I ask that question because tonight that happened to me.
My mom and I were out to dinner when we got seated in the bar. For me, I don’t care where we sit as long as I get food, my mom on the other hand had this sour look on her face. I asked her why and she turned her face towards this very loud, very drunk man standing at a table near us.
He looked like he was having a good time with his lady friends so I didn’t think much of it. Our waitress came and greeted us and we just drowned out the mans voice. The next thing I know I see the bartender asking the man to sit down and be a little more quiet because his manager had asked him to. So naturally this man became my entertainment for the evening. I mean, what was I going to do, watch college football? No thanks.
The man continued to have a good time with his two lady friends while sipping on what I would guess, based on the stack of glasses at his table, his 6th or 7th beer. The bartender was talking to the man as the man reached his “I love you” stage, and was trying to get him to order some food to eat. The man kept refusing and just kept drinking his beer.
As our food came, the man made a trip to the bathroom, and as we all know, once you break the seal you’re screwed. So after he went to the bathroom he stumbled back to his table with his lady friends and continued to drink.
As my mom and I finished our meal, the man made a trip to the bathroom, but instead of going back to the table, he walked out the front door fumbling his keys. He walked right past the bartender, and the hostess who had been watching him the whole night and they just let him walk out the restaurant. The bartender went to his table and asked his lady friends if he was driving and they replied “Yes, he is.” They all just sat there and the bartender went on to help his other tables.
My mom and I looked at each other, and I could tell that she was upset that they let that man walk out of the restaurant. At first I thought “well it’s not any of my business, I’m still in here so he can’t hurt me with his drunk driving.” But then my thoughts quickly turned to my friend Devon who was killed by a drunk driver in October. I wondered if anyone who was with the man that hit and killed her thought the same thing I just thought. After that my attitude about the whole situations quickly changed. I wanted to run out of the restaurant and take the keys from that man and tell him the story of my friend and why he shouldn’t be getting him his car. But I didn’t.
Then I got mad at the bartender. He saw that man and how he was acting, how come he didn’t cut him off, or how come he didn’t run out of that restaurant and try to stop that man? Or his friends, why didn’t they try to stop him when they saw him walking through the doors?
Halfway through our dessert the man came stumbling back into the restaurant and saying “don’t ever let me drive! I was on the wrong side of the road!” Although the man was back in the restaurant, and wasn’t on the road, I still couldn’t believe I saw all this play out during my dinner.
My mom and I talked about it on the way home, but I am still confused as to what I just watched happen. Being someone who has lost someone I really care about to drunk driving, I saw that situation ending terribly, and it amazed me that his friends or the bartender didn’t stop him. But then the other part of me saw his friends letting him make his own choices and deal with his own consequences.
But what happens when you let someone make their own choices and deal with the consequences when the decision could affect so many other people? I know most of us have probably had that situation where we drove home one night and the next morning we looked back thinking we definitely shouldn’t have. But does that make it okay to let someone else endanger other people’s lives?
When I asked myself that, Devon’s face immediately popped into my head. If there was someone with the man that night before he hit and killed her, that could have stopped him and spared her life, I hope they would have done it. We all hear that we shouldn’t drink and drive, but most of us laugh it off thinking “it won’t happen to us” but it does. I never thought I would lose a friend to drunk driving, and I did. But it wasn’t just me that lost someone, all of her friends lost a friend, her mom and dad lost a daughter, her sister lost her best friend, her niece lost her aunt, and the world lost a beautiful soul.
I’m not meaning to preach not to drink and drive, but I just hope that if you’re with a friend whose had too much, you offer to drive them home, or if you’ve had to much, you’re willing to give up your keys and find someone who is sober enough to drive.
I still don’t know what I would have done in the situation that I was in tonight if I was faced with it again. With friends it’s different to say they shouldn’t drive, but with strangers what would you do? If you know something is wrong, would you speak up or just sit and watch? Just something to think about.
