No Regret Friday

Lucky escape

It was 2009, and the IPL circus was in town, so quite naturally when free tickets popped up I jumped at the chance of going to check it out.  Two games, free food and some good mates, not to mention the ever present plastic beer jugs that never seem to empty all set the stage for what was to be an epic night.

And it was, I can’t remember which teams played, one wore red and gold and the other red and blue, or was it blue and gold?  I can’t remember, but either way two of the four teams won and the other two lost.

After the cricket one of the guys got it into his head that going to Teazers was a great idea, and since I’d quite properly gotten myself drunk, I agreed.  The two other guys were against the idea, not because of the fact that it was Teazers, but because of the fact that they had to drive home.  In hindsight, they probably had the right idea.

Teazers was pretty standard; anyone who’s been there knows what it’s like.  There are naked girls from foreign countries dancing on tables and walking around talking to people in an attempt to extricate as much money from them as they can, which is fair enough.  We got bored there pretty quickly and decided to go to Billies in Durban instead, where we had a few more drinks.

Next door to Billies is a place called Wonder Lounge.  It too is a place where foreign women dance on tables without any clothes on and attempt to extricate as much money from people as they can, but these foreign women were a lot sexier than the other ones, partly because the lighting was better, but mostly because we were that much more drunk.

After paying an exorbitant amount of money for two private dances with a woman called Svetlana or Natalia or Susan, and another round of drinks, my friend decided that he wanted to go home to his wife, so I dropped him off and was about to go home when I remembered that another friend had mentioned going to a club I quite liked.  So I set off, filled with the promise of a night out dancing, more drinking and perhaps meeting a girl that I didn’t have to pay to like me.

I was driving and texting said friend when suddenly the world spun around, my glasses flew off and everything came to an abrupt halt.  For a moment I had no clue what had happened.  Then I groaned, and realised that I might actually be damaged in some way.  I then groaned again and noticed a white airbag was deflated in front of me and that there was smoke wafting through the car.  So I took my seatbelt off and got out.

I wandered to the pavement, and as I did was approached by a man who said something like. “Didn’t you see my car?”  I hadn’t seen his car, which had been stationary in the middle of the off-ramp I was taking.  Fortunately he wasn’t in it when I hit it otherwise I might now be sitting in jail for culpable homicide or some such thing.

I realised then that my vision was blurred, but I didn’t panic.  I went to my car and picked my glasses up off the floor.  Once I had them on and the world was back in focus I surveyed the damage.  It was bad, I was sure the car was a write off and I was right.  I guess the adrenaline must have worn off because right then I felt a lot of pain in my chest, and had to sit down again.

An ambulance showed up and rushed me to hospital for x-rays and to get checked out by a doctor, just in case I had some sort of internal injury.  I did, but it wasn’t serious.  The combined force of the impact, the seat belt and the airbag had all combined to fracture my sternum.  The doctor gave me a prescription for some pain pills and some anti-inflammatories and sent me on my way after an hour or so, once he was sure I wasn’t going to die and all the necessary forms had been filled out.

So there I was, standing outside a hospital at three in the morning, trying to call my flatmate to come pick me up.  It was a moment I’ll never forget.  I was cold, slightly groggy from the mixture of myprodol and vodka in my system, alone and entirely miserable.

The next day I awoke to the realisation that I had no car.  I was in immense pain and I felt the stirrings of a cold and rather bad cough, which, as anyone whose experienced it will tell you, is sheer horror when you have a fractured sternum or ribs, you sneeze and it feels as though someone is poking you in the chest with a hot branding iron, hard.   But things could have been much worse.  Had the police gotten there before the ambulance I would have been breathalysed and I would have been arrested and taken to jail.  I’ll take the injury thanks.

These days I take taxi-cabs when I decide to go out and do stupid things, because let’s be honest, drinking and driving is just stupid and dangerous.