Barney has gone to Myrtle Beach with us several times displaying the best sense of humor of anyone on the trip, which he seriously believes that he is as funny as Chris Rock or Rodney Dangerfield. Barney is of average height and weight and very nondescript in a crowd. After one of our annual golf trips in late September, Barney decided to head down to his second home in Brownsville, Texas, where he resides for the next six months. It was in early November wanting to get away from the harsh winters that we frequently have here in the Midwest, so he packed up in car and was off. His second home is located in a community of homes that is surrounded by three very beautiful private golf courses, where he has his membership while he’s in Texas.
Barney always drives down to Brownsville by himself in late fall. His wife stays in Peoria through the Thanksgiving and Christmas holidays, flying down to Texas just after the first of the New Year to join Barney for the next three months. The arrangement works out perfectly well for both Barney and his wife. This way Barney gets two solid months of daily golf in Texas, while his wife has two months in Peoria with complete solitude, where she doesn’t have to listen to his endless joke telling and complaining of the weather. Apparently, Barney rehearses all of his new material daily on his wife, as well as, complaining about the bitter cold weather that is headed Peoria way for the winter.
As Barney was driving down to Texas, he decided to stop about halfway down in Tulsa, Oklahoma, to grab a hamburger, some French fries, and a pitcher of cold beer at one of the local bars called “Wranglers”, before he would continue his journey south to Brownsville. He strolled into the bar, looked around, and then placed himself around the middle of the bar with several of the local patrons on either side of him. He figured that these local hommies, who looked like authentic cowboys, had just came off of one of the cattle ranches needing to hear some fresh humorous jokes. He proceeded to tell some of his funniest cowboy jokes while the TV above the bar was televising the Oklahoma/Texas football game. He quoted Hank Williams to them, “You got to have smelt a lot of mule manure before you can sing like a hillbilly.” The local cowboys just looked at him in total disbelief, they wanted no part of Barney’s endless conversation, so they just all got up from their bar stools, retreating quickly to an open table to continue watching the rival football game.
Barney turned to the bartender, pointed to the big screen saying,” Look at all those football players; the coaches treat them all like real men. They let them all wear earrings; soon they’re going to let them paint their fingernails.” The bartender swiftly turned heading down to the other end of the bar. Barney was now by himself.
Barney hurriedly finished his burger and fries and was about halfway through the pitcher of beer when he had to head to the men’s room, which was labeled “Steers” on a wooden plaque high on the middle of the door. He entered the bathroom, sauntering over to the free urinal that was right next to the only other urinal that was occupied by a rather large cowboy with his worn faded denim Levis, his black Stetson cowboy hat, and wearing some rather large dusty cowboy boots.
Trying to be rather humorous, he turned to his right, with a shit eating grin look at the cowboy and said, “Nice size dick, there Tex,” and continued to smile. The cowboy immediately zipped up his fly, looked at Barney square in the eye and said, “I’m not that kind of guy and this is not one of those bars.” He then abruptly turned and went out of the bathroom rather quickly.
As Barney exited the bathroom returning to the bar, it was now apparent to him that all of the local patrons were now staring at him. The bartender came over to Barney, leaning across the bar and said, “Listen stud, we don’t want your kind in here, so why don’t you just take the rest of your beer in this here to go cup and mosey on out of here. When you get outside, go about five blocks south to a bar called, “Boots and Leather”, that’s where you can walk on the wild side. Now, get the hell out of here before all of these mean straight cowboys beat the living crap out of you.”
Barney said to the bartender, that he is not a fruit; that he was only just trying to be funny with the cowboy in the bathroom, nothing else. No one in the bar would buy his story. Barney turned to everyone in the bar yelling his glib response, “I think someone should just take this bar and just… just flush it down the f—kin’ toilet,” in his best Robert De Niro “Taxi Driver” imitation. Praying to himself, “Feet don’t fail me now.” Running out of the bar just as fast as his Reebok’s would carry him, never looking back.
He headed out of the bar, never to return again to the “Wranglers” bar, although, he did however, drive the five blocks south to the “Boots and Leather” bar, just to see what it was like. When he pulled up to the bar and saw that it had 20 plus Harleys parked in front of the establishment, he decided that this would not be a good place to try his material on, he didn’t want to be bitch slapped around, so we continued south heading towards Brownsville. For as they say in the movie, “An Officer and Gentleman”, “only two things come from Oklahoma – steers and queers” and that bar sure did not appear to have any steers in it.
