I’m not a very social person, but I decided to be a little brave last night and attended a corporate Christmas party at a restaurant/bar. Everyone there was drinking, including my boss. Me, I’ve been drunk twice in my life, and the second time put me off being drunk pretty much forever. So every one or two months or so, I’ll have a single glass of alcohol and because I’m such a lightweight, I’m usually buzzed and sometimes even a little tipsy. Yes, friend, I am what they call A Cheap Date. Because I live an hour away from this restaurant/bar and had driven myself, I chose not to drink. I was pretty much the only person at that party who made that choice. MOST people chose to drink responsibly.
After the restaurant/bar stuff, around, say 11pm, everyone decided to move to another bar where there was dancing. I was having a phenomenal time discussing U.S. foreign policy and racism and the acquisition of language with a couple of my coworkers, and though I am NOT a bar person, I decided to just let loose and go. I’ve been pretty lonely not knowing many people around my neighborhood, so it was refreshing just to make new friends.
My first mistake was not taking my car with me to the bar. I was having so much fun talking to my new friends I piled into another car with two of them, one, Smashed, who was completely drunk, and another, Alert, who seemed a little tipsy but said she felt okay to drive. At first I accepted this, but once we got lost (our only navigator was Smashed) I asked Alert if she would humor me and let me drive. (And I am reminding you now: I did not drink a single drop of alcohol throughout this entire evening.) Alert verified that I was truly feeling uncomfortable and told me, ‘‘I want you to know that I wouldn’t drive if I didn’t feel safe to do so, but I do not under any circumstances want anyone to feel uncomfortable in my car.’’ So she got out and gave me the wheel. She is my new Best Friend.
Cue to the bar, which was actually a hip-hop dance club in suburban Detroit, and sort of sucked. It was 10x louder than the restaurant and I realized there was to be no more inspired dialog. I hadn’t even planned on going out that day and I’d gone straight from work to the party, so I was dressed in a not sexy oversized sweater and felt a bit out of place. But I danced up a storm anyways because I freakin’ love to dance. That part was fun. About an hour later, I said to Alert (who had to get home the next morning) that it was probably time we get back to our respective homes (we both lived an hour away, pretty much in the same city, and she had to get up in the morning.) It was about 1am.
So we found Smashed, who had continued drinking throughout the night, and told her we were heading out. She had been saying throughout the evening that our other coworker Jokester was going to take her home with her and she would sleep over there. Well, we’re all standing outside saying goodbye and Jokester takes a look at Smashed and says, ‘‘I’m not playing babysitter tonight. I don’t want her to come home with me.’’ This should have been my first clue.
So, not really knowing what to do (and being, btw, in an area I am completely not familiar with somewhere in some suburb of Detroit), we piled back into Alert’s car to return to the restaurant and pick up our cars. Alert had not had anything more to drink since arriving at the club and she was almost completely sober, so I let her drive. Mostly we were just trying to figure out what to do about Smashed, because she was insisting that she was going to just drive home and not to worry about her.
So we got back to the restaurant parking lot, offered her a ride home, and she refused it. We tried to convince her not to drive and trying to convince an extraordinarily drunk person not to drive is one of the most frustrating things in the world, ever. Smashed fell on her face trying to get her crap out of the car, at which point me and Alert, who really were NOT in the mood for a roundtrip hour out of our way, decided we had to make an even more valiant effort.
So I effectively removed (with some coaxing and pushing) Smashed from behind the wheel of her car, and took the driver’s wheel. Alert was to follow me in her car and Smashed was to give us directions to her house because neither of us knew where we were. Then, Alert was to drive me back to my car. It took at least a half an hour to convince Smashed this was the best idea, and she was still complaining and protesting the whole way there.
Let the record show that I avoid going out drinking for a reason, and this is a very big one.
So we get onto the highway, and Smashed car is nightmarish for seeing at night (high dashboard and it was raining/misting) so I wasn’t really loving my visibility, but I figured anything’s gotta be safer than letting Smashed drive. She kept giving me the wrong directions in an effort to get me to turn around and go back to her car so she could drive herself home. Finally she got me in the far right lane and said, ‘‘stay in this lane for ten minutes and you’ll be fine.’’
About three minutes into the drive, Smashed fell asleep. At which point I came upon a major highway junction. I poked her awake and asked her which way to go. So she basically made up some complete Bullshit and I listened and we ended up not in the right place, and not one of us knew where we were. At this point, while I am trying to get her to think about how to get us home, Smashed asked, ‘‘Are we in my car?’’
Finally I pulled over into the parking lot of a bank to try to get a grip and communicate with Alert I had no idea where the hell we were. And I’m going to be really honest with you – I was seriously pissed off at this point. I don’t understand what is so hard to grasp about making arrangements to not drive drunk. It is not a difficult thing to do. This woman, Smashed, is 30 years old (I am 24.) I personally do not mind if someone says to me, ‘‘I’m really drunk. Can you give me a ride home?’’ What I DO mind is wasting an hour or more of my time trying to convince some asshole they are too drunk to drive.
So given that there was nobody around at all, we were pretty much sitting in an empty bank parking lot in the middle of God-knows-where, I called my husband at home and attempted to get him to mapquest our whereabouts. While I am talking to my husband, Smashed pulls down her pants and pisses in the middle of the bank parking lot.
We had no idea where we were, we had no idea where Smashed lived, and we were far from our homes. At what point do Friends Not Let Friends Drive Drunk, and at what point do people have to take some fucking responsibility for themselves and their own decisions?
Because me and Alert took one look at each other and realized we’d had it. I don’t know if we had some kind of moral responsibility to physically restrain her and sleep in her car with her, but we ended up just leaving and going back to the restaurant, leaving her with her car. That’s what she insisted we should do anyways, and short of putting her up in a hotel or calling the police I was out of ideas.
Now I’m just pissed. I’m pissed because I had a bad experience with Smashed, who I really like as a person, and I’m pissed because of her irresponsibility I was put in a position where I did something I don’t feel good about (leaving her there.) I’m pissed at myself for not following my gut instinct and taking my own car to the bar. I have so little experience with these kinds of situations that I admit I made some errors in judgment. I really want to feel guilty about this (it’s my favorite hobby), but ultimately it was her fucking drunk ass driving drunk.
Kind of a shitty end to an otherwise fun night. I got home at 3am and was pretty grouchy and tired by that point.
So should I have called the police or what?
Good on you for being responsible and getting home safe.
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