Driving With Drunks 03.04.2007

Ok, after being at my new job for almost six months... I feel I have a unique subject to write about. I quit DJ-ing in clubs 4 years ago so that i could get a "real job" and spend more time with my family. Now i have a job that still has me leaving the office @ 2am, when the bars close - my old schedule working in them - but now I travel 30 minutes on the freeway with drunks of all types. Now don't get me wrong... I enjoy the occasional cocktail or two ... or 12, but I have a strict rule that I will not drive even if I've had one beer. Now, I have not always been this way. When i was younger, I often drove quite intoxicated and even boasted about the many roadside sobriety test I passed when I knew I was drunk. But I became wise after one scare and made the vow to never DUI again. That was a week after 9/11 and I have not driven since, if I've even had 1 drink. But these days, as I drive home on a commute that lasts from 2am to 2:30am, I see these idiots put everybody's life in danger. I have to admit, the local 911 operators probably know my cell phone number by heart by now since I've assisted in the capture of DUI offenders that I have led police too. I haven't done this to be a narc... but rather, if I had not intervened, these guys may have killed themselves as irratically as they were driving. I ignore the occasional weave or "crossing of the line"... it's the guys that bounce off concrete barriers and keep going that I report. Tonight was the Grandaddy of them all though. I'm travelling down the freeway at 60mph... the freeway curves and I see a vehicle with it's brake-lights on, apparently on the side of the road. This is a 3 lane freeway, and being in the right hand slow lane, I move over to the center lane as a precautionary measure. Now, as I said, the freeway was curving, and as I enter the curve, I notice this pick-up that is stopped on the side of the freeway is actually not on the side of the freeway but, rather, in the center lane. Stopped... brake lights shining... IN MY LANE !!!! I swerve to miss, and immediately look at the traffic behind me as there was nobody in front of me... I see a FLOOD of headlights and anticipate the worst. I simultaneously grab my cell phone, and find the nearest exit as I dial 911. I expect to see a pile up behind me at any second. I get the 911 operator on the line and give her the location of the vehicle and inform her that I am trying to swing back around to approach the vehicle at a safe distance. Come to find out, I have to backtrack on a service road for two miles in order to make the loop. The operator says that she will have officers dispatched to the scene. In the meantime, i disconnect with her and pull up on the vehicle.... amazingly still stopped in the middle lane of a busy freeway... engine running... with the brake lights on. I pull well off of the shoulder to avoid what I am sure is going to be a very bad ending if some of the occasional drunks happen to pass by and not notice the pretty bright red lights that aren't moving, yet actually getting quite bigger... and closer. Traffic is quite heavy and amazingly speedy despite the hazard. I see the driver in the vehicle.... sleeping. I grabbed a handfull of gravel from the shoulder and pelt the pick-up with it. I do this again and again... no response. I was about ready to go ahead and grab bigger rocks and just bust the poor chap's window rather than dodge traffic to wake him. Just then, I saw flashing lights, and an ambulance pulled up right behind the truck with lights blaring... the passenger asked if i had called, which i acknowledged. He yelled that they would keep it under control and that I should move on, should something happen. I did... they did... and fortunately... hopefully... some sorry bloke may live to learn not to drive after he's had his fair share of Cock Ass... I mean, tails... Cocktails. I almost always have some kind of thing like this happen, though not as extreme as tonight's... so I will now maintain a log of the "Driving With Drunks" chronicled as they happen.... other than tonight's... many are quite funny. Remember folks... Don't drink and drive... you're better off just taking the chance that he'll catch you banging his girlfriend. I'll let you think about that one for a while... I need a Cock Ass.