"I can't even believe this place exists."

Quote courtesy of Jon, one of the audit associates in New Orleans with me, and it was said while we were walking down Bourbon Street last night after a number of completely ridiculous occurrences. Also, it was said as we were pointing out the picture advertisements outside of one of the "live sex acts" shows. And there was a family with a 12 year old kid walking next to us. True story.

Every time we come to this hell hole, the client person that we have to deal with forces us to go to his house for dinner one night. It is always awkward and terrible. And for some reason, he always only makes jerk chicken, like it's all he knows how to make. Last night was unfortunately that night.

A little background on this douchebag: he is a 60 year old originally from Trinidad, and apparently, in Trinidad there are no ethical guidelines for appropriate behavior, because he constantly says offensive and dirty things to us. He is like a perfect example of just a dirty old man. And he LOVES him some Carrie. She's never been so happy that this is her last day working at Reznick, I can guarantee you that.

Usually for this dinner, the whole team is here. However, Allan, the partner, had to go back to Charlotte Wednesday night, so he wasn't in attendance. Big mistake. We should always be supervised when in the client's presence. I'm not gong to bore you all with all of the awkwardness of this party, but I will highlight the two most ridiculous events. First of all, Amanda caught three client employees smoking a bowl in the side yard right after we got there. Yes, a bowl. Of marijuana. And as if that isn't ridiculous enough, at one point in the night, the Dirty Old Man (DOM) goes to get an old photo album and sits on a couch next to Susan and Carrie. And first he shows them a mildly inappropriate picture of him with his infant son laying on his chest while he is wearing only super short 80's shorts. That was gross enough. He then turns the page, leaves it wide open, and launches into a long story. And Susan and Carrie look down at the page, and there is a picture of him totally nude (from the back, as Susan immediately points out) laying seductively on a bed. And this guy is so offensive, we're pretty sure this was done on purpose.

Susan and Carrie were terrified to say anything, knowing that if they acknowledged it in any way, his response would be something like "oh, you like that one? Look at this one!" As soon as they were able to evacuate that situation, we got the hell out of there and called Allan on the phone. Needless to say, he was speechless and couldn't formulate a coherent thought about this incident until this morning. If you're asking yourself right now, "who does that?" the answer is "a sexual predator."

Certain that the only way to erase this memory was to get stinking drunk, we headed immediately to Bourbon Street. We got a table outside at Pat O'Brians (the dueling piano bar had a line) and ordered liquor. On Allan's dime. We were sitting next to a tree, and all of a sudden, AJ screams, and we find a GIANT rat running down the tree, inches from our table. According to Jon, it was a "roof rat" which are gigantic and live in trees because that's how they get from the roof to the ground. AJ and I were practically spooning, as far from the tree as possible, ad Carrie was basically on Susan's lap, until we finished our drinks and recognized that there was just no way we were going to have fun that night. So we got some road beers (the only awesome thing about New Orleans: being able to walk on the streets with open containers), went back to the hotel, and watched the Olympics in Carrie's room.

I mean there's really nothing that can follow that in terms of horribleness, so I'll end here on a happy note. We did have some fun this week, which included some Casino time (we all lost) and a trip to WINO. And it's Friday, so I get to go back to Charlotte soon, and I was upgraded to first class for the flight. Yay. Unfortunately I have to come back here Sunday. Boo.

Hope you all had a better week than me...and have a good weekend!