We Pulled Onto Basin Street

We pulled onto Basin Street, parked in a tight space and headed west to Canal. Needing to pee real badly, I stepped into a Clarion Hotel and asked to use the bathroom

because I was in a jam. The clerk didn’t deny me the privilege; she just looked at me with disdain and said, “The restrooms are for hotel guests,” while she slowly slid the plastic key

along the counter. “Hey, this is an emergency.”  I grabbed the key and sprinted to the commode. By this time she had collected a crowd behind the desk made up of the

manager and another clerk. Placing the key back on the counter, I said that anytime they were in my town they could use my bathroom. As I walked out the door,

I told her, as she picked up the key, that I had peed on it.  No, I didn’t, but I thought of it later.  We wandered up Bourbon Street and Boomer, the pastoral Lab, was the center of

attention. One barker outside a girly show stopped us and wanted to pet him and talk about his own lab.  Next to him was one of the dancers in a skimpy bra and g-string.

She bent over to pet the dog and said, “Hey, Boomer, come over here and let me stroke you.”  Actually, I think she said “pet you.”    I looked at wife Chris

and tried not to look at the dancer’s boobs bobbing and jiggling around in the little cups.  After trying real hard to look her in the face, I noticed that she had

really pearly white teeth set against her bronze skin.  Chris suggested that we move along to the historic Roman Catholic Cathedral, erected during the French

occupation of what was to become the state of Louisiana because she knew how much I appreciated old, aesthetically, beautiful buttresses. At the mention of buttresses,

I thought it was probably a good thing the dancer hadn’t turned around and kneeled down.