Trip to the Southern US, Finale - Charlotte

I'm not gonna lie here, I came to Charlotte as the last stop on my southern US trip for one reason - it was the cheapest city on the east coast to fly home out of. It's known as a business city without a ton of tourist sites, and that turned out to be true. But it was still nice and I found out a lot about it from a few different kind locals.

My hotel was on a university campus, which was a first for me. The staff was made up of hospitality majors at the school who were all extremely eager to help out with whatever because their work experience grade depended on it. I had to laugh when a front desk girl asked me to ask her about local restaurants just so she could tell me, even though we both knew I didn't care. She was cute though, so I obliged. She then told me "off the record" about a good bar up the street. THAT I cared about.

I checked out the bar the first night and had some food after a long wander around. I had to cover a UFC event though, so it was an early night back at the hotel for me. The next day was when I really learned about Charlotte.

Upon return to the bar early on a Sunday afternoon, there were but two other customers in the whole place with me. My attire once again drew attention (just like Atlanta in my last blog), but it was my Canucks hat this time. One of the guys there was from Detroit and was a massive Wings fan. So it was hockey talk on this occasion. 

Turns out the other dude was from just outside Buffalo and a Sabres fan, and the two guys were roommates. They both worked for Bank of America as mortgage brokers, and explained that probably 10% of the Charlotte population worked for the bank and none of them were from NC. They seemed to find NC amusing but a bit backwards, which turned out to be pretty spot on.

After a few beers there, they explained that they had nothing else to do so they were going on a "college girl pub crawl". Did I want to come along? Hell yeah I wanted to come along!

While we went to a couple of bars that weren't that busy yet, they explained their self-professed "preppy white" perspective on Charlotte. According to them, it was one big culture clash. On one side were the outsider rich kids that had to live there for work (ie. them). On another side were white southerners, who were generally "poor rednecks". On the third side were African-Americans, who sit in an apparent precarious position on the northern edge of the south. I don't know if any of this is actually true, I'm just relaying their explanation. I didn't see much of the culture divide in my one day there, except for the music in bars. 

We finally got to a busy college bar. It was only about 2pm on a Sunday, but everyone was drunk. It was kind of weird that all the guys were on one side and all the girls were on the other, like a seventh-grade dance, but I didn't really care. We all sat right in the middle of all the chicks, which worked for me. Pretty soon there were girls dancing on the bar to country music in front of me, which certainly had my attention. They were dumb as rocks when I talked to them, but who gives a shit? They were underdressed, drunk and they had accents. And they thought I had one too. Touchdown!

My serenity was quickly shattered by a dude at least as big as me who tapped me on the shoulder and demanded my attention. I wasn't sure what the deal was right away, but I've got into fights for less than hot college girls and I was drunk already, so whatever. But it turns out that he wanted to talk to me because he saw my Canucks hat (sports gear again!). He was at the bar with his college lacrosse team, and over half of them had traveled to lacrosse camps in Vancouver over the past five years and loved the city. He tried to drag me over to his team, but I pointed at all the girls and said they should come over here. He agreed, they agreed, and the party kicked off.

The Bank of America guys were clearly a bit put off by the gathering of lacrosse meatheads suddenly surrounding them, but everyone was friendly. I had all sorts of drinks bought for me, which was great. The girls were obviously enjoying the attention too, and all started dancing on the bar. But the music was ridiculous.

Since Charlotte is pretty far north for a "southern" town, I guess this bar was out to accommodate everyone. So a country song would come on, then two hip hop songs. Then country. Then old school southern rock. Then hip hop again. Everyone had their favorites, which made it odd. One genre would be on and 1/3 of the bar would go nuts. Then another would come on and a different 1/3 would lose their shit. That went on for two hours, and I was thoroughly confused. But I was happy as long as college girls were dancing, of course.

I know what you're gonna say, and yes you're right - Timmy magically failed with the college girls. I felt every single one of my 33 years of age at that point. and a damn college lacrosse team hanging out with me didn't help my chances. I'm used to that happening though - that's just how I do. It's all good. I was more amused by the Bank of America guys failing though. 

They actually thought they deserved every girl in there because they made 60k a year or something, and getting shot down made them mad. When we finally left, they were super bitter. "Whores," they said. "I wouldn't want any of them in my condo anyway. They'd never leave."

Sure, guys.

I returned to my hotel after about eight hours of drinking, but I wasn't really done yet. So I went to the hotel bar and met a super cool bartender lady named Cathy. She was about 45 or so, but she was the epitome of the sweet southern belle that you see on TV. Which is odd, because the only other real southern girl I've ever known was named Cathy as well, and she was just as sweet. But this lady had liquor to give me, so she wins this round.

Over the course of a few hours, she explained her thoughts on Charlotte and North Carolina in general. I don't know why, but I always pictured NC as a pretty progressive state with big business and big universities. But she explained that most of it was very rural. She was from a rural part, a town called Havelock, which was apparently next to a big military base. She talked about growing up there and how the tensions there aren't that much different than they are in the "big city she is forced to work in to make money". 

It was about 9:30pm at this point, and the bar was dead. I asked if I was imposing, and if she could close and go home if I left (she commuted 45 minutes each way). She laughed and said that I was the least of her worries. She then explained that a ton of Bank of America people from out west were about to arrive, like they did every Sunday night. They stayed in the hotel during the week, and, "they're all assholes". She had been extremely proper to that point, so that made me laugh. 

But she was 100% correct. 

Sure enough, the bar was half-full by 10:30. And all of them (men and women) were extremely demanding. Nothing was good enough - their drink didn't come fast enough, it wasn't stiff enough, the food sucked, etc. She was right, they were assholes. I said that to her, and she just shrugged. "At least y'all from Canada are sweet. You being here make it easier to deal with all them. If you wanna stick around for a while longer, your drinks are on them."

"On them? How? I mean, I'll stay either way, but that's pretty funny."

"Don't worry honey, I've been doing this for 15 years. I know how to make it work," she said with a wink.

That happened nine months ago and it still makes me laugh when I think about it. I think I had nine beers, a shot, and a pizza. I paid for 2 beers. That's it. 

So Cathy is my favorite person in North Carolina. College girls ain't got nothin' on 45-year-old southern belles with connections, yo. Thanks again ma'am!