A Night On the Town

I want to take this opportunity to tell you a story. This is not like most stories you have heard before. This story might, to some, seem unbelievable. To some you will laugh and think, “Wow, those people are silly.” But this is a true story. This is a story about a friend of mine and I am sure some of the minor details are skewed, but none the less, the events that took place on that famed Friday evening are pretty accurate.

It was a Friday night and my two friends, we will call them Steve and Becky, were headed out to dance at a downtown Indianapolis club. This club opens at 8PM and has some impossible drink specials until 11. I want to say the specials are $0.50 U-Call its or something like that. So around 7:30PM Becky and Steve decide to head out. They meet up because Steve had some prior engagements and Becky was already out running around.

The two get to the club, have some drinks, and start to dance like they own the place. And when these two dance you know that they mean business. Dancing to them is something that is an expression of self and something they feel the urge and responsibility to do quite a bit. So they are dancing and Becky had had a few too many to drinks and began to loose some sense of balance and direction. Steve decided to twirl her around like one of those movie star dance moves. Not a good idea. Becky went down with a thud in the middle of the dance floor.

Now this is to be expected in a nightclub. People are getting a little too intoxicated and start falling down and slurring their words. But when she fell everyone around them jumped back and reached down to help. Becky remembers hearing things like, “Oh my God, are you OK?” and “Here, let me help you up.” So Becky laughs it off and heads over to a booth to sit down.

Not five minutes later, just sitting at the table, Steve recalls a security guard dressed in red walking over. He states his case and claims that the two need leave. Steve laughed, apparently, and thought it was a joke. The security guard did not find that funny. So he proceeds to force the two out of the bar. Laughing when they leave club Steve looks at his watch.

It’s 10:15PM.

So the two make their way to the parking garage where Becky had parked. (This is where this story gets really interesting.) The two begin walking around looking for her car and are having no luck. They try the first floor and there is nothing. They move to the second and there are cars everywhere but not hers. Then the third floor. Becky, at this point, begins to think her car was either stolen or not in that particular garage.

At this point they decided to go one more level up to just make sure and they make their way to the stairwell. (Why is it that every parking garage stairwell is wet and smells like feces? What goes on in those stairwells?) So as they begin walking up the stairs Becky decides that she has given up and wants to stop looking. She wants to go to sleep.

So Becky, wearing a long white coat (yeah, I said white) takes her coat off, lays it on the wet stairs, and sits down. She then proceeds to take her shoes off. Becky was getting so comfortable on those stairs she decided laying down was the last part to make this impromptu bed a reality.

At this time, Steve begins to ask what she is doing. He makes it clear that she is laying down in a wet, dark, cold stairwell of a parking garage. Becky seems to think he is crazy but decides to get up and continue looking for her car. Finally on the next level the two found her car. Steve had the keys at this time as he was not intoxicated at all (well, he had had a few drinks but not as many as she had) and realized it was her car. He proceeds to her car and begins to take her back to his vehicle so they can get her sober enough to drive home in the morning.

Now on the way to his car Becky begins to panic. She thinks that the car they are in is stolen. She kept asking Steve, “Who’s car is this? Why did you steal a car? Oh my God Steve, we are going to jail. You stole a car.” So amidst all the panic Steve manages to make his way to another parking facility where his car can be found. He decides that there is no way she is driving home and he offered to stay with her in the car and sleep until she was alright to drive.

Steve jumps out to grab his jacket from his car and when he turns around not a moment later he sees that Becky had moved from the passenger seat to the driver’s. This was not a good idea. So Steve jumps back in the car to rest for a while. They talked for a few moments and then Steve fell right asleep. He was asleep for about twenty minutes before he was awoken by a sudden jolt.

Steve opens his eyes and sees he is in front of Becky’s house. How did they get here? Becky is laughing and being silly when Steve realized that she had just driven over twenty minutes to get home. Was she crazy?

The next morning when Steve was being driven back to his car Becky realized what a mistake she had made. Not only did she drink too much to walk, let alone drive, she had broken her steering wheel. (You know how steering wheels can move up or down depending on your height and position in the seat? Well, that mechanism in her car is now broken.) She continues to apologize to Steve for putting them in danger and promises to never do that again.

This is a prime example of when a taxi cab confession would be a better decision. Sure, a taxi might cost you twenty or thirty bucks. But you would get home safe. You would not have a broken steering wheel. You would not have to have your jacket dry cleaned because you took a nap in stairwell of a parking garage.

Becky and Steve are fictional characters.