Saturday, April 01, 2006

A Matter of Time

After the most fucked-up day of my life, I just got home from the hospital.

Preparing to leave for work this morning and Joe was laying on the couch as per usual, he was snoring hard, moaning, and gurgling – Nothing out of the ordinary. I took a picture, and proceeded to get ready for work. As I was leaving I realized that he looked like shit, and made some off-handed comment to the effect of: “If you puke on the couch, I’ll fucking shoot you” – or something like that.

Really it was a fairly light day at work, but I had several meetings that kept me there until five. We had planned on going out tonight, but Jes’s dog was attacked at the dog park earlier this week. Jes decided to take the night off and tend to Rocco, so The Girl and I decided to just head home and watch a few movies.

I get home around 5:30 and Joe’s still on the couch. He had wet himself. I fly off the handle with rage and start screaming at him. He’s going to get fired from another shit job for getting blind stinking drunk and sleeping until nightfall, plus he fucking ruined my couch. He’s not waking up, which makes me even angrier, so I run up and kick him to get him off the couch. He doesn’t move. I shake him. He doesn’t move. It sinks in – He’s dead.

Lost in my mind, I automatically dialed 911 and tried to explain my situation. Within a few minutes the ambulance was there, just as The Girl was getting back from work. The police came too. The cops spent about an hour talking to us (1/2 of that hour was spent going over the paperwork for all of the guns in the house) and taking pictures of the living room – even the full ashtray, and the empty 1.75 of Wild Turkey.

Fire trucks were arriving (for some reason) as I went with the police to the hospital down the street. They kept asking me questions while the preliminary results of the blood test came back. They even made me go to a computer and show them the Drinky Joe MSN page – they weren’t amused. I felt like a total dick.

Once the test came back Joe had a blood alcohol level of .78, over 50% more than the median lethal amount. Cause of death: Acute Alcohol Poisoning.

Or maybe the police and the doctors were right, and the cause of death is my fault for allowing his destructive behavior (and maybe I’m just rationalizing things when I say that I did the Drinky Joe site to bring attention to said behaviors).

Logically, it’s Joe’s parents’ fault for never instilling in him a sense of personal responsibility.

Some would say it’s his ex-girlfriend’s fault for driving him into alcoholic overload.

Definitely it’s society’s fault for glamorizing alcohol.

Absolutely not, the above excuses are bullshit.
It’s Joe’s fault for being a lousy drunk who drank himself to death. He was 30 years old. He woke up every morning with the sickly-sweet odour of ketosis on his breath, his eyes were turning yellow, and his teeth were rotting away. Back in ’98 my roommate (Croft) lost his arm to compartment syndrome after a month-long bender. I didn’t feel sorry then, and I’m not going to feel sorry now. What happened tonight was only a matter of time.

You know that Joe realized what was coming. He embraced it.

13 comments:

DC Liar said...

Do I have to spell it out?

After...
Preparing...
Really...
I...
Lost...

Fire...
Once...
Or...
Logically...
Some...

Definitely...
Absolutely...
You...

= APRIL FOOLS DAY, biatch.

Anonymous said...

alcoholisim is a disease and if your going to make fun of it your a idiot. its not good to make fun of people with problems and by doing that your just disservacing your friend iregardless of what your trying to prove to whoever. i'm sure that alot of people are thinking the same thing and ar'nt brave enough to right what i'm righting.

DC Liar said...

Re: alcoholisim (sic) is a disease

Your drunk (which is to say: You're drunk).

Wow, I can't believe that I got one comment which encompasses all of my grammatical peeves. This is a post to savor. Thank you, anonymous (Vince Young).

You gotta love it when the short-bus pulls over to exercise the tards on your e-lawn.
---
ps: The entire premise of your argument is the touchy-feely personal disorder as disease that's fucking up our society. Nothing is anyone's fault anymore; the smoker isn't responsible for his cancer, the tobacco company is - the parents of severely obese children aren't to blame, McDonald's is - the child molester isn't to blame for his actions, the printers of the Gymboree catalog are, etc.
If you want to see who's responsible for obsfucating the issues, look in the nearest fucking mirror. You're the enemy.

Meat Head said...

HaHaHaHA!. Remind me to play a nice game of punch face next time I see you. So you got me by default.

Ms. Meat Head decided to fall asleep before 10:00 pm last and I stayed up to 4:00 am. I get shaken out of bed at the ass crack of dawn, throw Ms Meat Head into choke hold, with some one screaming at me that drinky Joe is Dead. The first thing that comes to mind.

Damn that was an impressive string of drunken couch pictures. I wonder if they can stuff him and maybe put movable piece in his joints to keep it up. No one would know the difference and years from now. Drinky Joe appears have found the fountain of youth to we would get more people drinking. Everyone would say " Damn that guy has been drunk for 20 years and looks great"

What really sucks about this is I told Ms Meat Head yesterday to watch out today. She will fall for just about anything, she married me didn't she. So good job on the hoax. You got three people now.

To other poster. I know I am stupid, I am Meat Head. I am curious if you know the same. Allowing people to be weak because you put a name to it just makes weak people. We have a way to fix that. It's called natural selection and hopefully those people die before they breed.

So please go run with some scissors before you breed. (Crosses fingers that that has not happened yet.)

Michael K said...

"Iregardless" is not a word. It is the one grammatical error that literally makes me cringe when I hear it uttered or see it written. "Alot" (as another non-word) is a close second.

Josh, this was a very dirty little trick you pulled this morning. It is made worse that it was done long distance and I cannot punch you in the neck. If I were you, I'd be opening my mailbox with a 10 foot pole for a few weeks.

Anonymous said...

I love how the personal responsibility argument completely lets his friends off the hook to take pictures. Class all the way. I'm sure no one will feel bad if he does die, *and* everyone will talk about what a douchebag he was for not pulling himself up by his bootstraps. Well thought-out!

Gunderstorm said...

Dear Anonymous,
You're wrong. My old man drank himself to death and I thought this was pretty damn funny. I just wish I got to experience it without reading the "As Good As Dead" post first.

The only reason the comments on this have been so quiet is because DCL posted it on a Saturday and we were all out getting drunk and avoiding the internets.

Lighten up you twat!

edP said...

um, is anonymous recruiting for Alcoholics Anonymous?

Anonymous said...

I'm sitting on the couch on Saturday reading a book, watching my kid play, planning to do nothing except see Ray Davies with Ed that night. It was a hell week- as you know, no child can be left behind while I mop up tears, tie shoes, and oh, yeah, do report cards and meet with each parent. Ed yells from downstairs and runs up screaming that I need to read your blog. From my look he knew I wasn't leaving the couch so, he prints off your blog. I read, believe, freak out- I don't even know Drinky Joe. "You really got me." Thanks for the laugh. Bastard.

olddogdk said...

Awwwwwwwwwww! I was hoping he was really dead!

Anonymous said...

With Joe's drinking and dc lies' bad writing, you are one soul in two bodies, like two halves of one James Frey.

DC Liar said...

To Everyone Everyone Brave Enough To Speak Your Mind From Behind the Apron-Strings of Anonymity.

Say what you want. I'll never erase a post unless it is blog-spam. I'll even take the time to respond because I'm such a caring guy.
I realize that I probably know most of the Anons, due to this being such a small blog circle. Well, I don't care.
I can relax in knowing that I've done my job when I get a shit-load of angry anonymous diatribes (see: Mohammad).

Re: Well Thought out!
Joe knows about the Drinky Joe site - I set it up to show him how much he drinks. He doesn't care (He was in on the faking of his death). I've fucking pestered Joe for HOURS on end about his drinking, and do you know what happens? He drinks more and barfs on my couch. Joe has a nice bedroom (used, on average, 5 times a year). My only option would be to kick him out, but would that be any better for him? Here he has the fucking run of the place, and a maid service (me) to boot.
If you want to pull the self-righteous card, I'd be fucking elated if you want to take him in and help him to turn his life around. I sincerely wish you the best of luck, you condescending twat.

Re: James Frey
That was the point.
I had 25 minutes to stretch out the entry to 13 paragraphs, with designated starting letters for each first sentence of a paragraph.
I tried to make the entry seem as off-kilter as possible to get people to question and look closer. It (obviously) didn't work.
Now if only Oprah would yell at me for fooling her, I could sell the L&E blog rights to Hallmark's made-for-TV movie division and retire.

Ka-Ching!

Meat Head said...

To anonymous,

You are a coward and douche bag. But please keep on commenting. It’s nice to throw gas on a fire. It make big flame (claps hands while hair is on fire. If DC’s writing is so bad then put up or shut up. Write more than a sentence.

Calling you out bitch!