Cutting the Cheez

God help me, I didn’t need another addiction. And yet, here I am, chained to another debilitating, cash-hemorrhaging, septum-crumbling habit – just another monkey on my back, picking away at braincells like so many delicious nits.


It all began Saturday. Jay, Christian, Lawrence, and I woke up at the crack of noon to play a round of golf at Atlanta’s most cherished Confederate landmark and the proud home of the re-formed, new and improved for 1915, Ku Klux Klan – Stone Mountain. Eighteen holes, two cases of beer, four shots of tequila, and one sexually harassed beercart girl later, we were escorted off the course by the Golf Police. Good times, great oldies. Wasting little time, we drove to an authentic Mexican salmonella café, where we gorged merrily upon tacos al pastor and barbacoa, and I consumed a burrito whose size was dwarfed only by the enormous cockroach crawling along the wall. The authenticity factor was high.


Upon leaving the Mexican pit, we embarked to the Pink Pony where we promptly ordered ten rounds of their finest Jagermeister and settled in to watch the Cubs-Marlins playoff game. Attending to the game was more difficult than I expected, as the naked, gyrating bimbo dancing in my lap kept blocking the TV. I forgave her, of course, and she forgave me for craning my neck around her implants to get a better view of the pitch count. We chatted briefly about the huge potential of the Cubs’ young pitching staff – or rather, I blathered drunkenly about the Cubs’ young pitching staff, and she nodded and waited patiently until I my $20 bill was close enough to snatch. Go figure.


Realizing that the game was rapidly turning into a one-sided Cubbie blowout of the Marlins, we turned our attentions back to the booze, and polished off one unholy round after the other – I’ve never walked gracefully out of the Pink Pony, and I certainly wasn’t about to flaunt tradition that day.


A brief history of The Pink Pony Theatre and Museum, as it has been passed down by countless strippers and Atlanta sleaze aficionados (i.e. I could be wrong): The Pink Pony was originally zoned as an adult entertainment establishment within Dekalb County, Georgia, and lived a normal existence as the flagship Galardi booby bar in the country. Seriously, it’s still one of the best I’ve ever been to, and my accountant can support the significance of that statement. A few years back, local politicians got a bug up their collective ass to shut down all the adult establishments within the county – even the upstanding, wholesome, god-fearing clubs like the Pony. So, in an example of legal ninjitsu the likes of which would impress the black off Johnny Cochran, the club’s attorneys re-zoned it as a museum, installed a bunch of glass cases with smut artifacts like original Debbie Does Dallas posters, and carried on with business as usual. To get around the pesky issue of a “museum” shilling enormous amounts of liquor to its “patrons”, they began serving crackers with every drink. All of a sudden, the drunken titty gazers weren’t buying an eight dollar mixed drink, they were buying an eight dollar pack of Cheez-Nips and receiving a complimentary drink with it. Somewhere right now, the Star-Spangled Banner is playing, and I salute it.


Back to my story: after four or five hours of nonstop power drinking, we had begun to build a rather impressive collection of crackers. Jay, ever the innovator, began crushing up the Cheez-Nips with his credit card, and studiously dividing them into gigantic lines of processed crackery goodness, and then, to the amusement of everyone but security, snorted up a rail. Oh holy hell – roll up your sleeves and your bills, gentlemen – it’s a Cheez Toot Party, and this shit was pure, uncut Wisconsin Gold.


We all took turns snorting ginormous piles of Cheezcaine, and, surprisingly, it was quite pleasant -- maybe too pleasant. The enriched wheat flour, cultured milk substitute, and artificial coloring dripped down my nasal passages providing a salty, flavorful euphoria that would also help to firm up the liquor-shits I knew I’d be having the next day. On top of that, snorting Cheez-Nips was an invaluable source of nutrition, which, at 400 calories a bag, would go far towards replenishing all the calories I might have accidentally burned off while lifting one heavy beer after another.


I was hooked from Line One, and, though it has only been a few days, I’ve already dusted four snack-sized bags of Cheez-Nips at a wallet-busting $0.59 per bag. The clerk at the gas station is shooting me funny looks because I keep scratching my face when I slap a bag of Orange Devil on his counter for the second time in a morning.


Christ, I didn’t need this. If anyone knows of a support group for people with similar nasal addictions, for the love of Allah, tell me.


This is a cry for help.