You Take The High Road
I awoke on the sofa in my front room one Sunday morning. The lights were all on, as was the television. TMF or similar rubbish if I remember correctly. My first impression was that a substantial amount of me was covered in a substantial amount of mud. My trousers, arms, hands and t-shirt were all nicely coated in flaking, mostly dried up dirt. "Ah. I thought. Never mind."
More pressing issues were at hand. I went to the toilet - a glance in the mirror revealed that my face had suffered a similar fate to the rest of me. Returning to the safety of my sofa, I atttempted to piece together the events that led to my soiled state.
I remembered being in the 2am bar. I remembered losing my coat - undoubtedly I had thrown it on the floor somewhere and forgotten to keep an eye on it. This was something I had done many times before. Unfortunately, this night was mid December and extremely cold. Obviously someone wiser and (suprisingly) less principled than myself had stolen the coat to keep themself warm. I caused some unpleasantness with the bouncer and staff whilst searching futiley for the coat - providing the bonus of allowing me to finish my drink relatively unharassed.
Somehow, myself and my flatmate had become separated the instant we left the bar. Attempting to get a taxi proved impossible with my ailing mindset. There were people everywhere and I was alone and unarmed. The only sensible option seemed a brisk trot home. My normal route seemed dangerous - I could sense They were closing in. One quick diversion later and I was walking alongside the canal which runs past my house. The canal was nice and quiet. Many would have described it as "too quiet.
As I walked, I gradually became aware of two things - firstly that it was far too cold to be stumbling around in the semi-dark and secondly, that I was substantially too drunk to walk safely beside the large volume of water a canal contained. Always one for saftey, I decided to walk as far to the side of the path away from the canal as possible. My occasional misjudgements of direction now limited me to the center of the path - giving me a good 6 feet of error. In one direction.
As suggested, this leeway did not extend in both directions, a miscalculation I was soon to pay for. A short slip on wet grass later, I had tumbled around six feet down a bank into a drainage ditch running alongside the canal. This trench contained around six inches of dirty water. Recognising this as a bad place to rest, I attempted to remove myself from the gutter. My shoes were extremely wet, however, leaving me unable to do anything but slip back down into the murky depths. The only course of action was to climb out on my hands and knees, dragging myself upwards using the grass growing on the slope for leverage.
Having escaped the waters I felt the fun had gone from my walk and hurried on. I assume I was watching the ground rather too closely at this stage, as my next memory is looking at a road bridge which crosses the canal around half a mile past the footbridge I should have used. There was no way up to the road, so I was forced to retrace my steps. Reaching the footbridge sometime later I realised I could not find the path up to safety.
After a nice display of confused wandering around, a group of three or four kind souls came into sight. I approached them with caution.
PO'P: Excuse me - how the godamn hell do I get up there? <Pointing at bridge>
RP: <Laughing at my disheveled state> What the hell hapened to you? Are you alright?
PO'P: I fell. I kinda want to get home now though. Any ideas?
RP: You need to go back over there and follow that path.
PO'P: Cool. Thanks.
RP: Here - you must be cold, have a beer. <Hands over ice cold can of Stella>
PO'P: Godamn. I reckon you just saved my life. See you around.
We parted company. I was substantially buoyed by the beer and wobbled off on my way. Sadly, the path up to the bridge was muddy. For the second time that night, gravity took charge of me and I fell. Around half of a can of lager poured on me and the dirty ground I was lying on. I clambered to an upright position once more and finished my eventful journey home, prepared to wake up the next day in sheer confusion.
More pressing issues were at hand. I went to the toilet - a glance in the mirror revealed that my face had suffered a similar fate to the rest of me. Returning to the safety of my sofa, I atttempted to piece together the events that led to my soiled state.
I remembered being in the 2am bar. I remembered losing my coat - undoubtedly I had thrown it on the floor somewhere and forgotten to keep an eye on it. This was something I had done many times before. Unfortunately, this night was mid December and extremely cold. Obviously someone wiser and (suprisingly) less principled than myself had stolen the coat to keep themself warm. I caused some unpleasantness with the bouncer and staff whilst searching futiley for the coat - providing the bonus of allowing me to finish my drink relatively unharassed.
Somehow, myself and my flatmate had become separated the instant we left the bar. Attempting to get a taxi proved impossible with my ailing mindset. There were people everywhere and I was alone and unarmed. The only sensible option seemed a brisk trot home. My normal route seemed dangerous - I could sense They were closing in. One quick diversion later and I was walking alongside the canal which runs past my house. The canal was nice and quiet. Many would have described it as "too quiet.
As I walked, I gradually became aware of two things - firstly that it was far too cold to be stumbling around in the semi-dark and secondly, that I was substantially too drunk to walk safely beside the large volume of water a canal contained. Always one for saftey, I decided to walk as far to the side of the path away from the canal as possible. My occasional misjudgements of direction now limited me to the center of the path - giving me a good 6 feet of error. In one direction.
As suggested, this leeway did not extend in both directions, a miscalculation I was soon to pay for. A short slip on wet grass later, I had tumbled around six feet down a bank into a drainage ditch running alongside the canal. This trench contained around six inches of dirty water. Recognising this as a bad place to rest, I attempted to remove myself from the gutter. My shoes were extremely wet, however, leaving me unable to do anything but slip back down into the murky depths. The only course of action was to climb out on my hands and knees, dragging myself upwards using the grass growing on the slope for leverage.
Having escaped the waters I felt the fun had gone from my walk and hurried on. I assume I was watching the ground rather too closely at this stage, as my next memory is looking at a road bridge which crosses the canal around half a mile past the footbridge I should have used. There was no way up to the road, so I was forced to retrace my steps. Reaching the footbridge sometime later I realised I could not find the path up to safety.
After a nice display of confused wandering around, a group of three or four kind souls came into sight. I approached them with caution.
PO'P: Excuse me - how the godamn hell do I get up there? <Pointing at bridge>
RP: <Laughing at my disheveled state> What the hell hapened to you? Are you alright?
PO'P: I fell. I kinda want to get home now though. Any ideas?
RP: You need to go back over there and follow that path.
PO'P: Cool. Thanks.
RP: Here - you must be cold, have a beer. <Hands over ice cold can of Stella>
PO'P: Godamn. I reckon you just saved my life. See you around.
We parted company. I was substantially buoyed by the beer and wobbled off on my way. Sadly, the path up to the bridge was muddy. For the second time that night, gravity took charge of me and I fell. Around half of a can of lager poured on me and the dirty ground I was lying on. I clambered to an upright position once more and finished my eventful journey home, prepared to wake up the next day in sheer confusion.
posted by Peter O'Phile at
8:06 pm
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