Untitled drunk story No. 2
Maybe I’m just callous, but the way I figure it, if you’re drunk enough to pass out in the busy parking lot of the bar you got plastered in, you deserve the Darwin Award conferred by the tires rolling over your head.
My friend Rachel and her room/suitemates disagreed. They wanted to pick this guy up and take him home out of harm’s way.
“Leave him be,” I said. “Just drag him out the road maybe.” After all, we’d only just gotten to the bar. Now the girls wanted to detour back to deliver charity to a victim of his own stupidity?
I was overruled, but I understood their position. It was the position of having been in that position before and being glad someone was in the position to help them. They wanted to pay the favor forward, even if the recipient would never be able to slur a “thank you.”
The car was crowded on our way there, but even more so now with an additional occupant. Why some of us didn’t just wait at the bar for the others to get back from taking Drunk Guy home is a mystery. Instead our charge occupied the passenger seat while I sat across the laps of the three girls in the back. We didn’t even know how far we’d be traveling.
“Hey, buddy,” Rachel said. She was driving. “Where do you live?”
The guy mumbled something. He was barely conscious to begin with, and the effort of trying to speak was all it took to put him under. They couldn’t get him to repeat whatever it was he said. All anyone could decipher was “Oak.” Guess what every apartment complex around the edge of campus was named? Oak-something. There was Oakmont, Oakhurst, Oak Lane, and so on. I have no idea how they arrived at a decision, but we headed to one of those possible destinations.
We had barely gotten on the road at this point when Drunk Guy reaches for the handle and gets the door to fly open. Granted, we’re only doing about 15 MPH here since we’re cutting through campus, but we’re going around a turn at the time. His body is lurching forward and out the open door toward the pavement rushing past us below. From my lap-top vantage of being both elevated and pushed almost between the front seats, I reach over and grab the guy’s collar to keep him from scraping his head across the curb.
“No, let him go,” Rachel says. “He’s gonna spew!”
Sure enough, that’s why he was going for the handle. He somehow had the presence of mind to reach for it.
When he appeared to be finished, we reeled him back in and started again on our way. While I thought the door incident was a gold medal feat in the Drunk Olympics, what happened next was even more so.
See, I can’t figure out most folks’ car radio without giving it a quick look over, but as soon as Drunk Guy was back inside the car (after having been in it only a total of maybe three minutes at this point, most of which he was unconscious for), he reaches over, turns up the radio, then promptly passes out. <i>Lyin’ Eyes</i> by the Eagles was on. We all looked at one another like, “Did he just do that?” Where Mr. Near-Death found this amazing reservoir of dexterity we’ll never know. We couldn’t interview him on this side of the finish line, so we just drove on.
We headed over to one of those Oaksomething apartment complexes and, seeing that none of his keys worked in the lock of the door he seemed to indicate belonged to him, we left his drunk, passed-out ass on the curb. Yep, you read that irony right: We left him in essentially the same fix as he started out in, his fate merely delayed until a little after 2am when the drunks came home from the bars and ran over him in their parking lot the same as they would have a couple hours earlier at the bar’s parking lot.
May’s DVD reviews, Part I
Teeth, 2006 - With the premise of a midwestern girl with a vagina dentata, there’s so much potential to rip on the Christian right and their imposed ignorance of human sexuality and even fundamental anatomy. But then you take a first-time director who penned the script himself and what you get is a clumsy, campy horror movie that is ineffective at playing to either camp or horror audiences. In short: No teeth.
Battlestar Galactica: Season 3: Disc 3, 2006 - Dani never gets into sci-fi, and to her this show is fucking crack. Normally I rotate through my Netflix queue so that, once I’ve finished a season, I don’t really come back to a show until I get through some other things I’ve been wanting to watch. Not so in this case. At the end of the first season, Dani was all like, “When does the next disc come.” I’m like, “I haven’t added it to the queue. I thought we’d watch [insert other shows I only thought she was into] first.” No, we had to add it. You should too.
Wholly Moses, 1980 - Really, really weak attempt by mostly American comedians to do to the Old Testament what the Pythons did to the New with The Life of Brian which you absolutely should see instead.
Gilmore Girls: Season 7: Disc 1, 2006 - Nothing special here. If you didn’t like the first six years of the same fast dialog, hot mom, and no plot developments that have always characterized this series, then you aren’t going to jump in at this point.
Where the Truth Lies, 2005 - Pretty good mystery. Lots of sex. They made this for me, mostly, but I’ll let you see it since you’ll enjoy it as well, I think.
Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Season 2: Disc 1, 1997 - After a really, really tired start to the series, it’s finally starting to pick up some steam. Some intrigue introduced early on in this season actually has me wanting to watch it for more than that band camp girl.
The Warriors, 1979 - Somewhat updated “director’s version” (but not a new cut exactly) of the cult classic. It’s definitely worth a viewing.
The Whales of August, 1987 - Starring an almost-dead Lillian Gish, Betty Davis, and Vincent Price, you’ll feel like this movie lasts almost as long as their respective careers summed.
Twelve Chairs, 1970 - Mediocre early Mel Brooks movie. You already know the good ones, so there’s no need to track this one down unless you’re a completist, but odds are you stopped trying at Life Stinks when his movies started to do the same.
The Office (the original BBC version), Season 1, Disc 1 - It’s been years since Dani and I watched this, so we gave it another go during a lull between Netflix discs (I own it, believe it or not). It’s still just as hilarious as it ever was, though I hesitate to recommend it to viewers who have only seen the American version that plays like slapstick (albeit a sophisticated variety thereof) by comparison.
Bug, 2006 - Potentially interesting, it just becomes silly and borders on self-parody were it not for the attempts to be gross that ground it in plotless sensationalism. Bugger off!
PICKS OF THE LITTER: Atom Egoyan’s Where the Truth Lies never found its audience unless it happens to be reading this, in which case you shout give it a shot. The Warriors acknowledges its comic book influences, but while you’re watching for the next Batman flick, check this out. Oh, and did I mention The Office was great? Yes, the BBC version. And even if I hadn’t seen Battlestar Fracking Galactica this month, I’d still recommend it. Honestly, every time I think they’re going to slip up and let a weak script slip through, they fracking surprise me (as with this disc).
