Recently I met a girl who works at Dunkin, formerly known as Dunkin Donuts. Of course, I had to tell her about how the name of that place always reminds me of the time when I was about nineteen years old and I was partying with my stepsister and her husband out at their house in Tacoma. It was late at night, and I was in no shape to drive, but I had my uncle’s car and so, I had to go home so that I could give his car back.
And so there I am, drunk out of my mind… so drunk that I can’t get the two sets of white lines in the center of the road to turn back into one like they are supposed to be… And that was the last thing I remember, just before I fell asleep.
Looking back on it now, I wonder if anybody saw me… slumped over with my head against the window… eyes closed… still behind the wheel of the car while it’s flying down the road!
I must have been in a very deep slumber, probably snoring… when I was suddenly awakened by the violent jolt of my uncle’s car veering off the road and jumping over the curb and up onto the sidewalk. It took me a moment to realize what had happened and for it to register in my mind that I had fallen asleep, left the roadway, and was now speeding through somebody’s yard. But when it finally occurred to me, what was going on, I began frantically swiping at the steering wheel like a mad man, trying to turn the car away from their house and get it headed back out into the street! Unfortunately, my reaction wasn’t quite fast enough, and I ended up sideswiping a telephone pole!
When I got out and looked, I saw that the rear quarter panel of my uncle’s car, from the passenger side door all the way to the back bumper was severely bashed in and the tire was flat. It looked like I could still get the car home if I just changed the tire and put the spare on. And so… I staggered around to the trunk… fumbled around for fifteen minutes trying out every one of the seventy-five keys on my uncle’s key ring until I finally found the one that opens the trunk. After another ten minutes of burning my fingers with the lighter I was using to illuminate the darkness, I eventually located the spare tire and all the tools, got all that stuff out, jacked up the car, and thirty minutes later had the tire changed. It was only when I lowered the car back down that I noticed I had somehow gotten the flat and the spare mixed up and I had put the flat tire BACK ON the car instead of the spare.
I was so dejected by that turn of events that I contemplated leaving the car and heading out on foot. I just wanted to get home and go to bed. But after reasoning with my drunken self briefly, I realized that the only logical thing to do was to just go ahead and leave the flat tire on there and try to make the twenty mile trip home. Then I would change the tire in the morning… hoping my uncle wouldn’t notice.
And so… I got in the car and started driving. And everything seemed to be going according to plan until I actually got out onto the paved street and tried to drive more than five miles an hour. The flat tire on the rear caused the car to swerve and fishtail all over the place, and after only a few blocks all the rubber had been ground completely off. This left nothing but the steel rim of the wheel, which… unbeknownst to me… was digging a groove in the pavement and leaving a trail of sparks in its wake!
Right about that time I was approaching the intersection where there is a traffic light with Dunkin Donuts on my left and Tacoma Community College straight ahead. Now, the light was red but I didn’t want to stop, for a variety of reasons, but especially because as I approached the intersection, I noticed a Tacoma City Policeman in the Dunkin Donuts parking lot standing next to his patrol car talking to some people who, when they heard the awful racket and the sudden appearance of my Uncle’s wrecked car come skidding through the intersection sideways at about forty miles an hour, spewing sparks and making a horrendous noise… their mouths hung open in shock and bewilderment. I remember looking over at them and wondering why they were all just standing there. I guess they were wondering what the hell was going on. And I thought for sure the cop would jump in his car and try to apprehend me. But to my amazement and joy, everyone just stood there in frozen astonishment and watched me stomp on the gas and fish-tail it out of there!
I decided I’d better try and find my way back to my stepsister’s place before I got thrown in jail. But in my haste to evade arrest I guess I was going just a little too fast. And when I turned the corner at the first street I came to, the rear end of the car broke loose and I spun around onto the wrong side of the street, pointed in the direction I had just come from. To my surprise I had accidentally lodged myself perfectly between two parked cars, and so I turned off the lights and laid over in the front seat.
When I woke up in the morning, some kids were tapping on my window and asking me if I needed help. I thought about it for a moment and then I said, “Hey!… You kids got any beer?”
One boy indicated that his father always had cold beer in the fridge. I asked him if he could go get me one as I began fumbling around, looking through the seventy-five keys on my uncle’s key ring for the one that fits the trunk. An hour later, after I got all the tools out and jacked up the car and finally got the spare mounted, I lowered the car back down to the ground. That’s when all the neighborhood children, who had been very helpful up until that time, started giggling… to their amusement, the spare tire was also flat. That’s when I remembered I was only a few blocks away from Dunkin Donuts. Quickly I threw everything into the trunk of my uncle’s car. Moments later I was ordering coffee and a donut, and I did my best to ignore the girl behind the counter, who eyed me with suspicion.
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