A Bullet Dodged

It was back sometime between the years of 1997 and 1998 (I think…) when I once again headed over to the Pump House. The Pump House is this bar/brewery located in Longmont, Colorado where I used to spend quite a bit of time. Scott and I would basically hang out there pretty much every night playing NTN (National Trivia Network) and just wasting away the hours (neither of us had much of a social life…). It was at least something to do…

Tonight, however, was different. It was one of the bartender’s birthdays – one of the female bartender’s birthdays. Which one? I don’t remember … I never was very good with names… All I knew was that one of them was having a birthday and Scott and I were invited. Although Scott never actually showed up, I did – a decision I would later regret…

As I recall, the evening started off innocently enough – I was sitting at the bar, drinking my drink of choice at the time (Manhattans – on the rocks) and playing a bit of NTN. There was a bit more energy in the place due to the birthday, but nothing else seemed out of the ordinary. I figured this night was going to be pretty much another in a never ending line of boring nights being wasted away at the Pump House. The elevated energy level caused me to drink a bit more than usual and I think I had somewhere on the order of five drinks prior to being informed that the party was moving down to this other bar (I believe it was called the White Buffalo or something close to that. It’s been shut down since then and I think it may have even been converted into a bank now…). This should have been my opportunity to make a graceful exit and head home; but no … I headed down to the new bar along with the party.

The only thing I remember about the second place was sitting down with the large crowd from the party (oh yeah, and since Scott never showed up I think I only knew like a few of the people there … and I didn’t know any of them very well…) and ordering some more Manhattans. The next thing I remember was waking up. Waking up wasn’t very shocking; however where I found myself upon waking up brought a little shock to me – I was in a hospital bed!

Okay, so it’s not like the first time in my life that I unexpectedly awoke in a hospital bed; although I really must say that repetition doesn’t make the ordeal any easier to deal with. The worst part about this time was that I was still completely sane – I had a hell of a hangover and the catheter that I was unwittingly fitted with was a bit of a shock; however I was still sane. I needed to get some answers… Why am I lying in a hospital bed? What, exactly, happened last night? Where’s my car and how many pieces is it in? I needed to get answers to many questions such as these and when the nurses came in to release me I tried asking them. Unfortunately they were very little help – all they knew is that I arrived the night before in an ambulance passed out from the alcohol. What actually happened remained a mystery…

I was actually provided a ride home by a police officer. On the way home he was asking me how I got home the night before and I honestly couldn’t tell him. I don’t know if he was trying to get a confession on drunk driving out of me or something; all I knew was that I couldn’t provide him with any answers that I, myself, wasn’t aware of. He dropped me off near my apartment and left me. I then walked up the stairs to my apartment where I noticed a large puddle of what appeared to be puke on the stairway outside my apartment door. Hmm, this was interesting … why did I puke outside my apartment? Oh well, I needed to get some sleep. I actually had a chapter installation for my fraternity to get to in a few hours and if I didn’t get at least a little sleep, I figured that I wouldn’t be in near good enough shape. I reached into my pocket and pulled out my keys. Funny thing was that the only keys I had in my pocket where my car keys…

I have this valet keychain thing where I can clip my car keys on my keychain easily and remove them just as easily (for valet parking convenience – useless as it is…). The way that I used this feature was to be able to check my mailbox at the apartment without having to turn off my vehicle – I would just detach the other keys from the car keys, leave the car running whilst I checked my mail and return to the car and reattach the other keys to the car keys still in the ignition. It was a good system; however it apparently wasn’t fool-proof. I was now somehow stuck with only my car keys and no way to get into my apartment. I guess that somewhat explains the puke puddle located on the outside of my apartment…

Okay, so I don’t have my apartment keys. I do, however, have my car keys. Maybe the other keys where left at the hospital? I walked back down the stairs and headed back to my parking spot to see if my car was there. Sure enough, sitting in its usual spot in the carport was my Z-28. It looked to be fine although the headlights appeared to have been left on. Didn’t matter – I needed to get back to the hospital and find my other keys. The bad thing was that I was still rather drunk from the night before as well as extremely tired. This didn’t stop me as I climbed into the car, attempted (unsuccessfully) to start it three times and then immediately passed out. I came to a bit later and repeated trying to start my car with the same results – no ignition followed by my passing out again. I think I did this something like three times before I noticed that there was something on the floor. Whilst shuffling my feet to once again try and start the car the sound of keys jingling was clearly audible. There, sitting on the floor of my car where my other keys!

Okay, so apparently I did actually drive home the night before. Not only that, but I must have stopped to check my mail, detached my car keys from the others then got out to check the mailbox. The issue arose when I reentered the car and apparently dropped my keys on the floor whilst I was attempting to reattach them to the car keys! Cool, one mystery solved … time to get some sleep. I headed back to my apartment and got a few hours of sleep before heading to the chapter installation… A bit later I was able to get a jump for my car and made it to the chapter installation successfully.

The bottom line to this whole story is that this was one time in my life where I actually got extremely lucky. The fact that I actually did drive myself home that night (a fact that I later validated with another that was at the party) makes me very mad at myself. I mean that, my friends, is a realization of my hypocrisy! I mean, as far as I’m concerned, there really isn’t much stupider than drunk driving and here I am finding out that that was exactly what I had done! I’m lucky I didn’t kill anybody! I mean this stupid little story that I am now writing up could very easily have been much more tragic. Luckily, other than the $1500 I had to pay for the ambulance ride after my neighbor found me passed out on the staircase in front of my apartment, I was able to get through this ordeal unscathed. I will say this, however – I will never let myself get into a situation where that could happen again. I beat the odds once, why push it?

bis später,

Coriolis