9-1-1

Most of my blog entries revolve around recounting alcohol induced bouts of debauchery and amusing exploits. If it isn't broke I am not going to fix it. You never mess with a winning formula, just ask Coca-Cola about the experiment known as New Coke. Here for your reading enjoyment is another tale from the vault.

Back in second year of University I lived with a girlfriend. My best friend from high school would come visit from time to time and we would party it up. We'd hit the bars and generally try to get into various forms of trouble. We seldom failed in our attempts. My friend was a bit on the shorter side and a bit chubby so he ended up with the name "Chubba". To say that he embraced it wholeheartedly is an understatement. It was a regular occurrence to see the transformation from normal person into Chubba unfold as the drinks went down. You could tell things had taken a turn to the bad side once he inevitably yelled "Chubba RULES!" and proceeded to try to knock something over. It was not exactly socially acceptable behaviour but that is what friends do, they accept each other despite the obvious temporary insanity and other faults. I spent a great percentage of the time I hung out with him trying to keep him out of fights and from causing too much destruction. He was like a mini tazmanian drinking devil.   

My girlfriend thought it would be a great idea to set up Chubba with her crazy lab partner named Pam (affectionately nicknamed Wham Bam by me for her obviously low standards). On paper the combination looked perfect, crazy drunken fool and crazy skanky chick, how could it go wrong? With a plethora of alcohol, that's how. We all met up at my place and to my surprise Chubba and Wham Bam hit it off fairly well. Any shyness was quickly dissolved as the drinks flowed from a seemingly endless supply of alcohol. After a good bit of pre-drinking we embarked to the local dance club. We proceeded to drink more and dance the night away. Chubba almost started a bit of a scene with what could be best described as potential members of the Italian mafia. Apparently one of them hit on Wham Bam and Chubba took exception to that. We somehow managed to make it out of the club without being shot or kneecapped, thank goodness for small miracles. We piled back into a cab and went back to my place.

At this point we were all a mess. Chubba and Wham Bam were drunkenly pawing at each other and I just wanted to stop the room from spinning. I went into the bathroom to splash water on my face and I heard a scream. I stumbled out of the bathroom to witness a scene that resembled something out of a horror movie. The carpet in the living room was drenched in blood and there were bloody footprints leading to the other bathroom. For some reason at this point in my intoxicated mind the most likely scenario was that we got burgled and it went wrong. I ran into my bedroom and grabbed my miniature baseball bat, then proceeded to slowly tiptoe/stumble in the direction of the bloody footprints. I finally reached the bathroom door (closed with the bloody trail leading in). I flung the door open and yelled, ready to swing the bat at the intruder. To my surprise the door hit Chubba as he was doubled over throwing up in the toilet. My girlfriend came to the door and told me to call an ambulance for Wham Bam. They told me that she had stepped on a wine glass and it cut her foot. 

What happened next is precisely why a drunken university student should never be trusted to do anything intelligent. I picked up the phone and called 9-1-1. This is how I remember the conversation going:

911:"Please state the nature of your emergency"

Me: "I got the number right!"

911:"Sir? What is your emergency"

Me: "Well I thought we had a burglar with all that blood everywhere"

911: "What blood sir? What blood??"

Me: "Blood EVERYWHERE, soaked through the carpet..."

911: "What happened sir, whose blood is it?"

Me: "It's EVERYWHERE"

911: "What is your name and address sir?"

Me: "Oh forget it, we'll just take a cab I guess..."

My girlfriend took the phone out of my hands and asked me who I was talking to? I told her it was a nice woman from 911. She assumed I was just kidding and she called a cab. It turned out Wham Bam just had a piece of glass in her foot and most of the bleeding had stopped at this point. We still needed to go to the hospital for stitches. About 10 minutes later the cab came and we all got into it. After informing the cabbie to take us to the hospital we were suddenly surrounded by cop cars, lights flashing and sirens whailing. It was at this point that I informed everyone that I had indeed called 911 and told the operator about all the blood on the floor. The cops made us get out of the cab and my girlfriend calmly explained to them that they told me to call an ambulance and that was what I tried to do, but unfortunately did a poor job describing the situation. Luckily after asking to see the apartment and seeing all the blood on the living room carpet the cops believed the story. We finally made it to the hospital and waited at least 3 hours for Wham Bam to get stitches, during which time Chubba threw up in the waiting room and a guy with a rather spectacular ponytail did the mop up duties. All in all a fairly decent eventful night.

Until next time, honour your contracts, be pleasant to strangers and never prematurely assume you've been burgled.