Weekend at Bernie's...Small town version

Saturday night is the time for getting out and having a good time. "Let's party" sums it up perfectly. And with four kids and an actual budget we were quite surprised to find a "block party" in a small Georgia town up in the mountains about 45 minutes from the house. When I say "we" I of course mean my better half, Scarlett. All the shops and restaurants were staying open later than usual. The streets were going to be shutdown and several bands were going to be playing into the wee hours of the morning.
When my lovely wife told me what we were going to do I was happy but far less excited than the kids. The closer we got to departure time the more amped up they became. I know my children do not do any type of drugs but you couldn't tell. I've seen ADD riddled coke heads on a three day binge appear to be calm compared to the frenzied activity of the children. At one point I think I threatened to drop off a couple of them far short of our destination. But the closer we got the more excited I became as well. I grew up in small town America and was feeling nostalgic about the kind people and the everybody knows everybody atmosphere.
Just before dark we rolled into town to the dulcet tones of my step sons fart song, for the 6th time, and time enough to eat before the bands began to play. What type of music? How many bands? Will they sell t-shirts? We should have done more research on this to be better prepared for the 4 budding investigative reporters seated in the backseat. "I'm sure we'll find out soon enough" was my somewhat unsatisfying answer. To all questions. The streets were still open so we parked on a one way street a half mile from the "square" downtown and walked back. The crowd was light but it wasn't that dark yet. We had to ask where the party was and the owner of a rare coin and sex toy shop informed us it was in the parking lot behind his building.
The kids were sprinting down the sidewalk and raced around the corner of the building. When we arrived there was a crowd of almost 8 or 10 cars in the parking lot. No humans. No bands. No fans. No vendors. No t-shirts. Suicide was all I could think of when the sad four sets of eyeballs turned towards us. But I saw what they did not. A shiny, gleaming, ready for business ATM machine in the middle of the vacant lot. It was not a band but it was something in the lot. We took pictures with the ATM. We sang songs about the ATM on the ride home. We will never forget the time we spent with the ATM. We didn't use the ATM but we didn't need to.
Once we saw the party was not on we went and had dinner at a home cooking cafe that had been open 7 whole weeks. The staff was great and the building was unique and very clean. The prices were extremely cheap(so much so that I told the owner to raise prices when we were leaving) and the location was not bad. The only downside was a 45 minute wait for the food. Business was better than expected that day and they ran out of food. Probably a lot of folks showed up to party with the ATM. After dinner we went back to the lot to see the ATM one more time. Still no bands but the parking lot lights were going out one at a time. I thought that went the bands were getting ready to start. Nope. We headed back to the car, which was the only one left on the street, at 8:15 pm. Turnout the lights, the party's over.
Gas to attend Block party $8. Dinner plus tip $56. Ammunition for the rest of life when needling my wife: Priceless.

Till next.....