We had found a bar. We were happy. Happy!Happy!Joy!Joy!

I pull in and back the motor home in. Donna felt I was doing it just to cause her more discomfort. While this is partially true, I mainly do this as pulling out after a couple of beers is easier than backing out. As we are rolling to a stop, Donna leaps from the motor home and runs into the bar. You know, people run funny when they are trying to keep their knees together. We get stopped and Shaun/Chris & I get out and head into the bar. Being gentlemen we hold the door open for Donna. See, besides being funny looking, running with your knees together is also very slow. As Donna disappears into the ladies room, affectingly called the “cowgirls room” in this fine establishment, she says “Order me a diet coke” and she is gone.

The three of us looked at each other as we tried to comprehend that request. Diet coke. At Wheatland. It did not compute. We get to the bar and order some of their finest beer – Natural light on draft. I still don’t know what to get Donna. I can’t get my mouth to say the words. They just won’t come out. I don’t know what to do and then it hits me. Donna is speaking in femalize. She knows that she can’t order more beer because she has already had 10 or 12. If she orders more, it would be un-lady-like, so she is letting me find a way to take responsibility for her inebriation. Not a problem, I can do that. Once I realized what she wanted, I took action. No more beer for my lady. It was time for the something feminine. Something sweet, yet highly potent. I ordered her a White Russian. White Russian = Kalula, Vodka, and Cream. It was waiting for her when she came out.

Donna gets up on the bar stool, looks around, stares at the drink, and says “this doesn’t look like a diet coke.” We, including the bartender who I tipped well, agreed that she wasn’t seeing things too clearly and it was indeed a diet coke. Donna took a small sip. Donna drained most of the glass. Donna smacked her lips and declared that was the best dam diet coke she had ever had. For the rest of the afternoon, Chris/Shaun/I ordered beer and Donna ordered “diet cokes”. Thus proving, I know what my lady wants, even is she doesn’t.