Alcohol, Golf, and Being a Good Samaritan
Welcome to the week of The PLAYERS Championship, the internationally renowned golf tournament that takes place in my backyard and so clogs up local traffic I pack an ice chest to go to the grocery store. I’m not complaining (TOO much) because it is pretty cool to have such an esteemed event in my neighborhood.
HOWEVER. There are glitches.
So yesterday afternoon, I was driving home after picking up my 14-year-old daughter, who had met a friend for ice cream. My daughter’s entire diet yesterday, incidentally, consisted of breakfast cookies, 1/2 glass of milk, chips, a smoothie, four french fries, and ice cream. I cling to her in a stiff wind.
As we drove along, we passed the entrance to the tournament, and saw a guy on the sidewalk with a young woman wrapped around his ankle. Yeah, just like it sounds. Her body was sort of curled around his foot, head resting against his calf, and he was standing there with a glazed look. People walking by them looked on with interest, like maybe they were a statue. After passing the scene, I did a u-turn and went back, and rolled down my window.
“What’s going on here? Do you need help?” I asked.
“I called Uber but they’re not coming,” said the kid. “Can you just give me a ride to my car?” His car was a few blocks away, so I agreed. I put my van in park and went to help him. He was drunk. But his girlfriend was obliterated. Not even moaning, just dead quiet weight. Her knees were bloody. We jointly picked her up and poured her into the back seat, and he sat next to her.
“How old are you?” I asked as I drove away.
“Nineteen. But she’s 21,” he said. “This is really normal where we’re from. We go to FSU (Florida State University), and this is completely normal there. I tried to tell her you can’t do this shit in Jacksonville.”
I silently crossed FSU off my kids’ potential college list, and pondered the illogical nature of his statement. My daughter was Snapchatting the whole scene like crazy. We arrived at his car, which was actually his buddy’s car, and I asked what he planned to do next. “Well, I’m not driving home,” he said, showing some small semblance of sense. “I’ll just wait here for Uber to take us home.” We moved the girlfriend into the other car. “We’re staying with my parents,” the kid said. “I don’t know what I’m going to tell them. They’re both recovering alcoholics.” I checked the girl’s pulse to make sure she was alive. She seemed to foaming at the mouth a little.
“Listen,” I said to him. “This girl is not well. She probably needs medical attention.”
“Yes, ma’am. I understand,” he said. He again emphasized that “this happens all the time” in Tallahassee.
“I’m serious,” I said. “You can’t leave her alone until she wakes up. She’s not in good shape.” Just then Uber showed up; the Uber driver helped the kid load up his girlfriend, and the kid thanked me for my help. They drove off.
“Wow, Mom,” said my daughter. “That was hilarious.” We had an immediate discussion about which parts were funny (so, never wear a white eyelet romper with no underwear when going on a bender) and which parts weren’t (blacking out, near-death experiences, exposing oneself to possible criminal activities).
Later in the evening, I evaluated the list of FAILS related to this girl’s unfortunate overindulgence.
#1 — Her boyfriend had carried her over his shoulder, like a caveman, from the event to the main thoroughfare, past police officers, security guards, and hundreds of people. Apparently, no one questioned him.
#2 — As he stood on the sidewalk, with the woman crumpled like she’d been shot, security guards were about 20 feet away. None of them offered to help them or evaluate whether they were even a couple. As I was helping the guy, in fact, the guard sauntered over to inform me I was blocking traffic. I used my witchy powers to shoot laser beams into his brain.
#3 — Why didn’t I call the police or rescue, or even demand that one of the guards call for medical assistance? By the time I left them with Uber, I felt reasonably certain the kid hadn’t kidnapped her. But I wasn’t at all confident in his ability to take care of her.
If it takes a village to raise a child, it similarly takes a village to keep a village civilized. I could go on and on about the dangers of college students binge-drinking, the potential signs of alcoholism, why we should talk early and often to our kids about drinking. But we discuss that stuff often. Here’s what we’re not doing — we are not helping each other enough when the helping means getting involved in the lives of strangers — especially strangers who’ve made mistakes. What if the girl had been drugged? What if she had a medical condition? What if this kid wasn’t a good guy after all?
My father told me once about a time when he was driving home from Baton Rouge late one night, and came across a stranded car on the highway. As he passed it, he noticed two young girls looking hopefully under the hood. He pulled over, and waited for the girls to come ask him for help. Turns out there were four of them, and they were headed to New Orleans for a night of fun after telling their parents they were studying. Dad took them to the nearest gas station, made each one call her parents, and waited with them for one of the parents to arrive.
Listen, I know it’s a different world today, so don’t be stopping to help every stranded motorist you see, unless you clearly recognize me. But goddamn, if you see a young guy carrying an unconscious drunk girl over his shoulder, for the love of Jack Daniels, stop and assess the situation. I seriously regret not calling authorities to evaluate the drunk girl’s state — I haven’t heard of any deaths in the area over the past couple of days, so I’m hoping she woke up the next day with a terrible, terrible headache and bruises on her knees. I really, really hope that’s what happened.
