Fandango: A Road Trip to New Orleans After College

I graduated from the University of Maryland in May 1993 with a BA in Communications. My job prospects were pretty limited, since I didn’t have a car and was living at my Dad’s house in the suburbs. I needed a job I could walk or bike to, and the first one that said yes was Comfort Suites in Laurel, MD.

I got a job working at the front desk for $5.50 an hour. Five years in college, and the best I could do was $1.25 an hour more than minimum wage. However, the job did have a nice perk: an employee discount at select hotels around the country.

Before I left that job for more exciting opportunities ($7.00 an hour as an Assistant Manager at Blockbuster Video), I reached out to my recently graduated fraternity brothers, Chris and Joe, about a road trip to New Orleans for New Year’s Eve.

I looked into using my employee discount in New Orleans, and there was a Comfort Inn where we could get a discounted room for $19 per night. I booked it for five nights (December 28, 1993, to January 2, 1994), and our plan was set.

By Christmas, our group had grown to six people. A couple of guys from another frat and someone brought their girlfriend. I’d finally gotten my driver’s license, car insurance, and a used 1992 Ford Escort LX with about 12,000 miles on it for $500 down. My “new” car was going on our road trip.

In addition to the McJobs I was working at those days, I was also waiting for concert tickets and selling them while working for “Ticket Ricky.” I reached out to him, and he was willing to have me take a bunch of Sugar Bowl tickets on the trip to sell on consignment. That was perfect, as it would fund my trip.

The Road Trip

On the day we were leaving, I packed my things and went to the local AAA office to get a TripTik, a flipbook with the map for our 1,100-or-so-mile drive from Annapolis, MD, to New Orleans, LA.

I had a few hours to burn before driving over to pick the guys up, so I tucked into the couch to watch the movie Fandango. The movie was about five college buddies from the University of Texas going on one last road trip before entering the real world.

The movie was set in 1971, when characters our age were worried about having to go to Vietnam. Our uncertain future wasn’t quite as perilous, but still scary.

Our drive down to New Orleans was a good time with a rotation of a few cassettes and lots of laughs.

When we rolled up to the Comfort Inn on Chef Menteur Highway in New Orleans, I realized why I had gotten such an amazing deal. It was in a pretty sketchy area, and the hotel was in rough shape. But we didn’t care; we had a place to stay that would be about $20 each for five nights, so that was awesome.

The second car arrived shortly after us, and the six of us settled into the hotel room with a “Do Not Disturb” sign on the door for the rest of our trip, so the hotel wouldn’t realize we had so many people jammed in there.

Nearly Drunknapped to Mississippi

The bunch of us had Hurricanes and Turbodog beer day and night, as well as lots of Cherry Bombs, which were maraschino cherries in Everclear. I think they were $1 for five.

As we bar-hopped on New Year’s Eve, in that era before cell phones, we all eventually lost each other. I ended up with a group from the University of Southern Mississippi, and we became fast friends.

From what I recall, it was a lot of fun, and as midnight approached, I was chatting with a woman with an adorable Mississippi accent. We ended up kissing as the clock struck 12, and I was smitten.

She asked if I’d like to hop in their car back to Hattiesburg, MS, and I was really close to joining them. Fortunately, I had a moment of clarity and realized I had my car keys, so if I disappeared across state lines, no one could take my car and rescue me from over one-hundred miles away.

My last kiss of 1993 and first of 1994 was not meant to be anything else. Oh well, I still had lots of Sugar Bowl tickets to sell.

Sugar Bowl Tickets, Dr. Pepper, and Robbery

The Sugar Bowl tickets were moving nicely. It was a big matchup with the #8 Florida Gators facing the #3 West Virginia Mountaineers. I was feeling really good, aside from my hangover, as I sold tickets for more money than expected and was dreaming of a tidy profit from the ticket sales.

There were still like twenty tickets left on the afternoon of January 1, 1994, as I sold them a few blocks from the Superdome near Tulane University School of Medicine.

A couple of guys pulled up to a stoplight and asked how much I was selling the tickets for, and I walked over to show them what I had. In a flash, the guy in the passenger seat swiped the tickets from my hand, and the driver floored it.

I chased after these thieves in vain, and in one last attempt to stop them, I hurled my bottle of Dr. Pepper at the back of their truck.

All of that money just drove away from me. I was going to end up negative from this trip after I worked out how much I’d have to pay out of pocket for the stolen tickets. I heard some guy on the sidewalk laughing and looked over.

He said, “That was a waste of a perfectly good Dr. Pepper.”

It sure was. Now I was out many hundreds of dollars in tickets, as well as my drink. Those monsters.

By the time the game came along, we bought some cheap tickets to get in and salvaged the night. Actually, it was an awesome night. We got to see our first college bowl game with Florida beating down West Virginia 41-7 as we sipped Mint Juleps.

The Long Journey Home

After the game, we continued our partying on Bourbon Street for one last night before driving home in the morning.

Over time, people in our group gradually headed back to the hotel room to get a little sleep. I forget what time I made it back, but I was the second-to-last one to get there.

By morning, we were still missing one person. We were trying to figure out what to do as check-out time approached, and we got the cars packed up. Just then, the missing guy wandered up, and he was still drunk out of his mind.

He had a great time partying until the last minute, which meant he wasn’t going to be sharing the driving duties anytime soon.

The journey home in my car was not fun, with all of us heading back to work the next day. I think we may have gotten home after midnight, or at least it felt like it. Back to reality and my life of underemployment. But things would get better a year later when I moved to New York City.

Still, I loved a line from Kevin Costner’s character, Gardner Barnes, in Fandango… “There’s nothing wrong with going nowhere, son. It’s a privilege of youth.”

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