Drunk Driving. A tale of how foolish you get when you get schnockered.
Oh yeah. Not guilty your worship, you see this is how it happened. (actually it never made it to court...that was just for dramatic emphasis!) There we were, in downtown Ottawa at Diamond Lil's Saloon. Me, Roger, and a young lady I'll call Jill. Skutch and Jim were with us, and the party went on until the wee hours. If you can call Ottawa's 1AM closing times "the wee hours".
Jill was our designated driver, so we just let the good times roll. We got well and truly pissed. They played all the old favorites...folksy stuff mostly, and when it came time to hit the road we ran into a slight problem. Seems that our designated driver could not drive a standard. Somehow we had overlooked this little problem in our original search for potable entertainment. Good old Roger though. He had an idea. I was smallest, and would sit behind the wheel, foot to clutch and hand to shift lever. Jill would sit on my lap, and would be responsible for gas, brakes, and steering. Skutch and Jim stayed in back and promptly passed out. Roger sat in the passenger seat and for some reason, worked the CB radio, as if it would make any difference.
Have you ever tried to work a clutch with somebody else working the gas pedal? Oh lordy, it was a disaster in the making. We must have stalled out a dozen times before we got started, and at least once every time we came to a stop at a red light. Jill would call out "first gear". I would say "rev the engine a bit Jill", and would get rolling. Then Jill would call out "second gear", I would shove in the clutch and pop it into second. And so on. And so forth. The Austin Marina had five forward gears, so I was kept pretty busy...couldn't even cop a feel off of Jill I was so busy! Didn't stop her from dipping her hand down from time to time to wake me up! Hmmph. The memories of a temptation resisted are always bitter.
Well, we rolled into the barracks just fine, and parked at the mess. No damage done. Roger signed off, thanking a fella he was chatting with who was ready to dispatch an ambulance at any moment, I tried to stand up and couldn't because there was no feeling left in my legs. Roger crashed in my absent roomies' bed, and Jill wandered off to the female barrack block. The next morning, over dry toast, coffee and aspirin, we got together and wondered once again how far adrift from common sense a bottle of alcohol can lead you.
