What in the…

I was just chatting with a former guildmate of mine from WoW, he was telling me about how he went out with some friends the night before to have a few drinks… When this part in the conversation happened, I had this little comic running through my head of me running happily and then suddenly digging my heels in and coming to a dead stop with this “WTF?!” look on my face. Read it, I think you’ll understand why.

***** says:
so he decides we should go play pool instead
***** says:
and he took a speedbump at 100km/h
***** says:
and his exhaust fell off his car
***** says:
haha.. shame
***** says:
good thing i always drive slowly when im drunk
Breigh says:
uhhhh

“Good thing I always drive slowly when I’m drunk” *Gasp* WHAT …. THE …. FUCK?!

Now I know there are major cultural differences between South Africa (where he comes from) and Canada/Holland, but can they really be THAT different? I’m sure it’s not tolerated by their authorities but what gets me is that this is at least the third time I’ve heard something like this from one of my South African friends. They say it as though it’s an everyday thing that nobody really bats an eye at and I end up sitting there with the same stunned expression every time. Thank god they can’t see my face because I’m sure they’d duck if they did.

I know more than my share of people who were killed by drunk drivers. In North America drinking and driving is a serious NO NO and not something that is tolerated at all. For most of my life I’ve seen TV ads, made for TV movies and everything else possible campaigning against drinking and driving, so much so that it’s been pounded into my head that it’s just wrong. This makes it very hard for me to have any tolerance for people who openly admit to doing it, in my mind it places them somewhere between complete asswipe and utter mental midget in the filing cabinet in my brain.

His explaination?

***** says:
my point is, i still have an exhaust on my car!!
***** says:
i dont approve of driving drunk at all, but i sure as hell wasnt walking home at 3am

Riiiiiiiight…

They say with friendship you have to take the good with the bad, but seriously, how do you overlook something like this?

It’s just something I take very seriously… I remember when I was in college we were out partying at a club one night and a group of guys I knew had all gone there together. The guy who was driving lived 2-3 houses up the street from me and we had grown up together. He was quite drunk that night and hellbent on driving home. He wouldn’t give me or any of the other guys his keys and was acting really irrational. I eventually gave up on trying to get his keys from him and when it came time to leave I had this horrible feeling in my gut that I just couldn’t shake. I saw a police car patrolling the parking lot so I went up to them and explained… they asked me to point out his car and I did. Then I went in and told my friend what I told them and that the wise move would be to hand his keys over to one of the guys who hadn’t been drinking, or to let me drive them.

He was really angry with me and still didn’t hand over his keys to anyone, I really have no idea what happened when he went out to his car. I do know that he never spoke to me again though… but at least he and his friends are alive to hate me.