American Heroes Arrested for Fighting Against Tyrannical Trolley Pub

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I’m tired. I’m tired of complaining about the Trolley Pub. I’m tired of seeing it. I’m tired of hearing it. I’m tired of waiting in traffic behind it, creeping along Davie St. at six miles per hour. I should be complaining about Slide the City and the Ironman Triathlon, which are currently forming the perfect storm to create one of the worst weekends in the history of Raleigh. Yet here I am, addressing a Trolley Pub story that has been Tweeted, texted, emailed, and Facebooked to me countless times this week. I tried to make people realize how terrifying these Trolley Pubs are by contributing to the April Fools’ Day Trolley Pub Apartment story, but for some reason they’re still rolling around Raleigh. Let’s just get this out of the way and be done with it.

For those of you that have been so #blessed to not know what the Trolley Pub is until now, I’m sorry for ruining your life by bringing this to your attention. A Trolley Pub, Pedal Pub, or Cycle Pub is a 14-16 passenger vehicle that is powered by riders who have to bring their own beer and pay $30 per person to pedal from bar to bar on their quest for Fireball shots.

On paper, a vehicle transporting my friends and I around town while we enjoy a few hundred beers is a great idea. However, that already exists and it’s called White Horse. The Trolley Pub claims to be a great way to tour a city while getting some exercise and having a few drinks with your friends. In reality, it resembles a Tahoe sized drunk baby screaming “WHHHHOOOOO!!!!!” as it sloppily crawls its way down busy city streets, holding up traffic and tormenting anyone within a 5 block radius.

Let’s take a quick look at a few examples of the Trolley Pub ruining our way of life before I explain the worst part of its existence.

Notice the double yellow line on the street. I had to BREAK THE LAW in order to pass the Trolley Pub on my way to the emergency room. I didn’t have time to wait 15 minutes while it sputtered down one block.

 

The main problem I have is not with the Trolley Pub itself, it is with the riders. There are two types of people in the world: those who ride the Trolley Pub, and those who have graduated from high school. Trolley Pub riders can be broken down into a few categories.

1.) Hells Angels – the JoCo gang
These out of town riders come to Raleigh for a nice Saturday of terrorizing downtown bars and restaurants. They “WHHHOOOO” and hoot and holler while blaring Top 40 “hits” that are at least 5 years old. You’ll hear them coming from blocks away as they shout, “Shots, shots, shots, shots, shots, shots, shots, shots, shots, shots, shots, shots, shots, shots, shots, shots, ERRRYYYBOOODDYY!!!” (I had to suffer through watching that music video to ensure I had the correct amount of “shots” in there. It’s sixteen.)

2.) The Bachelorette/Bachelor Party
This group of riders boards the Trolley Pub at least a few drinks deep already. The Bachelorette can be identified by her classy sash and phallic shaped drinking straw bobbing up and down in her vodka cranberry. The Bachelor is the bro high fiving his other bros and Snapchatting his future ex-wife because really, who would stay married to someone who rides the Trolley Pub? The Bachelorette group shrieks at the top of their overly intoxicated lungs hoping that someone will drive by and do this so they can all giggle and think they’re hot.

By the end of the night the Bachelorette/Bachelor is crying/vomiting while their Maid of Honor/Best Man stumbles around trying to find their purse/cracked iPhone 4.

3.) Team Building with Coworkers from that New Cool Startup
This group just started working for a start-up that closed a $317,000 round for Appy App, their farm to table gluten free appetizer delivery app that Mark Cuban almost invested in. Attempting to “leverage the social footprint of each employee to maximize engagement”, they’ll create a lame hashtag like #AppyApplovestheTrolleyPub and will live-tweet the entire ride.

4.) The Bar Golfers
Bar golfers are already insufferable, so their decision to ride the Trolley Pub and make people hate them even more is quite perplexing. They’ll board the Trolley Pub wearing golf attire from T.J. Maxx as they chug Bud Light Mixxtails and pregame for the premier of the new Entourage movie. They’ll spend the entire night shouting quotes like, “Let’s hug it out, bitch!” and “Baby bro! I don’t wanna move back to Queens!”

5.) ITBers who reluctantly ride the Trolley Pub because it’s a friend’s birthday/engagement/some other event
This group is an outlier to my previous statement about there being only two types of people in the world. These are the ONLY people that should be allowed to ride the Trolley Pub. They are simply having a good time and enjoying the company of their 15 closest friends. They aren’t “WHOOOOO-ing” or hooting and hollering, and they certainly aren’t screaming “shots” sixteen times before slurring “ERRRYYBOOODDYY”.

Now that we can all see why the Trolley Pub is so universally despised we can truly appreciate the acts of six brave American heroes. Last Saturday in Minnesota, six heroes wielding water guns and water balloons set out on their bicycles to put an end to this madness, or at least moderately inconvenience whoever was riding the Trolley Pub that day.

Unfortunately for our heroes, a few of the Trolley Pub riders were off-duty police officers. The off-duty cops became enraged after getting wet and took justice into their own hands by subduing our heroes and threatening to break their arms, because that’s a totally reasonable reaction…

Our heroes were charged with assault and terrorist threats, which is a FELONY. Let that sink in. Using water guns and water balloons to stick up for our freedom from the oppression of Trolley Pubs is a felony. When are we going to charge the Trolley Pub with terrorist threats and for assaulting our way of life?

While I applaud their efforts, these heroes should have used Tahoes as getaway vehicles and Super Soakers filled with tears from Trolley Pub victims to make their statement more poignant and dramatic. Regardless, they will all be named honorary ITBers for their acts of bravery.

A lot of people have said to me, “Have you tried it before? It’s actually a lot of fun.” So? Some people think skydiving is a lot of fun, but you don’t see skydivers dropping down in the middle of Fayetteville St. when I’m trying to have a beer or eat an $8 hotdog. (If I just gave someone the idea for a skydiving Trolley Pub so help me God….) Your definition of fun does not trump my desire for the Trolley Pub to not exist.

The Trolley Pub is simply unAmerican. Everyone has to pitch in and pedal in order for it to work, which sounds a lot like communism. If you could put people that you’ve known for 30 years on it, remove the pedaling, install kegs and a cooler for Jell-O shots, put it in a permanent location, and give it a better name, I might consider doing it. Basically, make it Churchill’s. Unfortunately, I don’t see that happening any time soon.

I shouldn’t even have to say this but I am declaring an ITB boycott on all Trolley Pubs. I don’t care if it’s someone’s birthday or anniversary or even their funeral, all self-respecting ITB residents must stop riding the Trolley Pub. I know that won’t solve the problem of outsiders flocking to Raleigh for a Saturday night of “WHHHOOOO-ing”, so I’m open to suggestions. I’m just a guy trying to figure out how to live my life without being violated by the Trolley Pub.

8 Comments

  1. Loved this latest post. Very informative and entertaining, at the same time. It was also eye opening, as we don’t have those in the Boston area. Thankfully, nobody’s thought to bring it here as yet, but I have to believe our climate has much to do with it.

    I can certainly appreciate how annoying it must be. It would be disastrous in Boston, as well. I can just imagine all the drunken college students from Harvard and BC falling off their seats and cracking their skulls against the brick streets. It could be a tremendous source of entertainment, however, if used by yuppie singles, for after work happy hours.

    Please continue your posts. They’re extremely well written pieces of satirical literature, which are a total pleasure to read. Your fan, a Yankee from Beantown.

  2. Mr. Finley,

    As a graduate of Hale (’87) I stand in solidarity with you on this matter. As a matter of fact, because of the wise and timely observation of this aberrant blight on our downtown environs I hereby nominate you as Mayor of Raleigh! 🙂

  3. Just take your little Kia soul and move your punk ass out of Raleigh. It seems you love to complain about everything so either you are doing it because you are unhappy with your miserable life or you are just an attention whore.

  4. This was very well designed and extremely creative. But then again so was the Edsel.
    Next, why don’t you complain about downtown concerts, beer festivals, and Raleigh area neighborhood pool events. All of which include beer, loud obnoxious conversation and plenty of Whoo Hoos.
    Issues with slow traffic around Fayetteville St. is about as pointless as whining about all the jean shorts at the State Fair. It comes with the territory.
    The Raleigh Trolley is absolutely obnoxious. That’s the whole point. Fun had by a group is rarely quiet. Always judged by others not having it.

  6. Terrorist Acts! Sadly that is not surprising in the least.
    The rolling scream machine really IS annoying, if you are not in on the apparent fun.
    I have not, nor will I ever, be in on that particular brand of fun, however….I guess fairness is at least an American aspiration, so maybe you really should try it first?
    Given how many annoying, impractical, cool, creative, unique, and sometimes even fun things that are NOT allowed in Raleigh, I guess I hate to slam the door on anything outside the box, (even if I can’t really stand it), cuz the box is getting so small!
    As long as folks don’t accidentally use the Lords name in vain or say anything negative about Duke “Progress” Energy, we should be alright….

  7. “Next, why don’t you complain about downtown concerts, beer festivals, and Raleigh area neighborhood pool events. All of which include beer, loud obnoxious conversation and plenty of Whoo Hoos.”

    HELLO and all of which suck, too.

  8. This is the cheesiest , sad, blow-in , activity for non – native Raleigh citizens to do in the City of Oaks! I was in Christ Church at a funeral and I heard all this commotion and hooting and hollering – guess who! The loser trolley pup and their merry band of zeros who can’t find anything else to do in Raleigh but interrupt a solem occasion like a funeral in one of Raleigh’s oldest ITB land marks. Then it happened again on a Saturday afternoon in front of The Church of the Good Shepherd as the casket was being unloaded for another funeral to begin for an old Raleigh family. This thing has to go! The antithesis of class and what decent ITB people used to call down town .

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