On my way home tonight I came upon a wobbly cyclist who was not safe to pass in a great hurry, so being the gentleman driver I am (insert witty remark here) I slowed to allow the cyclist an opportunity to collect their wobbleness and stay safely to the side of the road, and also to allow myself good visibility before passing.
The thing is the cyclist was not really doing the best job of staying to the left at all. She, yes she, would wobble wildly to he right and into the middle of the road before wobbling back over the the left and so on. Out of curiosity I slowed to the point where I was actually now simply following the cyclist, mainly because the country road was not really conducive to passing a bike that was dangerously unpredictable, and also because I was curious as to whether she would actually fall off.
Moments later I had my answer. With one not very elegant wobble to the right and a ill advised and badly timed swerve to the left she was unceremoniously thrown from her bike to the ground where she laid motionless and bathed in the lights of my car.
I assumed she would get up quickly and brush herself down rather embarrassed, but no, she lay there… asleep! After a few moment I decided that I should investigate to see if she was okay, so I approached her and asked if she was okay, to which she replied, still with her eyes closed “Yes, I’ll be okay in a minute please.”
She was, as I had suspected, completely blitzed out of her brain, but I have to say, even in her very bedraggled state of drunkenness she was actually drop dead gorgeous! I knelt down beside her and managed to learn that she had cycled quite some distance from a party where she had been celebrating a friends 30th birthday and she was now actually very close to home. Helping her to her feet and the side of the road she revealed that this was actually about the forth time she had met the road in such a manner tonight, and that she wasn’t entirely sure whose bike it was but that she had not stolen it.
I would have helped her home but my car is very small and there simply would have been no room for her and the bike. In hindsight maybe I should have just hidden the bike and then written down where it was given her the note and driven her home safe, but I didn’t. Instead I just helped her straighten her handlebars and reattach the wicker basket to the front of the bike. Then she wobbled her way back onto it and gave me a hug for helping her!
I then got back in the car and continued my journey home. She wasn’t too far from home she said, so hopefully she got there okay.
Wrote the following comment on Jun 19, 2005 at 3:23 am
Yeah, it is illegal to be on the road drunk be that on a bike, in a car, a tractor or a horse, it makes no difference. But on Friday night I guss the cops wouldn’t have really been in this area so she got away with it. But it was a pretty silly thing to do, but she’ll have a good tale to tell… if she remembers any of it! :-)
Wrote the following comment on Jun 18, 2005 at 7:29 pm
Do they arrest people for riding bicycles under the influence? Here, you are suppposed to obey traffic rules when riding your bike, and I have heard of people getting speeding tickets, but I wonder if anyone has ever gotten a DUI ? I hope she made it home safely.
Wrote the following comment on Jun 18, 2005 at 7:39 pm
Good work helping the wobbly lady! Hope she made it all the way home. I remember years ago a classmate of mine rode his bike home drunk and fell asleep on the way and just fell over sideways still on the bike, laying on the sidewalk. :}
Wrote the following comment on Jun 18, 2005 at 8:33 pm
ha ha!
Wrote the following comment on Jun 19, 2005 at 9:34 pm
Too funny!
Wrote the following comment on Jun 20, 2005 at 4:32 am
Funny :-)
Wrote the following comment on Jun 20, 2005 at 5:04 am
very funny and kind of sad! way to be a good samaritan though simon!
Wrote the following comment on Jun 21, 2005 at 5:40 am
ha. good story.