TALES FROM THE DRUNK DIET (Chapter 1)
Don't Be a Meathead
Lüc's Laws: If You like the Way Someone Looks, Ask Him About His Workout Routine. Don't be Shy.
It was six P.M. on a Saturday, and I'd just gotten a text from one of my bartenders, informing me that a squirrel had run into St. Jerome's. Apparently, the little fucker had tried to get out through the back, crashed into a mirror, and then ran back out the front door. Several hours later I was at work, trying to sort out some problem with the DJ booth--DJ booth problems are never-ending, by the way; DJs are the drunkest, highest, most irresponsible people in the world--when my door guy came over and whispered in my ear: "Hey, man, there's a rat curled up in the corner."
You've got to be fucking kidding me, I thought. When in the hell did my bar turn into a zoo? I put the DJ booth situation on hold and went over to the corner of the bar with a flashlight, trying to be discreet so the customers wouldn't catch on. And what do I see? The squirrel that had wandered in for a beer earlier that afternoon. (He must have gotten a little too drunk to find his way out this time.) He also looked wounded, but he was still breathing and moving his head around when I shined the flashlight on him.
I spent a moment assessing the situation. Better to get this fucking squirrel out of my bar before two A.M., when he might suddenly feel well enough to start strutting around and freaking out all the ladies in their cocktail dresses. I grabbed a big black industrial trash bag and (quickly and quietly) wrapped it around the little guy and tried to pick him up. It turns out that wounded squirrels are a lot stronger than you might think--this little fucker must have been doing push-ups in the corner and eating red meat for the past three hours; he tried to furiously wiggle his way out of my grasp. Then he grabbed hold of the carpet in the DJ booth (I told you, it's just never-ending problems in there) and would...not...let...go. I knew that if he managed to get loose, there'd be a lot of women screaming at the top of their lungs, the bar would clear out in no time, and nobody would be making any money. (Also, someone would probably be calling the Health Department on my ass).
I squeezed tighter, trying to tear this rodent away from the carpet he was holding on to for dear life, and I somehow managed to rip him free, wrap him in the trash bag, and take one step for the door--and then the little fucker bit my finger! Hard enough to cut through the trash bag and my skin. It hurt like hell, but all I could think was, I have to get this fucking squirrel out of here. So I walked down the street and threw the fucker in a trash can. (For all you animal lovers out there, I live in New York; it's not like I was going to be able to gently release him into the wild, ok? Also, I seriously considered smacking that bag on the sidewalk a few times, after what he did to my finger.)
As I walked back to the bar, watching the blood drip from my finger, there was only one thought echoing in my mind: Rabies. But I had a bar full of people to worry about, so I washed my hands for five minutes straight in our world-famous, disgusting bathroom and got my ass back to work. When I finally had a second to breathe, I leaned over and asked a friend of mine to get on her phone and Google rabies, to find out if I could survive five or six hours without getting a shot. She called her mother, who works at a hospital, and her mother informed her that there are no symptoms of rabies when contracted from a small rodent, and that in as little as ten hours the disease can spread to your vital organs and cause death.
Well, that's fucking great, that's exactly what I want to be thinking about while I'm busting my ass making drinks for hundreds of drunk assholes. I walked over to the DJ. "Listen," I told him, "if I pass out, I want you to run to the bar next door and get one of the bartenders to come fill in for me. Then I want you to get the door guy, and the two of you should throw me in the back of a cab, give the driver twenty bucks, and tell him to take me to the hospital on twenty-sixth Street and First Avenue." I worked the rest of my shift, tried not to panic, and looked in the mirror every so often to make sure I wasn't foaming at the mouth.
When I closed the bar six hours later, I Googled "24-hour veterinarians" in Manhattan and called one and asked what I should do. (I figured if I called an actual hospital, no one would answer the phone, and I'd be stuck in one of those never-ending, automated hellholes of an answering service.) The vet told me to go to a human hospital immediately. And then he mentioned that it would be best to bring the squirrel with me.
Wait, what? Bring the fucking squirrel with me? Are you fucking serious? I called the human hospital to find out if that was really necessary. (If you hit zero, by the way, someone actually picks up.) Some woman answered, and I told her the whole story. "Oh, my God, let me get you a doctor," she said.
A few minutes later, the doctor got on. "You're going to need to come in immediately and get tetanus and rabies shots," she told me.
"So, uh, should I bring the squirrel with me?" I asked.
"Yes! Of course! We'll have to run some tests on it."
For Christ's sake. At this point, all the lights were on in the bar and all the customers were gone--which was a good thing--so I walked around the corner to see if I could find a trash bag with a dead squirrel in it. For some reason, the bag had migrated to the middle of the street--when I got within two feet of it, it moved! After hanging out in a trash bag for six hours, he was still alive! This was one tough fucking squirrel, I thought. I brought him back to the bar, wrapped two additional trash bags around him, and hailed a cab.
Considering that it was a Saturday night (or Sunday morning, technically), the hospital wasn't as busy as I'd expected--a few homeless people, a few sorry bastards who were too drunk to know where they were, and a crazy guy in handcuffs, with shackled feet and his very own police escort. He was obviously a mental patient--he kept screaming at everyone--and, lucky for me, I was instructed to sit next to him (it was a pretty small waiting room). I glared at him a few times, so he'd know that I was not okay with him talking, or even looking at me, and hoped it was enough to keep the psycho at bay. The squirrel, meanwhile, sat lifeless on the floor between my feet. I'd made his presence known, introduced him to everyone in the room (except the mental patient, of course), and informed everyone of the crazy chain of events. By that point, the little guy and I were on a first-name basis. I'd been calling him "Peter" for the last three hours.
Twenty minutes later, I got moved to another room filled with dirty, destitute people in beds, all hooked up to machines making loud beeping noises. (It wasn't the world's classiest hospital, but shit, I didn't have health insurance.) Eventually, the doctor that I'd spoken with on the phone came in and yelled out, "Where's the squirrel guy?"
"That's me!" I called out.
And do you know what she fucking told me? Squirrels don't carry rabies, after all.
Okay, I'll admit it: That story doesn't really have shit to do with dieting or exercise. Except that the entire time I was sitting in that waiting room, the only thing I could think about was how this damn squirrel was now fucking up my whole weekend. I mean, what kind of job requires a guy to get bit by vermin but doesn't give him benefits or health insurance? Now, not only was the situation costing me time, money, and sleep, it was costing me time with my running shoes. Even though I tried to distract myself by joking around with the homeless guys, I couldn't stop thinking about how I probably wouldn't be able to get a run in the next day if I actually had rabies.
I can't pinpoint the exact moment when running and working out became a huge part of my daily life, or when I began planning work around running, rather than the other way around. But looking back on it now, the drama with the squirrel was a real turning point in my quest to get sexy; it was the first time I can remember when being healthy was more important to me than having a good time. Of course, it wasn't always like that...
TALES FROM THE DRUNK DIET Copyright 2011 by Lc Carl