My father
Riding his motorcycle back to base at 2am my father was the epitome of cool - at least in his own mind. He had his leather jacket, his kick-ass shades (which he wore at night cause he was soo cool the sun shone on him 24 hours a day), a good buzz still going and he loved his motorcycle.

He was at the end of a weekend pass and had had a great time, drank his ass off, got laid, couldn't be happier - but he needed to be back in time for 6am roll call and so when the bars closed, back to base he went.

One problem - all the beer was doing what beer does and he had to take a leak something awful. (Q: Why do beer and apple juice go through you so quickly? A: cause they don't have to stop to change color along the way! ba dum dum tsh)

So he's looking around for a place to stop and he sees a fast food joint on the side of the road, he pulls in, swaggers up like the cool dude he is and bangs on the door - but it's after two in the morning and, as you would expect, they're closed. He bangs some more with the drunken righteousness of a man with a full bladder but eventually even he figures out it's not going to open up and give him access to the porcelain depository he so richly deserves.

Now he really has to go - looking around the parking lot he sees a short wall surrounds it, and behind that - some bushes. He runs over looking probably a lot less cool than his original swagger and does a hand plant leap over the wall planning on watering their bushes for them and moving on.

Except Drunk + Sun glasses + 2am means you can't really see shit, and what he had thought were bushes behind the wall, were actually the tops of trees. The little wall was to prevent people from falling over the small cliff at the edge of the lot.

Depending on when you hear the story, the fall was anywhere from 30 to 70 feet - and he remembers hitting every single branch of the god damn trees on the way down (which probably, combined with the drunken looseness of the truly inebriated, saved his life) he doesn't remember landing so distinctly - only waking up in the late morning, hungover, beat to shit, and at the bottom of a cliff. He also distinct remembers "and I didn't have to pee anymore."

He managed to get back up to his bike at the top of the cliff (an ordeal in itself) and back to base, but had to explain to his commanding officer why his missed roll call. Embarrassed and covered in bruises, and with a good story at least, he didn't get in too much trouble and thought that was the end of it.

Not quite - a couple weeks later he's called down to the base psychiatrist. The conversation starts with

"So, how long have you been having these suicidal feelings?"

It took him a minute to figure out what was going on - and then he had to explain to the earnest young man that he didn't jump off a cliff cause he's suicidal... he jumped off a cliff because he was drunk and stupid =)

My dad is brilliant, and for the record doesn't even drink these days, but these stories help me feel better about myself when I do something idiotic myself - may they help you as well! =)
( Allisade would love to hear from you, Wed 2 Mar 2011, 22:55, Reply)