My Truckin' Birthday

What is there to do in Floribama for one's birthday?

A monster truck rally, of course.

My date and I were inexperienced Monster Truck Ralliers. How does one prepare for an evening of car-crushing mayhem? We figured a trip to Wal-Mart for clothes was a good bet.

This awesome truck was in the parking lot:

Those are beer bottle cap decorations on the hat. An inspired artistic touch.

We wanted something to wear, so we poked around. Here's a classy selection from the young ladies' department:

Tube top sweatshirt. You can't make this stuff up.

From the men's, a Jesus tie:


For couples, color coordinated head wrap thingies:

Pictured here: Flame and Tiger styles. Not shown: "Truckers Rule" print.

Also available at Wal-Mart are garments that allow the wearer to have the look and feel of corporate sponsorship without the pesky hassle of remuneration:


In the end, we selected some three dollar fishing hats that have a slot in the front for your fishing license. We decided his was funniest with the "Place Fishing License Here" card inside, and he wrote "Birthday Girl" on mine.


Decked out in this finery we headed to Mobile, Alabama.

I noticed when we arrived was that there were a lot of kids. I had sort of thought maybe this was a beer and fried food type of event, but as it turns out it's more of a beer and tired-looking-cotton-candy type of event.



The first sign of what was to come was that every kid was a fan of the same truck: Grave Digger. There was not one kid who was a fan of any other truck, and the souvenir stand only sold Grave Digger souvenirs.

Tantrum in progress at bottom left. Souvenir shirts visible in the back.

We made our way inside. The crowd wasn't what you'd call diverse, but everyone was friendly, respectful, and in good spirits.


An announcer came out on the floor and spent a while naming off sponsors and getting the crowd excited for the rally using a vocal style somewhere between Foghorn Leghorn and the movie phone guy. He introduced the Subway Sandwich Man, for whom the kids went wild.


Then they brought out the flag:

They had veterans and enlisted folks in the audience stand up and did a whole song, and it was actually kind of moving and sweet. I love my country in certain ways, but I am completely unaccustomed to this type of thing, and I had to be gently reminded to remove my hat. Whoops.

Then the truck rally began.
For anyone who hasn't been, it basically goes like this-
There are old cars:


And big trucks:


Big trucks smoosh old cars:


Big trucks "race" and "do donuts" in a "competition". Caveat: Grave Digger wins. Always.

Add incredibly loud music and the opportunity to boo at the top of your lungs for anyone racing against Grave Digger, and that's pretty much it.

There's an intermission in the middle where they come out and sweep up the broken glass in preparation for more of the same. During intermission there's a stampede towards the beer vendors and the outdoor fenced-in smoking section. Ostensibly, this is provided as a courtesy to those with small children so they needn't be exposed to wafting clouds of Marlboro-Light mist. However:

No, that's not a day care. Yes, that's the smoking section. Chock. Full. Of. Kids.

On the other hand, the charming fellow on the far left of that frame was wearing a lovely T-Shirt that we saw on four different men that evening. The text reads: "Nothing beats racking my balls at the crack of Dawn" coupled with an illustration of an attractive woman pictured from behind playing pool in a thong bikini. Despite the "cleverness" of this text, it was well beyond my suspension of disbelief to imagine that any of the men wearing this shirt would have a date with a woman as attractive as Dawn, even if she was just a drawing. Honestly, I wanted to get you all a photo of it, but it wasn't worth the risk of having to talk to him.

Other fine T-shirt selections:


And:


When the rally was over, we rushed through the gates to have a chance at a photo of the sandwich man. I found him and asked permission, which he granted with a felt-glove thumbs-up. At the precise moment that I snapped the photo, something occurred that broke my heart and proved that tacky advertising gimmicks are indeed the way to a child's heart:

Yes. That adorable little kid gave Subway Sandwich Man a huge hug around the knees.

In line for autographs, this cutie was waving his Grave Digger flag with gusto:


And this sleepy guy scored a Grave Digger stuffed truck from his Pops:


The Rally is clearly an excellent place to win the hearts and minds of Alabama's children. If you were to hand out free t-shirts and prizes, and park a cool vehicle out front for kids to play in, you could probably convince them to join anything.


We headed over to downtown Mobil for a birthday drink at a Brewery. It's a really sweet little town, and the streets are blocked off so that pedestrians may wander from bar to bar with only the traffic risks of colliding into one another or tripping over their own shoelaces. Amid the din of revelers and the sounds of live bands and DJs wafting out of different establishments, there was a little cluster of men with a big sign yelling about how much better it would be to be with Jesus instead of being drunk. Everyone was ignoring them.

Maybe I should have let them know they'd have better luck if they were dressed up as sandwiches.