The Yahoo Guy

I used to work in a contractor bar about ten years ago. I call it a contractor bar because when you hire a contractor, and he disappears in the afternoons, this is where he goes. He might have every intention of coming back when he leaves to the hardware store to get that one thing he needs, but on every road to every hardware store, is a contractor bar.
So your contractor will drive by, say The Snug, which was the name of the place I worked, and see, oh, I don't know, Joe's truck in the lot. Maybe Joe owes him money, maybe Joe owes him a beer, Whatever reason, he stops to see Joe. They shoot pool, drink some beers, bitch about their old ladies, next thing you know, it's quitting time. Now they stick around until their old ladies find them by phone, all pissed off because they missed dinner. Then it's time to go home to a cold dinner and a colder wife pissed off because she had to watch the kids all day.
Unless it's the Yahoo guy. He was too young to be married and too unlucky with the ladies to knock one up. He worked 7 to 3 laying carpeting as an independent contractor with a local carpeting store. Everyday, the Yahoo guy would stop by on his way home from work for a beer and stay all night. Well, not all night, just until he was reelin', then he would stumble drive the three or four blocks home.
I think his personal record was nine-thirty. He'd start out the evening, well late afternoon, boisterous, but not imposing. Then beer by beer he would transform into the Yahoo Guy. Garth Brooks on the jukebox (especially singing "I Got Friends In Low Places") Yahoo! "Bad To The Bone"? Yahoo! Home Run? Touchdown? NASCAR? Yahoo! with his vigor returning each time he came out of the bathroom rubbing his nose and sniffing. Usually by nine, they would have to ask him to leave or be barred, and there was nothing worse you could do these guys than bar them.
One night, the local beer salesman, he was also a reg, told the other regs that he was bringing the Bud Girls next Friday. Well, not the Bud Girls, just local talent that fit the dress. These clowns didn't know this and so they all started buzzing about it. The Bud Girls are coming, the Bud Girls are coming, next Friday night. The Bud Girls are coming the Bud Girls are coming this Friday night.

Well, Friday evening, or late afternoon if you prefer, ol' Yahoo shows up. Now usually, every day he wears an old flannel shirt, and a dirty pair of jeans and his big old clodhopping workboots. But this evening, after actually taken the time to clean up before he goes there, it's a different story. He's wearing his cowboy boots, and his good jeans, has a button down shirt on and a sport coat. His face is shaved and his hair is washed and combed. Yahoo is going to get him some Bud Girl tonight. The problem is, the Bud Girls are coming at nine.

And Yahoo, primed for action hits the beer a little too fast, by eight is barely able to stay awake at the bar and is asked to leave and never gets to see one of the Bud Girls.

Story and picture copyright 2005 E S Toledo