Driving Under the Influence

Hello all! I hope your weeks have been more fantastic than the thought of Swan Lake performed by tu-tu clad mice!

 Well, they weren't kidding about the heat in Arizona. We had two consecutive days that were 115 degrees and I swear I could have grilled chicken on the pavement in front of our building.

They also were not joking about the dust storms. They have haboobs (it's another name for 'really intense dust storm, no really, go look it up and stop laughing) here too. I accidentally stepped outside during the most recent one and am still finding dust on me.

Overall, however, I seem to be surviving the heat and the weird weather.

When I moved away from Spokane people said to me, "Oh, now weird stuff will stop happening to you all the time."

I just shook my head, knowingly, at them. You see, my gravitational field that seems to pull in all of the bizarre parts of the universe is not restricted to a singular location. No, instead it follows me, orbiting the crazy around my head.

Point in case, let's take my trip to the grocery store the other night as proof. My roommate, Karen, and I dropped by to pick up a few necessities (aka ice cream). As we were leaving the store we noticed a rather large gentleman on one of those motorized scooters cutting a swerving path across the parking lot.

 As we watched, he steered one-handed, nearly hitting two parked cars. At least he was nice enough to apologize to each of the cars he nearly hit. I happened to look at what he was holding in his other hand. With just a little bit of the neck of a bottle poking out, it was obvious that the paper bag he gripped tightly in his hand was not full of candy.

I looked over at Karen, "Is he..." just as he took a giant swig from his cleverly hidden bottle.

"Yup!"

We both then watched as he tried to steer the cart into the cart barn, running smack into one of the end poles.

"Well, at least he's not driving a Hummer?"

What lessons can be drunk from the bottle of experience?

1. If you're too plastered to steer a motorized shopping cart, then a motor vehicle is not for you. Good job on your harm reduction, though.

2. Paper bags are the least sneaky way to hide booze, in fact, they are literally the most cliched way ever to disguise drinking. You're not going to fool anyone who has had access to television in the last fifty years.

As always come follow my adventures on Facebook and Twitter (@AllisonHawn) and check out my books here.