Wait, you don't go drinking on Wednesday nights? You don't get drunk and drive?
Neither do I.
But, one of my neighbors does!
Here's the setting: it's a Wednesday evening about 8:30. It's completely dark outside. Northern hemisphere winter and it had snowed, dumping about a foot of snow on the area. My husband and I had been anxiously waiting for our 20 year old son to get home from his three day trip to Pittsburgh. My husband had just gotten out of the shower when the boy showed up. He was in and out unpacking his car. We had just sat down in the living room and we were listening to all of his stories.
Son hadn't shut the front door, leaving only the storm door closed, and the cold was seeping in. My husband, having just jumped out of the shower and only wearing shorts got up to close and lock the door for the night.
Suddenly, a loud bang, then a continuous loud scraping sound. You know, just like when someone slams the lid shut on a trash bin and then drags it down the driveway to the street. At least that was my first thought. But, no, it was louder than that.
My husband was at the front door and he yelled, " What the hell? Son, get your keys. Go, go, go!" They rushed out the door and jumped in my son's car and drove off down the street like a bat out of hell.
What the actual eff, I thought, grabbed my coat really quickly (it was freezing with snow on the ground and the driveways) and ran outside where I saw a couple of my neighbors. One of them had just been turning into her driveway and saw the whole thing. A driver had hit the side of my next door neighbor's car that was parked on the street, smashing the rear and pushing it half cocked onto the roadway. Then, it had proceeded to also scrape all down the side of another of their vehicles that was parked in front.
But, the best part? This person had hit and run, but not before losing its front passenger side wheel! It was sitting in the middle of the dark street! And they kept on going!
We called 911 and slowed incoming traffic down so they wouldn't hit the giant wheel in the middle of the street. More neighbors were outside now. We actually had to wake up the people whose cars were involved because they had been asleep in the back of the house and didn't hear it.
Suddenly my cell phone rang. It was my husband.
"We found her," he said. "She pulled into 111 Our Same Name Drive and she's drunk. Call 911 and give them that information. Oh, and ask Butch to drive down with a jacket for me. All I'm wearing is my shorts and it's freezing out here. Plus, she's really belligerent and I'm staying here until the cops get here so I can identify her as the one who did it." Our neighbor Butch went down the street to deliver some clothing and it was all of 2 blocks away on our street!
Two sheriff's deputies finally arrived. One stayed to do an accident scene investigation and the other went down the two blocks to deal with the drunk hit and run driver.
He found my husband and my son parked in front of her driveway, got the story and proceeded to perform a field sobriety test on this lady. A state trooper also responded and he was talking to my husband and son getting more information from them. Drunk lady yells, " Oh, so I guess this is a PRIVATE conversation, huh?" Officer tells her that the conversation didn't include her and moved my husband and son toward their car and eventually told them they could go. The lady failed the test and got a free ride in the back of a police car!
The rest of the story was this: they followed the lady down the street by following a big scrape mark from her missing tire. She managed to pull into her driveway, plowing the stones as she went. She sat in her car. My husband got up and went to the driver's window. She was looking down, head dropping as if she were sleeping! My husband startled her as he knocked on the window and told her to roll it down.
" Hi, neighbor!" she said as if she hadn't just hit two cars without stopping, lost a wheel and limped home, and as if she were not sitting in that very vehicle, missing a wheel at that very moment.
" You hit my car!" he responded and she thought about that for awhile, reeking of alcohol.
"Why are you naked?" she asked, slurring her words. And it was very nearly true. He had run out of the house with only his shorts on and stumbled into his slippers. From what she could see, from the waist up, he was indeed naked, standing at her car window in the freezing winter cold!
"You hit my car!" my husband said again more forcefully. She pondered this for a bit.
"Well," she said looking him up and down salaciously, "maybe we could work something out!"
That's when he had called me requesting clothing and backup. Guess he didn't want to be nearly naked when the cops showed up!
He told me when she said that he thought, 'wait, did this just really happen? I've been waiting my whole life for someone to say that, and, it happens with drunk lady who just hit and run my neighbor's cars!'
Drunk lady caught 6 charges including driving while intoxicated, failure to stop at the scene of an accident, negligent driving, and reckless driving.
She was released to her mother and was home that night. Her crippled Tahoe with only 3 wheels is still sitting in her driveway.
Can you believe that? Would you chase a hit and run driver?
Know anybody else drunk as a skunk by 8:30 on a Wednesday evening?
"You might be an alcoholic if..."