Town Drunks

Since moving into our beautiful new house, Jeremy and I have spent many enjoyable evenings talking and relaxing on the front porch, listening to the cicadas whir in the hot summer evenings and watching the wide variety of town drunks wobble by. Now, I know you're wondering how there can actually be a wide variety of town drunks--after all, aren't they all just drunk? But no. Each has their own distinctive variety of actions.

First, there is the peeing drunk. This particular drunk apparently took offense at the county sheriff candidate's sign in the neighbor's yard (or maybe it was the neighbor). As he stumbled past the sign, he had to loop back (this, in itself, is no small feat for a drunk, as a complete 180 degree turn requires for more motor skills than one initially thinks). Arriving back at the offending piece of cardboard, he then undid his pants and proceeded to pee on the sign.

Now, this was not the first drunk to take offense at said campaign sign (or possibly, it's just the fact that a sheriff, in general, would not please any particular town drunk). Earlier in the summer, another town drunk kicked the sign as he weaved down the sidewalk. It seems his anger grew during his amblings, for on the way back, he was audibly mumbling something as he approached the sign. As he drew up (or rather, staggered up) to the sign, he reached down and yanked it out of the ground (again, the motions of a drunk are not nearly as fluid as I just described, so actually grabbing the sign took him several attempts, body swinging somewhat wildly, and a close fall before success occurred). Yet, rather than trashing this "horrendous" sign, he instead proceeded to march wobbly down the sidewalk, carrying it like some sort of odd protester. He made it as far as the church next door before a cop pulled up alongside him. Interestingly enought, the cop did not arrest him, but simply drove beside him, "walking" him back to the yard from which he stole the sign. The cop then made the drunk replace the sign (again, no small feat), then let the drunk peacefully stagger off into the night.

Next, there was the bicycling drunk. I must say, I marvelled at this amazing town drunk. First, I have no idea how he managed to stay on the bicycle. Especially since he was barely pedaling fast enough to keep the bike upright, much less upright the way he swayed from side to side with each pedal. Considering his state of inebriation, the sidewalk was far from wide enough. At one point, I held my breath (well, actually, I was more hopeful and anticipatory, but that seemed a little mean) as I watched him head straight for a tree. On his return trip, he had figured out the sidewalk width problem and was now riding down the street. I had to admire his ingenuity in switching to this wider venue. The only problem is the street isn't so much a traficless little town road, but rather a fairly busy highway. Luckily, traffic slows down at night, so, hopefully, he did have the whole street to himself.

I have to say, I am somewhat baffled as to where these town drunks are headed and what they are doing. They always pass our house headed toward the convenience store. Now, at this time of night, the two convenience stores are the only things open. At first, I assumed they were headed there to buy more beer. They always pass by headed in that direction, returning roughly five minutes later. Time and again, though, I am befuddled, for none of them return carrying more beer. And it's not as if they could hide (or would really want to hide) a quart, a six pack, or any quantity of beer on their person. Thus, I have deduced that our town drunks are, in actuality, health nuts. Once intoxicated, there is some drive in them to get exercise, and they must exit their home (or mobile home) and get their heart rates up before passing out for the night. At least that's my conclusion.

There's also dumbass teenage drunk. This was the drunk who, in late spring, made the mistake of wandering into our house at about 3 am. Dumbass teen drunk got to have Jeremy pull a gun on him and swear at him a lot. I so wanted to open the bedroom door so dumbass teen drunk could also have a "proper" introduction to our dogs who, at the time, were not exactly pleased to have visitors or visitors entering the house in the way dumbass teen drunk did. Instead, I listened to dumbass teen frantically slur that he couldn't seem to get up. Tis a very sad day when the drunk walking into your house cannot do anything but sit on your floor and almost wet himself. I sort of felt bad for him. But not so much. Once he finally made it to his feet, he very quickly exited our house. Occasionally, we see him around town. He avoids looking at us. Hehe.

Finally, there is the neighbor drunk. Neighbor drunk wanders around at all times of day with a beer. Neighbor drunk is also extremely social and extremely hard to get rid of. So far, neighbor drunk has tried to help Jeremy move large appliances into the house, almost squashing him on the stairs. Neighbor dunk has also tried to slide down the old porch railing on the back porch and broken it off. Most recently, neighbor drunk stumbled over to our back door at 8 p.m. on a Friday night during our dinner. I let Jeremy handle neighbor drunk this time. Apparently, he had what he considred an antique sword or saber, which he was very excited about, and which Jeremy was fairly positive was a piece of junk. After about 10 minutes of pandering to neighbor drunk, Jeremy finally convinced him that he needed to return to his dinner. As Jeremy sat back down at the table, we both silently watched neighbor drunk, swoard and all, totter back home. Then, we just looked at each other.