Squib Sleeps Where Squib Wants
Not that anybody is probably paying that close attention, but I kind of skipped out on posting last week. Nothing was really going on, so I thought that I would wait and see if anything worth mentioning might happen over the weekend.
I was not disappointed.
Late Friday night, Megan and I were taking our dog Dexter for walk. I was mostly enjoying the walk. Again, it was late, so it was quiet and there was no traffic. The weather was near perfect and, in fact, I was reminded of the late night strolls Megan and I took around the streets of Italy on our honeymoon. It was nearly idyllic, except for one thing really. Taking a dog for a walk with a dog trainer can be something of a mixed bag when said dog trainer is trying to train said dog on how to walk on a leash. It involves lots of stopping and then walking backwards and waiting for the dog to catch on. I sometimes feel like I'm being trained almost as much as the dog is, but like I said it was nice, and we weren't really in any hurry, so I was actually enjoying myself.
We started our walk heading south and then turned west. After a few blocks we turned north and after hitting Burt Street, we turned east to make our way back home. We were up the hill on Burt when all three of us noticed something. Now, on this particular stretch of Burt, there is only one street light on the side of the street we were on, so the street is dark. Really dark. But as we headed up the street I could just make out something lying on the curb. It was a bicycle. At first, I thought that some careless neighborhood kid had simply left his bike outside. That is until we were almost right next to the bike and we saw something else lying next to the bike. A body. A body stretched out with one half over the curb and the other half from the waist down sprawled out in the street.
Before I could stop myself I practically screamed out, "Oh my God!" And as I stood there trying to discern what exactly I was looking at, I glanced up to see that Megan and Dexter had jetted almost to the top of hill. I had no idea the two of them could run that fast, let alone uphill.
Despite the fact that I was now alone standing over a body in almost complete darkness, I wanted to try and assess the situation as best I could. The first thing that popped in my head was that some poor kid had been hit on his bike and left, presumably for dead lying on the side of the road. I was considering my limited first aid training and pondering CPR and mouth to mouth when I first heard it. I held my breath to listen closer to make sure I heard it correctly. Yup, I heard it correctly. It was snoring. Loud snoring. Whoever this was, he was neither an accident victim, nor some poor kid sleeping on the street. This was some idiot, make that a probable drunk idiot, who had decided that sleeping halfway out on the darkest part of a busy street was a good idea.
At that point, I decided that Megan and Dexter had the right idea. I had no intention of waking this guy up. Let's face it, anyone who is drunk enough to lay down in the street to take a nap might not be altogether pleased to have his sleep interrupted. As I joined Megan and Dexter at the crest of the hill, which was thankfully under a street light, I could tell Megan was a little freaked out. Dexter on the other hand was doing a good job of keeping it together. I could tell that Dexter thought that the best course of action would be to go back down the street and lick the guy in the face until he awoke, but Dexter's a dog and that tends to be his solution to most problems. While we took Dexter's idea under consideration, we ultimately decided that this might not be the best course of action, as again we weren't sure what Sleeping Beauty's mindset would be once he awoke to a dog licking his face. Megan and I decided that calling the police would probably be the best course of action, and although I think Dexter was disappointed, I'd like to think that he also agreed.
So, standing on the corner under a street light I called 911. This, by the way, was a first for me and since I wasn't sure if this actually constituted an emergency, I told the operator when she answered by saying "911, what's your emergency?" that I wasn't really sure if I had an emergency. For future reference, this is not a smart thing to do. I'm not sure if people call 911 on a regular basis just to chat, but when you call 911 and say that you're not sure if you have an emergency, they put you on hold. They put you on indefinite hold. I was on hold for so long, my phone, which is admittedly pretty shitty, started beeping at me to tell me it's out of juice.
Now, at this point I thought the best idea would be to go home and call from there, since my phone was dying. Megan was adamant that we stay and make sure homeboy wasn't run over. As usual Megan was right, so we stood there waiting for 911 to come back. As we stood waiting a car did actually pass by our mysterious snorer, but far from running him over, they stopped to see if they could help as well. Megan, Dexter, and I were far enough away that we couldn't tell exactly what was going on, but we were close enough to discern that they had rolled down their window and were trying to wake Mr. Sleepyhead from the car. We were also close enough to tell that it wasn't happening. The car then pulled up the street towards us and into a nearby driveway, where a couple of the occupants went inside and a couple of the others made their way back down the street to our unconscious friend.
Megan and Dexter made their way toward the house to let them know what we were doing and to offer their help. With two people now trying to rouse the sleeper once again, I could tell that Dexter thought it was good time to implement his licking the face strategy, but Megan somehow convinced him to stay with her. For my part, I decided that my phone would die before 911 actually took me off hold, so I hung up and called back. This time when the operator answered, "911, what's your emergency?" I was ready. I quickly launched into explaining that while my wife and I were taking our dog for a walk we came across an unconscious man. This time, I got their attention.
The 911 operator sounded much more concerned than I was, asking questions about what the "victim" looked like and whether we saw any blood. I calmly pointed out that since it was really dark and we had our dog with us and we didn't want to startle the guy, we didn't really look that closely. But no, in fact, we didn't think there was any blood, in fact I said the guy appeared to be "intoxicated." I'm not really sure why I lapsed into police-speak there, and I felt kind of dumb after saying it, because who really says that someone looks "intoxicated" other than police. With all the questions I was starting to feel a little guilty for not seeing this as more of a possible emergency. That is, until she then asked me if he was breathing and I said yes, in fact, he was snoring. Now, I might have imagined it, but there seemed to be a slight pause before she said that she'd be sending a rescue unit. A pause that seemed to say, "Oh, I got you. It's some drunk guy passed out in the street." But again, it might have been my imagination.
After finishing my call to 911, I walked down the hill to join Megan and the owner of the house who had also spotted our friend lying in the street. I gave them an update on the 911 situation and we stood around BSing while waiting for the authorities to arrive and/or his companions to wake up Sleeping Guy. We didn't go back down the street to where he was laying, but from where we were we could hear the two newcomers trying to wake him up by shouting at him loudly. He just kept on snoring. Eventually, they gave up and joined us up the street. The two guys walked up the street shaking their heads. Mr. Sleephead was out for the count. I asked the older of the two guys if he was drunk and he just chuckled and said, "Oh-ho-ho-ho yeah." I'm not sure, but I think that's code for, "Yes. The man in question is undoubtedly intoxicated. In fact, I do believe he is currently in a state more commonly referred to as 'shit-canned,'" but I'm not sure. In fact, the theory that the two guys who tried to wake him up had come up with was that he was trying to ride home on his bike drunk, and he decided that it either wasn't happening or it wasn't worth it, and he just decided to lay his bike down and go to sleep. This seemed like a pretty sound theory. So sound, that I think even Dexter agreed.
Anyhow, 911 wasn't fooling around or taking any chances even if they thought it was just a case of a drunken pedestrian sleeping it off in the street. The first to show up was a fire engine, then an ambulance, then a squad care. The guys from the house went down when the fire engine showed up to show where he was laying and to help out. Megan and I knew that Dexter would just get in the way with his own brand of resuscitation, so we hung back with him. I wanted to beg off back home, but Megan thought that having Dexter around all the commotion and flashing lights would be good for his training. Since we're not training Dexter to be a rescue dog, I wasn't sure I agreed, but we stuck around anyway. Eventually, the guys from the car came back up the street to give the rescue workers some space and to give us an update.
The rescue workers had finally been able to wake up our drunken bike rider and get a little bit of information out of him. He was eventually able to tell them that his name was Squib and that he was 19. Now, I've never heard the name Squib before, but I gotta tell ya, that sounds about right. However, we all had a little problem believing he was 19. I thought to myself that if he was 19, then Megan and I were actually about 10 and much too young to be out at that time of night. I mean, I know it was dark, but if that guy was 19, he had been drinking since before he was born, because he looked tore up.
Once nosy nellies started driving by and asking us what was going on, we began to feel a bit like nosy nellies ourselves and decided to finally make our way back home. I was tired and it was time to go to sleep. Somehow, and I'm not quite sure how, but I was able to make it home and into bed, rather then passing out on the curb, laying halfway in the street. And I'd like to think that Ol' Squib was more comfortable sleeping it off in the drunk tank that he was on the street. That curb had to killing his lower lumbar region.
I was not disappointed.
Late Friday night, Megan and I were taking our dog Dexter for walk. I was mostly enjoying the walk. Again, it was late, so it was quiet and there was no traffic. The weather was near perfect and, in fact, I was reminded of the late night strolls Megan and I took around the streets of Italy on our honeymoon. It was nearly idyllic, except for one thing really. Taking a dog for a walk with a dog trainer can be something of a mixed bag when said dog trainer is trying to train said dog on how to walk on a leash. It involves lots of stopping and then walking backwards and waiting for the dog to catch on. I sometimes feel like I'm being trained almost as much as the dog is, but like I said it was nice, and we weren't really in any hurry, so I was actually enjoying myself.
We started our walk heading south and then turned west. After a few blocks we turned north and after hitting Burt Street, we turned east to make our way back home. We were up the hill on Burt when all three of us noticed something. Now, on this particular stretch of Burt, there is only one street light on the side of the street we were on, so the street is dark. Really dark. But as we headed up the street I could just make out something lying on the curb. It was a bicycle. At first, I thought that some careless neighborhood kid had simply left his bike outside. That is until we were almost right next to the bike and we saw something else lying next to the bike. A body. A body stretched out with one half over the curb and the other half from the waist down sprawled out in the street.
Before I could stop myself I practically screamed out, "Oh my God!" And as I stood there trying to discern what exactly I was looking at, I glanced up to see that Megan and Dexter had jetted almost to the top of hill. I had no idea the two of them could run that fast, let alone uphill.
Despite the fact that I was now alone standing over a body in almost complete darkness, I wanted to try and assess the situation as best I could. The first thing that popped in my head was that some poor kid had been hit on his bike and left, presumably for dead lying on the side of the road. I was considering my limited first aid training and pondering CPR and mouth to mouth when I first heard it. I held my breath to listen closer to make sure I heard it correctly. Yup, I heard it correctly. It was snoring. Loud snoring. Whoever this was, he was neither an accident victim, nor some poor kid sleeping on the street. This was some idiot, make that a probable drunk idiot, who had decided that sleeping halfway out on the darkest part of a busy street was a good idea.
At that point, I decided that Megan and Dexter had the right idea. I had no intention of waking this guy up. Let's face it, anyone who is drunk enough to lay down in the street to take a nap might not be altogether pleased to have his sleep interrupted. As I joined Megan and Dexter at the crest of the hill, which was thankfully under a street light, I could tell Megan was a little freaked out. Dexter on the other hand was doing a good job of keeping it together. I could tell that Dexter thought that the best course of action would be to go back down the street and lick the guy in the face until he awoke, but Dexter's a dog and that tends to be his solution to most problems. While we took Dexter's idea under consideration, we ultimately decided that this might not be the best course of action, as again we weren't sure what Sleeping Beauty's mindset would be once he awoke to a dog licking his face. Megan and I decided that calling the police would probably be the best course of action, and although I think Dexter was disappointed, I'd like to think that he also agreed.
So, standing on the corner under a street light I called 911. This, by the way, was a first for me and since I wasn't sure if this actually constituted an emergency, I told the operator when she answered by saying "911, what's your emergency?" that I wasn't really sure if I had an emergency. For future reference, this is not a smart thing to do. I'm not sure if people call 911 on a regular basis just to chat, but when you call 911 and say that you're not sure if you have an emergency, they put you on hold. They put you on indefinite hold. I was on hold for so long, my phone, which is admittedly pretty shitty, started beeping at me to tell me it's out of juice.
Now, at this point I thought the best idea would be to go home and call from there, since my phone was dying. Megan was adamant that we stay and make sure homeboy wasn't run over. As usual Megan was right, so we stood there waiting for 911 to come back. As we stood waiting a car did actually pass by our mysterious snorer, but far from running him over, they stopped to see if they could help as well. Megan, Dexter, and I were far enough away that we couldn't tell exactly what was going on, but we were close enough to discern that they had rolled down their window and were trying to wake Mr. Sleepyhead from the car. We were also close enough to tell that it wasn't happening. The car then pulled up the street towards us and into a nearby driveway, where a couple of the occupants went inside and a couple of the others made their way back down the street to our unconscious friend.
Megan and Dexter made their way toward the house to let them know what we were doing and to offer their help. With two people now trying to rouse the sleeper once again, I could tell that Dexter thought it was good time to implement his licking the face strategy, but Megan somehow convinced him to stay with her. For my part, I decided that my phone would die before 911 actually took me off hold, so I hung up and called back. This time when the operator answered, "911, what's your emergency?" I was ready. I quickly launched into explaining that while my wife and I were taking our dog for a walk we came across an unconscious man. This time, I got their attention.
The 911 operator sounded much more concerned than I was, asking questions about what the "victim" looked like and whether we saw any blood. I calmly pointed out that since it was really dark and we had our dog with us and we didn't want to startle the guy, we didn't really look that closely. But no, in fact, we didn't think there was any blood, in fact I said the guy appeared to be "intoxicated." I'm not really sure why I lapsed into police-speak there, and I felt kind of dumb after saying it, because who really says that someone looks "intoxicated" other than police. With all the questions I was starting to feel a little guilty for not seeing this as more of a possible emergency. That is, until she then asked me if he was breathing and I said yes, in fact, he was snoring. Now, I might have imagined it, but there seemed to be a slight pause before she said that she'd be sending a rescue unit. A pause that seemed to say, "Oh, I got you. It's some drunk guy passed out in the street." But again, it might have been my imagination.
After finishing my call to 911, I walked down the hill to join Megan and the owner of the house who had also spotted our friend lying in the street. I gave them an update on the 911 situation and we stood around BSing while waiting for the authorities to arrive and/or his companions to wake up Sleeping Guy. We didn't go back down the street to where he was laying, but from where we were we could hear the two newcomers trying to wake him up by shouting at him loudly. He just kept on snoring. Eventually, they gave up and joined us up the street. The two guys walked up the street shaking their heads. Mr. Sleephead was out for the count. I asked the older of the two guys if he was drunk and he just chuckled and said, "Oh-ho-ho-ho yeah." I'm not sure, but I think that's code for, "Yes. The man in question is undoubtedly intoxicated. In fact, I do believe he is currently in a state more commonly referred to as 'shit-canned,'" but I'm not sure. In fact, the theory that the two guys who tried to wake him up had come up with was that he was trying to ride home on his bike drunk, and he decided that it either wasn't happening or it wasn't worth it, and he just decided to lay his bike down and go to sleep. This seemed like a pretty sound theory. So sound, that I think even Dexter agreed.
Anyhow, 911 wasn't fooling around or taking any chances even if they thought it was just a case of a drunken pedestrian sleeping it off in the street. The first to show up was a fire engine, then an ambulance, then a squad care. The guys from the house went down when the fire engine showed up to show where he was laying and to help out. Megan and I knew that Dexter would just get in the way with his own brand of resuscitation, so we hung back with him. I wanted to beg off back home, but Megan thought that having Dexter around all the commotion and flashing lights would be good for his training. Since we're not training Dexter to be a rescue dog, I wasn't sure I agreed, but we stuck around anyway. Eventually, the guys from the car came back up the street to give the rescue workers some space and to give us an update.
The rescue workers had finally been able to wake up our drunken bike rider and get a little bit of information out of him. He was eventually able to tell them that his name was Squib and that he was 19. Now, I've never heard the name Squib before, but I gotta tell ya, that sounds about right. However, we all had a little problem believing he was 19. I thought to myself that if he was 19, then Megan and I were actually about 10 and much too young to be out at that time of night. I mean, I know it was dark, but if that guy was 19, he had been drinking since before he was born, because he looked tore up.
Once nosy nellies started driving by and asking us what was going on, we began to feel a bit like nosy nellies ourselves and decided to finally make our way back home. I was tired and it was time to go to sleep. Somehow, and I'm not quite sure how, but I was able to make it home and into bed, rather then passing out on the curb, laying halfway in the street. And I'd like to think that Ol' Squib was more comfortable sleeping it off in the drunk tank that he was on the street. That curb had to killing his lower lumbar region.
posted by Christian at 8:30 AM
3 Comments:
entertaining.... you written any novels lately?
Several, actually, although they're under a pen name. They're mostly lesbian vampire erotica, so you've probably never read any of them. And before you rush to any judgments, hey, they pay the bills.
Seriously, though, your point is well taken. My posts are pretty long. Maybe I should fire my editor...
No, it's well-written. If it sucked, I'd be the first to let you know.
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