drunk driving

Those of you who do this will continue to insist that you can sober yourselves up at will. I hope very sincerely that I am at least 50 miles away from your intended path of travel when you do. I don't want to be involved in an accident with you... or see the devastation after you hit someone else.

My close friend, Paul, had been killed by a drunk driver early that morning.

Note: It is not a good idea to send an email informing a friend of the death of someone close to them. This is generally viewed as severely insensitive.

I thought it was a sick joke. Firstly, I thought I knew the person sending me this information well enough to assume that they'd never send me an email like this. Secondly, I had just responded moments ago to another longish email from Paul, who had recently started making a concerted effort to get to know me closely. He had been writing me for weeks, telling me of his dreams, asking me to share mine, talking about his father's death a few years back and how that affected his life, discussing how God moves and uses people...

But it wasn't a joke. I made a few calls and verified the information. Paul had been hit while stopped at an intersection on his way to his job at the post office. The driver had been drinking and was going in excess of 90 mph.

I spent quite a while in my car in the parking lot outside my office building, weeping into a pile of napkins because the woman in the cubicle next to me couldn't find real Kleenex.

Paul was 29 years old. He was a stocky man, had no conception of his own strength, and gave excellent bear hugs and advice. He would rub my temples, scalp, and forehead when my head ached. He'd walk me to my car if it was dark outside. He wanted to be a pastor and was working two jobs to save enough money to launch into the ministry. Paul was humor, warmth, excitement, and child-like wonder personified.

And I miss him.

Jason just looked at me and told me a quick story.

Jason had a good friend a few years earlier who was, in all respects, totally average. He had no major emotional problems, got along fine with friends and family and never had a problem with alcohol, or any other drug.

Then one morning Jason gets a call from his friend's parents explaining that their son was in jail for killing a family of four while driving drunk back from a bar.

One nuclear family eliminated instantly.

Jason's friend will be in prison for the rest of his life. The strange thing is he swears he can't remember anything, even being in a bar that night.

Thankfully I didn't hurt the other person very badly, but I did mess myself up something awful.

Hows this for a morning after? You wake up, and realize there is a pin 1/4" thick drilled through your left shin bone, with 40 lbs. of traction weight on it, for your broken pelvis. Then you realize your left thumb (thats the hand you jerk off with!) is nearly severed, and the tip is hanging by only the webbing between your forefinger and your used-to-be thumb. The doctor tries to get your attention so he can explain and get your permission to remove the second toe of your right foot and tissue to reconstruct an appendage which will turn out at most to be 30% of what it was, and horribly scarred for the rest of your existence (I'm only twenty-two), but hey, at least you're not back to being without an opposable digit at all... Thats what separates us from the monkeys after all...

I didn't realize how drunk I was. I drank two shots of overproof rum, and had a few bloody marys along with some beer at dinner. (Later I realized it was 100 proof vodka, and I had more like 4 bloody marys.) This was all after a big meal. I didn't act drunk to my friends, they all thought I was just a little buzzed, and sunday traffic at 11pm wasn't so bad. In hindsight, the reason I left was dumb as hell. I wanted to get away from this guy (this old guy I'm nice to), because he wanted to have sex with me, and I kept telling him I wasn't going to do it. I had him ping my dsl modem from his house, and when it replied, I told him I was out, DSL is back up, I'm gone. Lets skip this scene.

I could've held off or told him flat out no, slept on his living room couch, (which folds out into a bed), woke up in the morning with a pounding hangover, and driven home safely. I wouldn't have spent 2 months in the hospital, and 3 months out of work, along with $400 grand in insurance coverage. Not to mention I wouldn't owe my ex-gf the six grand for the car I wrecked. (see, the psycho hose beast was uninsured... (snicker))