11/20/2000

It's a Monday night in St. Louis. It is 6:00 pm and I'm on my way to Brooke's apartment in rush hour traffic. Brooke lives downtown, which also happens to be where the St. Louis Rams will be playing tonight. And to add even more annoyance to my trip- boy band "N.S.Y.N.C." will be making a concert appearance only a few short blocks away from my final destination.

That's alot of freaken traffic to deal with

So there I am, driving down the center lane on highway 40 in stop and go traffic with Rams fans on my left, teenie boppers on my right, frustrated 9-5ers trying to get home behind me, and a stalled black Honda Civic 2 cars in front of me. This is not somewhere I want to be, and the SUV in front of me must be thinking the exact same thing...

The Explorer in front of me puts on his blinkers and exits right, and now it's only about 10 feet of space between me and the stalled civic now. I'm looking in my rearview mirror for a chance to go around this guy when I notice that the driver in front of me isn't moving. In fact, he is hunched over and face down like a dead person would be I'm thinking...

"Great", I think, "There's a dead guy in front of me".

I pull out to the right of the car, and get a good look at the hunched over figure alone in the car. He still isn't moving. This being St. Louis I know no one else is going to bother helping out this person, so I flip on my hazard lights and pull in front of the stopped car-

I get out and walk to the driver side window. It's rolled down a little bit and I start knocking on the window as hard as I can. He doesn't move. I knock harder. He still doesn't move. I try talking to him through the window. Nothing.

I decide to open the door and shove the guy to see if he'll awake or something.

He moves.

"He must have narcolepsy" I think.

Drool comes out of his mouth as turns and looks at me. "Hey- wake up... are you alright?"

".. .. football.. .. " is the only word I can make out that this guy is saying. "What's wrong with this guy?" I'm thinking.

Then I smell his breath and it hits me- This bastard has passed out at the wheel from a little too much pre-game partying. Passed out in the center lane on highway 40. In rush-hour traffic. In monday night football traffic. With 10 billion kiddies on the way to their NSYNC concert.

I'm a little upset at this point.

With the door still open, I reach in and take out the keys from the ignition and shut the door. The drunkard protests. Then he calls me "Officer". He thinks I'm a cop and that he's been busted. I just leave him there while I walk to the back of his car and stare at the traffic zipping by me on both sides, wondering what the heck to do.

The thought occurs to me that I should just toss this guys keys as far as I can and just go on my merry way.... but what if he happens to find his keys? I can't let him just drive away like this.... I'll just stand here for a little while and the cops will show up.

I wait.

And wait.

Then it occurs to me that I'm probably going to have call on a phone or something, as my telepathic powers seem to be broken today. So with my right hand raised to my head like a phone and my left hand motioning to cars passing by I try to get someone to stop. A couple of minutes go by and a happy little young couple in a mini van pull over.

"Do you need some help?" the male driver asks me.

"Yea, this guy's drunk off his butt and I need to get the police out here"

He calls 911 and lets them know where we are and what is going on. He tells me the police are on their way. I say thanks and he and his wife drive off. A couple of minutes go by and flashing lights soon appear and pull up behind the black civic. I hand the police officer the keys and tell him my story. He walks up to the drivers side door, looks in and walks back to me. By now a highway patrolman shows up and is informed to what is going on.

The highway patrolman walks up to the door and asks the drunk bastard to step out of the car. I watch the guy pull himself out of the civic and rest himself on his car. He then slides down the back of the car and smacks hard on into the pavement.

The cop rolls him over, handcuffs him and puts him in the car.

Final score:
Missouri State Patrol 1
Drunk Bastard 0

I get to move my jeep over to the side of the road and a tow truck comes and gets the civic. The cop gets my name and number in case they need me to testify and I go on my merry way. I feel all warm and fuzzy knowing that I might have saved a few NSYNC fan's lives.

In fact- I think they owe me.