Wednesday of St. Patrick’s Day started out like any other show day.  Everyone arrived at Pearson’s house 15 minutes late, and we began loading the trailer (who shall henceforth be referred to as “The Kenobi”).  Jacob Combs, tour manager extraordinaire, arrived with 3 shiny, brand new trailer locks.  They were even reinforced against bolt-cutters!  You see, the previous week, when we were picking up Brandon for a show in Houston, one of our trailer keys was broken off in the trailer lock, rendering the lock completely useless.  It’s a boring story, so I’ll spare you.  But now you understand the situation.

After loading the Kenobi, we jumped in the van (who shall henceforth be referred to as “The Washington”) and hit the road to Austin.  On the way, for some reason, we attached all copies of the trailer lock keys to one key-ring… the van key-ring (which shall henceforth be referred to as “The Lord of the Key-Rings”).  So began the comedy of errors.

Someone made the comment, “Hey, maybe all the keys shouldn’t be on the same key-ring.” Valid point, however there was no follow up. Those that heard nodded their heads in agreement, trusting that someone would surely correct this grievous error.  Alas, nothing was done.  The trap was set.

We arrived in Austin on St. Patrick’s Day for SXSW around 5pm.  It was packed.  We considered parking in an official event spot, making a fake parking sign (for a fake emo-band called “Drama Armada”), and playing the show.  However, a mix of fear and integrity prompted us to pay $20 at some lot, which was plainly run by the parking gangster conglomerate of Austin.

To make a long story short, we drove to the venue at 9:45pm, passed through a barricade, angered a cop, played a show on a stage the size of a postage stamp, ROCKED IT, got in the Washington, and headed to Waco to drop Brandon off at his house.  The time is 2:00am, and we’re outside of Brandon’s place.

We unlocked and removed both locks on the back door of the Kenobi, removed Brandon’s bass gear, and loaded it onto his front porch.  Tarvin shut the trailer door, clicked the first lock shut, and asked Chris where he put the second lock.  His answer?  In the trailer with The Lord of the Keys-Rings…

…which is now unaccessible because of lock 1.

After sending a second car to Walmart for bolt cutters (they had none), calling a locksmith (they didn’t do 2:30am)  and also considering freezing and breaking the lock, Chris called 911.  He was polite.  So they sent the big guns.  That’s right, three semi-conscious fire fighters in a full-on red fire truck came to our aid.  Chris figured they’d been hanging out and watching TV.  In reality, they had been sleeping.  Without saying a word, the angriest-looking among them snapped the lock off and returned to the truck.  They did not accept our offer of a free CD.  Can’t imagine why.

In bed at 6am again.  And what did we learn?  Nothing.  Oh well.

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