Wearing business casual to work doesn’t bother me. I wouldn’t even get mad if they made me wear a tie. I like ties. Anyway, back in March, I was on a 3 week business trip in the wonderful city of Wichita, KS. I was with 2 other guys from my office, GLVJ and Meow. Sometime during that stint GLVJ got the itch to buy some cowboy gear. He was asking all the locals about which store was the best for said gear. His enthusiasm was always very contagious, and soon both Meow and I were on board to go full retard, er I mean full cowboy. You never go full retard. Ask Sean Penn.
There was somewhat of a plan involved with the cowboy gear. Oklahoma City, aka OK City, is only 2 hours away from Wichita. None of us had ever been there, AND the Big 12 Championship basketball game happened to be the next Saturday. Why wouldn’t we dress up like cowboys, go to a basketball game, and hit up every bar in Bricktown? It would’ve been stupid not to, really.
After work one day we hit up a little place called Sheplers. When I say little place I mean biggest country western store in America, maybe even the universe. You could get lost in this store, literally and figuratively. We did the latter. Now, I’m not sure why we were so excited, I mean, I was not (still am not) a big country western wearin’ feller and neither were GLVJ and Meow. I’d never even tried on a pair of cowboy boots before. That changed quickly. I may have tried on every pair of size 13 boots in the store. GLVJ and Meow were right there with me. Boots were strewn everywhere up and down the aisles. We made a mess in that place for 2+ hours before we finally settled on boots, hats, shirts, and belt-buckles. All in all the 3 of us dropped a grand in that place. Meow bought the sweetest boots in the store. No doubt in my mind. If only they would have had the same in my size. I would have Indian wrestled him for the rights.
We did have a little work to do Saturday morning, so we got on the road just after noon. We didn’t have a hotel reservation yet. We didn’t have tickets to the game yet. We didn’t know anything about OK City except where it was on the map. We did, however, have our cowboy gear, our cowboy mustaches, and a whole lot of enthusiasm.
Our plan on arrival was to find a hotel within walking distance of Bricktown, change into our sweet gear while pre-gaming, take some cowboy pictures, and find a scalper to really rip off. The Residence Inn by Marriott took care of our first need. I happen to be a Platinum Elite Marriott Rewards member which means I pretty much get the key to the city. If you believe that, I’ve got a bridge to sell you. Shortly after check-in we had accomplished nearly all of our tasks and hit the streets.
The game was just starting and we were about a mile or so away. We didn’t feel like walking. Especially since they had rickshaws! So there we were, three guys in one rickshaw driven by a 130 lb kid from Becida, MN (small world right?) when we approach a scalper. GLVJ handled this guy like he’d done it a thousand times. Scalper offered three tickets for $40 each. GLVJ countered with $40 total. Mind you, we are still all three sitting in the rickshaw on the street. GLVJ tells the rickshaw operator to start it up again. We begin to leave and the scalper stops us. This sequence happened 2-3 more times before the scalper gave in at the fabulous price of $40 for three tix. That’s just over $13 for a $55 face value ticket. That’ll do GLVJ, that’ll do.
From there we saw the game, had some BBQ, and hit up every bar that we could find, in search of any OK City cowboys. We were decked out in full cowboy gear. Turns out OK City isn’t exactly what we thought it was. There wasn’t another cowboy in sight for the entire night. We may have gone to every bar in Bricktown without seeing one of our kind. The preconceived notion we had that OK City was a rip-snortin’, wild-western, gun-slingin’, spur-wearin’ place was so wrong it was mind blowing. Of course it didn’t stop us from having a great time. We had one rule: no one else is allowed to touch your cowboy hat. That was tough to uphold because there were chicks grabbing for our hats all night long. GLVJ gave me the best line for when anyone asks to wear your hat. Look ‘em square in the eyes and say, "Only in the bedroom sweetheart." I used it on multiple occasions. It was tough to beat. Here are some other things that happened during our journey.
I guess we had another rule for the night. Anytime one of us said "Yup!" the other two guys would chime in with "Yup!" and "Yup!" in order, with a few seconds in between. It was funny to us and that’s all that matters. Don't judge me.
A heroic young man broke up a fight, saving a little guy from a serious beating. Somehow we got kicked out of the bar after that like we started it or something.
Meow told a lesbian he had pointier shoes than her. True story in two ways: it happened and he did.
Some chick ended up snagging GLVJ’s hat and he got it back from her by stepping on her toes with his boots. She didn’t like him very much after that.
We wandered in to a wedding reception, liked what we saw, stayed. We even made friends with the newlywed’s parents.
We met some people in the hotel elevator just when we thought the night was over (Meow’s night was over but he played hard). GLVJ and I went to their room for an after hours gathering. Those people we met just so happened to be former Chiefs RB Billy Jones and his entourage (how he still has an entourage is beyond me, google it). We were just a couple of cowboys, livin’ it up in OK City.
The Players
Meow, aka Sweetest Boots in the Store
GLVJ, aka Mexi-stache 
Yeah those are handlebars, what of it?When we told some of our coworkers this story, one of them told us he'd buy us lunch if we all came in wearing our full gear on Friday. Thus, Cowboy Friday was born, replacing Casual Friday forever here in our office. Shockingly, I am the only one in our office of 100 some employees that observes Cowboy Friday. I'm not sure why it hasn't caught on yet. Anyway I’d recommend checking out OK City if you have a chance. It's OK in my book. As it turns out the very last bar we went into was the cowboy hang out. We got in just in time for them to kick us out because it was closing. Live and learn.
PS Twins need to sweep the Royals and the White Sox need to take 2 of 3 from the Tigers. Let’s make it happen!
