I saw a guy at my local grocery store the other day. I recognized him as some drunk guy with other various medical conditions I pulled out of his car about 8 years ago.It had been Thanksgiving weekend and I was on my way to my parent's house in Blackburn when we came across a line of cars in front of the Fire Station off the Innes road bypass. After waiting a bit , one by one the three cars in front of us passed a car that was stationary in the middle of the road. When we pulled up behind it, my wife was driving I decided to get out of the car and see if the guy was having trouble. He sure was! His front driver side fender was digging into the rubber of his tire because he had obviously hit something and he was also drunk as a skunk! He was having trouble driving his car forward in neutral so I reached in and took his keys (he batted my hands away once so I shoved him back in his seat and took them out anyway). I remember looking for a medic alert bracelet and he didn't have one. I turned back to my wife and made the "drunky drunky" sign and looked back inside the guy's car.
On the passenger seat was about $200 in loonies. The whole seat was full of them. I had no idea what they were for, if the guy was on his way to a casino or what. On the floor on the passenger and driver's side were some bottles of Vermouth (whatever that is, I'm no connoisseur), some open and some closed which I took to be the cause of his drunkenness. I was wondering how the hell I was gonna get him out of his car and over to the fire station. He was a pretty big fat guy, with a huge gut and track-pants (the outfit that says, "I've let myself go, but at least I'm comfortable!"). That was when I saw Stephen Seagal.
Ok, it wasn't Stephen Seagal, it was a guy in a 300ZX who just looked like Stephen Seagal, you know, black leather jacket, black jeans, pony-tail and general "I can kick your ass" look etc. He came over and asked me if I needed any help and I said "Yeah! He's drunk, let's bring him over to the firemen across the street." So Stephen and I hauled him out of his car and each taking an arm, half-carried him over to the fire station. That's when the drunk guy spoke. He said in a slurry voice "Call my wife".. I looked over at Steve and he seemed quite concerned that this guy was going to hurl all over his pony tail so he was being quick about it and carrying the guy by the arm like you would a small child with a leaking diaper.
We got the guy to the side entrance to the apparatus floor of the fire station and I tried to get him to sit down but he refused and just stood all there all shaky leaning up against the wall, ready to fall at any moment. I was kinda pissed at him for being drunk and driving in my general vicinity so I tried to make him sit down but he resisted. Short of taking him out at the knees, he wasn't going to sit down. "Screw it!" I thought. You'll fall down soon enough on your own. I rang the bell and soon the firemen were out, they called the cops and an ambulance and we went and moved the guy's car. When I got back the firemen had gotten the guy a chair but he still wasn't sitting down! He wasn't drunk dammit! He was gonna stand there and show us how sober he was!
He finally fell when the ambulance arrived. Right on his face before anyone could stop him (like everyone didn't see that one coming). One of the officers said the "I've fallen and I can't get up" line and we laughed (sure it wasn't nice, but neither is driving while intoxicated). As the Paramedics ran over and helped him one of the police officers expertly removed the fallen guy's wallet from his back pocket using only his foot. It was pretty impressive. I guess he has a lot of experience in that department.
At that point I thanked Stephen Seagal and his supermodel girlfriend and my wife and I left. A day later I got a call from the officer in charge and he said they were not pursuing the case because the guy was a diabetic and he had apparently been in some sort of diabetic state that resembles drunkenness.
"Uhh.. " I said "But, he had no medic alert bracelet, his car was all smashed up, he had 3 or 4 bottles of booze in his car some of them opened, he reeked of alcohol, he couldn't walk or stand up or even talk and we won't even mentioned the 200 loonies in the passenger seat.." He was pretty nice about it and said it wasn't his decision, that it probably merited further investigation, but the powers that be had decided that it was a weak case not worth pursuing. They were letting the guy go.
Newsflash, if you're a diabetic you can get still get loaded, drive drunk, hit stuff and nothing bad will happen to you as long as you don't kill yourself or someone else. Somehow I just know that I ever ever do something stupid and get caught, I'm going to jail while these guys like this one get away with all kinds of stuff. Maybe I'll develop diabetes and have a built-in defence (probably not worth it).
So that's the long story. The short one is that the guy still lives in Orleans and shops at the Yours Independent Grocer off Orleans boulevard and I saw him a few weeks ago! I followed him with my cart in the apple aisle. I wanted to talk to him and do the "Remember me?" bit but I figure it's been too long. He has something else wrong with him besides diabetes. He has that drop foot thing whereby when you walk your foot goes limp and you kind of fall down on it and then take another stride. That's probably why he had trouble walking across the road way back when.
Suffice it to say I feel sorry for his medical state and all, but he was, in my unprofessional opinion, still stinking drunk that day and has no excuse. He could have crashed into a busload of nuns or run over some kid on the sidewalk.
A-hole..
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