This is a true story about how I did someone a huge favor — I saved their life. The person did not thank me, in fact, you could say she did just the opposite.
You have heard the expression that no good deed goes unpunished?
The whole mess started when I stopped in to visit a friend of mine who tends bar at a place that was considering starting up a Chinese Internet bar and grill. You know, Telnet and Chop Suey. Also at the bar was Julie the day bartender who had been drinking steadily all night since her shift ended, and now was clearly too drunk to drive. As a favor to my friend I volunteered to give Julie a ride home. She said she lived in Magnolia, which is just a few miles away from the bar, and on my way home in a round-about way. It would be my good deed for the day and save Julie from a rather expensive ticket for driving while intoxicated.
As soon as we got outside, Julie dropped down in the middle of the street and told me that she couldn't go home with me. She didn't know me and she wasn't going to sleep with me. I told her that I wasn't interested. My goal was to drive her home because she was too drunk to drive. My thought was a DWI is expensive, she could end up killing herself or someone else, and the bar would get a huge fine for over-serving, and I didn't like the idea that my friend would have the state liquor control board sniffing up her butt because Julie here became sloppy. How could a simple trip to Magnolia (her stated destination) affect me? If anything I felt it was my duty as a human being to help save lives. She really would have driven if I did not stop her repeatedly from going to her car. After going through this a few more times, Julie reluctantly allowed me to drive her home. We got into my car, headed to Magnolia, and 45 seconds later she passed out.
I continued to drive to Magnolia figuring she would wake up shortly and point out where she lived so I could drop her off. Somewhere on the Ballard bridge, she started to wake up and told me that she wasn't going to sleep with me. The ironic thing at this point was that she was also coughing and well, drooling. Large globs of mucus and spit were oozing out of her mouth, her nose and on to my car seat.
When I got to Magnolia, I shook her awake and asked her where she lived. She said that she wasn't going to sleep with me. I told her I knew that, but I still needed her address so I could drop her off and she could go home. She then passed out and started drooling again. Obviously Julie was not in a condition to tell me where she lived. I repeatedly tried to shake her awake and ask her is anything looked familiar, but all I could get out of her was repeated protests that I was not going to get laid, and of course more coughing and drooling. At this point over 45 minutes had gone by and I was getting a bit tired of it all. Finally I went through her purse to see what the address was on her drivers license. Everything in her wallet had an address in the town of Edmonds, which is 20 minutes north of where we were driving around.
After an hour of driving around I flagged down a Port of Seattle police car. I was pretty frustrated at this point and needed some legal advice. I wasn't too thrilled about the drool, but I was less thrilled about her screaming out, "Leave me alone, I'm not going to sleep with you!" I was worried that in this drunken fog she might think that is what I was trying to do and file charges that I tried to sexually assaulted her. The possibility that I could face these charges when all I was trying to do was save a few lives was not an appetizing one.
I explained the situation to the Policeman who stated that I was an idiot and I should have minded my own business, and in the future let her drive and call the Seattle Police Department. I didn't wish to argue the negative points of his revenue producing scheme, because arguing with a cop in the middle of the night with a very drunk woman who is screaming she isn't going to fuck me, seemed like a very dumb idea. So I thanked him for his advice, agreed I was an idiot, and I asked him in my best concerned citizens voice, "Well Officer, Could you please tell me what I should do?"
He got out of the car, walked to her door, and opened it. She immediately snapped to attention as the officer told her, "You need to tell us where you live or I will take you down to Detox! She quickly and coherently rattled off the address to the officer, which of course was the address in Edmonds. He closed her door and she began to yell at him every name in the book that would usually get you arrested for verbal assault.
Once again he told me from my window - over her cries of what type of fucking asshole he was, that my choice was to find her home or he would call for a Detox wagon. That seemed like a rather mean spirited maneuver on my part—even under the circumstances, so I took her to the address in Edmonds. He also said that if the address was wrong, just dump her off at the Edmonds Police Department. I thanked him again and drove off before the possibility of charging us with some crime or another entered his mind.
Driving around in Edmonds at night with a drunk woman is not a smart idea. I had a run-in with an Edmonds Police officer a month earlier after doing some late night scuba diving and I almost landed in jail on some minor technicality regarding the spelling of my name on the registration. It seems the car was registered to Wally Glenn with three n's in the name. In the eyes of the cop I was obviously trying to commit fraud. I tried to explain to him that I was not the one who typed up the title for the car, so how could it be my fault? As luck would have it, a call came over the radio that some kids were seen hanging around in a park, so he left me alone to participate in the arrest. Before leaving, he told me that I didn't belong here, and that it was his job to make sure I wasn't in the area.
So now I was circling around where I didn't belong, passing the same Edmonds Police cars with some increasing frequency, with the last run-in flashing through my mind every time I passed a Police car. I continued circling around looking for this hard to find address, scared that I would get pulled over, Julie would scream she wasn't going to sleep with me, and I would be facing charges regarding sexual deviancy.
Over three hours after this whole ordeal started, I finally found her house. It was 4:30 in the morning, my patience were shot, so I shook her awake in a way that wasn't very polite. I finally got her to wake up and realize that was indeed her house, who the hell was I? Where the fuck was her car? And no she was not going to have sex with me. As luck would have it, she couldn't find her house key.
For the next 10 minutes, she banged on her front door of her motel style condo, which finally brought her husband to the front door who told me, "The party's over! You better find someone else to sleep with!" he slammed the door in my face without even saying goodbye. By coincidence, Julie's repeated screaming at the top of her lungs, "OPEN THIS GODDAMN DOOR NOW, MOTHERFUCKER!!" also brought out everyone in the complex out of their homes and a few chanted back, "Shut the fuck up!" and, "...calling the cops!"
Suddenly the door whipped open and a man dressed in white underwear and a t-shirt reached out, grabbed Julie and jerked her into the house. He looked at me with a disgusted look on his face and said, "The party is over. Find someone else to sleep with," slammed the door in my face, and left me stammering, "Um, I was trying to save her life..."
Relieved that I had done my good deed, I went back to my car where I then realized that Julie had peed in my seat.
If you take away anything from this story, I hope it is the fact that sometimes the immediate reward for a deed is not always a positive one. The fact that I became a victim of my own good deed is not the point, it is simply the end result. The reason to do a good deed like driving a beligerant drunk home is to stop them from killing someone. The sign of a truly good person is the willingness to complete a good deed even if someone spits at you or calls you an idiot for doing it that deed and not doing a good deed in hopes that you will be adorned with praises.
In this situation, Julie turned out be be a bit ungrateful to the point that she chewed out the other bartender for allowing me to drive her home and tried to claim that I attempted to molest her. If my reputation had not proceeded me, I could have found myself being questioned by the police regarding an attempted sexual attack. Thankfully, the other bartender chewed her out for her own stupidity and pointed out how Julie endangered the liquor license of the bar and the livelyhood of the other bartender who would have faced huge fines.
If in the future I see another person very drunk attempting to drive home, I will not hesitate to drive them home once again. Next time if the same situation arises, I might just leave them with officer.
