Jonola14

LOCATION: Panama City Beach (Florida).
DATE: 11/08/01.

TIME: 12.00

We emerge from a heavy sleep totally rejuvenated. A long-term ambition of Payno's is fulfilled when breakfast is taken in a Waffle House.

TIME: 13.30

The holiday hits a new high..... finally we make it to a beach. The sea is warm, the sand is almost perfect white. It is not as nice as the Carribbean, but it certainly beats the Bristol Channel coast! The afternoon is for once spent relaxing. We like PCB because it is not a place that has too many wordly sights, so we do not feel guilty about doing nothing in particular.

TIME: 17.00

Payno slips off to do some much needed washing. His socks are becoming a very dubious colour, and his t-shirts have developed a dark yellow sweat patch. Quiff, meanwhile, uses the time to try and catch up on some sleep before the evening's planned seafood meal and early drinking start in anticipation of an eventful night in La Vela, the largest nightclub in the USA (which isn't actually true). Payno returns, constructs a makeshift clothes line and we head out to Hammerhead Fred's.

TIME: 18.00

The restaurant is unlike most others that we have frequented. Not only is there a lack of hamburgers and fried chicken on the menu, but there is live sport on tv, waitresses that come back every two minutes to see if you are ok, and a disctinct non-existence of time between courses. We struggle through more Buffalo wings (pretty much the only standard American foodstuff on offer) and a plateful of shrimp each, before heading back to the KOA campsite to get drinking.

Quiff has his hand shat on by a bird.

TIME: 23.00

After a skinful of taste-free Budweiser and a couple of watermelon punch Jack Daniels concoctions, we stroll out across the road to the club, pay an extortionate $15 entry and study the place, reputed to have eight different nightclubs inside. It's true, there are lots of different rooms, and many of them are packed, but we cannot for the life of us find all eight.

Despite this minor setback, we settle in two adjoining rooms - one with dance house music blaring out, the other with a live band called the Poptart Monkeys playing. We note the splendid number of pert arses in the vicinity, but feel that further intoxication is necessary. The Poptart Monkeys prove to be a most entertaining group to watch, the bass player with his crazy specs and the WWF guitarists providing the majority of our amusement. We venture into the house music club, intent on introducing our 'piss-take' dancing to the locals, and perhaps entering into communications with sexy American women. We cannot help but note the abundance of males in the club, as well as many couples. Not put off by this, we shove our way into the dancefloor and begin the usual cheese routine, including the first American appearance of the Shopping Trolley and the Cement Mixer.

It is after about half an hour of embarrassing dancing stupidity that we deduce the American style of pulling. We have much to learn, it seems. Instead of dancing like two drunken goons, and waiting for a girl to feel sorry for us, come over and put us out of our misery, we ascertain that to get a girl's attention, we must first dance close behind her, get in the interlocking position, and then manoeuvre our genitalia so it rubs against her arse. After a while, she will either turn round and kiss you, or knee you in the bollocks for being a dirty pervert. As neither of us have practised this technique in the past five years, we decide that we have neither the experience, nor the guts to try, and we continue our dancing, opting for a more genuine, natural approach. As the ratio of male to female rises from stupid to downright ridiculous, we realize that PCB is also going to bear no fruit.

Quiff develops a bout of drunken chlostrophobia, which then worsens into a case of inebriated negativity, he is clearly suffering from female withdrawal. The perception he has of the USA being an oasis of slender, sexy girls is in fact proving to be flawed. Instead, it would appear that the USA can offer no more than a barren desert, with miles of sand in every direction. The oasis is out there, but we need a map of how to find it, a map, it seems, that only the locals hold.

TIME: 03.00

Fatigue sets in, and Payno develops inextinguishable hunger. We set off in search of the Waffle House we had eaten in only that morning, and the sexy middle-aged waitress that said we had a "cute little accent", only for Payno to mishear once more, thinking she had remarked that he had a 'cute little ass'. The Waffle House is closed, but the lights are still on in the Pizza Hut delivery shop. Payno approaches, questions if they are still open, then tries to persuade the attendant to bake him "just one" when she says that they are closed. She declines, but does offer a stone cold one for $5. Payno refuses the offer and departs, intent on locating another fast food establishment. It is clear that there is no alternative, so after a brief scout around, Payno runs back to the shop to buy the pizza, but only if he can haggle it down to $3.50. He emerges two minutes later, pizza in hand, and with a large grin on his face. "Got it for nothing" he says between mouthfuls, "they wanted me to stop hassling them, so they gave it to me for free!" The pizza proves too much for the travellers, so we take it back to the kabin, intent on it being our breakfast. Wary of the red ants that seem to have taken a shine to our accommodation, we decide to tie the box to a conveniently positioned loop on the kabin ceiling, leaving it dangling in mid-air, out of the ants way.