Let’s check out the latest developments in the field of being very drunk!
First stop: Anchorage, Alaska! This snowy Canadian village, located just north of the North Pole, is home to a lot of drunkards, probably because there’s nothing to do and it’s only daylight for eleven hours a year and you live under the constant threat of a militant Eskimo uprising. To prevent these drunkards from freezing to death in snow drifts or endangering others by driving their dog sleds home to their ice forts, the city of Anchorage has a van that picks them up and takes them to a place where they can sleep it off for the night.
Last week, unsurprisingly, the van for drunk people was taken for a joyride by a drunk person.
The Anchorage Daily News has all the details. You can probably guess most of them, though: the van’s attendants left the vehicle running while collecting a passenger; a drunk dude hopped in and drove away; he crashed; the drunks in the back didn’t even realize a joyride had taken place; the guy’s name was Donny; etc. (It’s a fact that if the name you usually go by is “Donny,” the odds are good that someday you’ll be featured in a newspaper article involving three or more of the following terms: drunk, nude, meth, police chase, trailer park, snake, strip club.)
But there is one surprising aspect to the story. When you hear that a drunk guy took the community drunk van for a joyride, you assume he was one of the van’s “customers” who maybe got fed up with the frequent stops and decided to single-handedly change it from a local line to an express. That’s what I would be tempted to do, if I were drunk and impatient. But no! According to the news story, “Donny H. Weston, 35, arrived in a cab and walked up to the unlocked van.” In other words, he had no affiliation with the drunk van prior to stealing it. He was a completely unrelated drunk guy. Anchorage has so many drunk people that even after they fill up a van with them, they still have enough drunks left over to steal the van.
Now we have so many more questions. Was Donny merely looking for an easy-to-steal vehicle? Was he even aware that his choice turned out to be semi-ironic? Or was he not in the market for a stolen van at all, but simply saw this one with its engine running, and then noticed that it was the drunk van, and he was drunk, and oh my gosh, this is too perfect, I have to drive off in this thing, for comedy? There is a certain amount of logic in that line of thinking, as you’ll recognize if you’ve ever associated with a drunk person, or a comedian.
We also note that Donny was in a cab when he arrived. If the cabs in Anchorage function the same way as in other cities, this cab would have taken Donny all the way to his house if he had indicated to the driver that this was his desire. There was no need to be dropped off where the drunk van was parked. Perhaps Donny was trying to save a few dollars on cab fare.
“Go ahead and let me out here. I can take the drunk van the rest of the way.”
“OK, but you know the drunk van just takes you to a room at the jail where you sleep for the night, not to your house.”
“Oh, yeah? WE’LL SEE ABOUT THAT…!”
Next stop on our tour of drunkenness: My friend’s house the other night! There was a social gathering at which alcoholic beverages were served. Most people drank in moderation or abstained entirely, but one guy got completely wasted and passed out on the couch. Early, too, like 9:30. Naturally, conversation soon turned to the subject of what we should do to him. It is easy and unimaginative and altogether frat-house-y to simply draw on an unconscious drunk’s face with a Sharpie, or to put a sombrero on him, or to pour water on his crotch so when he wakes up he thinks he peed his pants. We knew we were better than that. These are the possible scenarios we came up with:
– One of us trades clothes with him.
– We dress him in the clothes of someone who is much larger than himself, so that when he wakes up he will think he is shrinking.
– Everything is normal when he wakes up, except that his underwear — and only his underwear — is missing.
– Everything is normal when he wakes up, except that his underwear is in his back pocket.
– Everything is normal when he wakes up, except that his underwear is neatly folded on his chest, with a note attached that says “thank you.”
– Everything is normal when he wakes up, except that his underwear is missing, and he can’t figure out what happened to it, and a week later it arrives in the mail.
– Everything is normal when he wakes up, except that his underwear is missing, and he can’t figure out what happened to it, and a week later it arrives in the mail, and the package is addressed in his own handwriting.
– Everything is normal when he wakes up, except that his underwear is missing, and he can’t figure out what happened to it, and a week later it arrives in the mail, and the package is addressed in his own handwriting, and we have murdered his parents.
The last one would have been impossible because none of us knew his handwriting well enough to forge it. Most of the others were impossible too, actually, because no one wanted to handle an unconscious guy’s underwear (not because of impropriety or violation of privacy, but because of gay). So, unfortunately, the drunk dude was permitted to continue sleeping in peace, and thus failed to learn any lessons at all, so I don’t know what the point was.
