Zombies - A Family Tradition

My parents have been married for fifty years. Before my dad met my mom, he and his friends used to go "across the river" to drink and dance and hang out with all the other hep cats. I guess they called themselves hep cats, I wasn't there. Sounds about right though. Going "across the river" was when southeast Texans who were under the Texas drinking age of 21 would cross the Sabine River via the Rainbow Bridge and go into Louisiana where the drinking age was 18. From all of dad's stories, they had a hell of a time.

We've heard these stories so often that we have given the stories numbers. When dad begins to retell one of his adventures that we've heard more times than we can count, we roll our eyes and look at each other and say, "Oh, Story Number 12. You told us that one, dad." Of course, that doesn't deter him in the least. No, sir. We hear the whole story all over again.

One of dad's favorite stories involves Zombies. Not the living dead kind of zombie but the adult beverage kind of Zombie. It seems that one evening in Louisiana, the Zombie was his drink of choice. After "several" Zombies (we've never been given an exact number), dad disappeared from the dance hall. When his friends went to look for him, they found him in the back seat of their car in the clutches of a rather unattractive girl. I'm sure she was a very nice girl. My mother says otherwise.

Anyway, dad's friends decide they need to rescue him from this Jezebel. They beg. They plead. They finally drag him bodily from the back seat of his little love nest. This does not please my father. The next night, he's still mad at his so-called friends. This, however, does not stop him from going back with them "across the river." When they get to the same bar they had been at the night before, one of dad's friends asks him, "Hey, Red, you still mad at us?" Sulking, my dad responds, "Hell, yes." His friend says, "You see that girl over there?" "Yes," my dad responds. "That's the girl you were in the backseat with last night."

Now, I don't think they had the phrase "coyote ugly" or "beer goggles" in those days, but you get my drift. My dad bought his friends their drinks for the rest of the night.

Flash forward about thirty years. My little sister, Bonnie, after having heard dad's story 2,365 times decides to try a Zombie on one of her evenings out. She and two of her guy friends decide to see who can drink the most Zombies. I didn't say we were a smart family. According to Bonnie, a fine time was had by all. Bonnie says, when the bar shut down, she went home and slept until it was time to go out the next night.

When she met up with her two guy friends from the night before, she asked them how they fared after their Zombie-fest. Bert (not his real name), was actually drinking another Zombie. "Hair of the dog," he told Bonnie. So, of course, Bonnie had another Zombie and swears it made her feel better. About this time Bonnie's other co-conspirator, Ernie (not his real name), walked up. Ernie didn't look so good. "Hair of the dog?", asked Bonnie. "Screw you," said Ernie.

When asked why he was in such a pissy mood, Ernie said, "Well, I woke up this morning completely naked, face down on my sister's living room floor...and I don't live with my sister."

Bonnie has told us this story 382 times.