One of my favorite parts of the weekend is the morning-after comparison of stories. You’re either still in bed or devouring some Waffle House smothered-covered-capped hash browns when the phone rings. It’s the report of wacky occurrences from the night before–either who fell off the bar stool or what ridiculous route the taxi driver took for a simple ride.
Well my story absolutely took the cake this weekend. Although it runs a close race with my friend who almost choked to death on a piece of steak–but wait, that was terrifying, not funny in the least.
My friend and I are sitting on my couch eating some dinner and watching the Final Four when the chaos begins. “POW!” sounds loudly from outside my front window, facing the street. Immediately I think a drive-by shooting just occurred as I look out the window to see the culprit. Then out of nowhere an Explorer comes shooting across the sidewalk, through my communal front lawn at 40 + MPH and slams to a stop upon hitting a tree.
“Oh my gosh!” I scream while jumping to open the door. My friend calls 911 as I yell to the driver, attempting to see if he’s okay. The car’s smoking out-of-control, so I keep a safe distance in preparation for the explosion. The man doesn’t respond and the airbags having deployed has me worried. Scared of seeing a dead body, my friend tosses me the phone to answer the 911 responder’s questions.
“Do you need an ambulance on the scene?” she says.
“I don’t know. He won’t say anything,” I say in between screams at the man. Without answering me, he suddenly opens the car door and then begins to walk down a side street away from the accident.
“We DON’T need an ambulance. He’s walking away!” I say frantically as some college guys coming running down my street to follow the man.
“Keep your phone on you, please. We have multiple units on the way,” the responder says.
As four cop cars descend upon the accident, the destruction path of the man unwinds. The “gun shot” I heard was actually the Explorer hitting a parked Toyota truck one block up the street. Before striking that truck, he smashed into two other parked cars and crossed a busy intersection airborne–without tapping the brakes, needless to say. The college guys who followed the wild driver were members of the fraternity just up the street. Luckily they saw most of the accident occur from their front porch. Too bad the crushed truck belonged to one of them, and it was only two weeks old.
The cops quickly found the man hiding in some bushes a few blocks away. So what’s the reasoning for all his destruction? A driver who saw him go airborne over the intersection (as she slammed on brakes to miss hitting him) suggested he’d had a seizure. Nope, just drunk out of his mind. At 8:20 p.m. nonetheless. And he wasn’t even a college student.
Now, try to beat that Saturday night story.