Drunks for Thanksgiving-Day Weekend

Both of the Shark Book authors hail from Canada, a country where Thanksgiving is celebrated a month earlier than it is in the US (the sincere thanks being given around Canadian dinner tables at that time of year usually has to do with it not yet being winter). However, we don’t see a problem with breaking out another turkey – one that has hopefully been pumped up with steroids to delectably plump, juicy proportions – a month later and celebrating the holiday once again in solidarity with our neighbours to the South. Also, phoning in sick to work and taking an undue Thanksgiving-weekend rest is quite appealing.

In the turkey-time tryptophan and bourbon-inspired mood of the season, we have decided to step back from our regular efforts of focusing on drunk-related news and tales of world-class drunks to focus on two smaller stories from our drunk police blotter that, if you ever thought otherwise, confirm the link between dedicated boozing efforts and the increased likelihood that a person who is already not the brightest light on the Christmas tree will go one can of malt liquor beyond all reason and commit a crime.

In The Man Who Scared a Shark to Death (and other true tales of drunken debauchery), we devoted an entire chapter to such tales entitled “Crime Doesn’t’ Pay (Your Bar Tab)”, however owing to space limitations here we suggest that for more depth on the subject you pick up Shark at one of your better local bookstores, insist on paying the full jacket price and then test the seller’s reaction when you casual mention that you know us personally. (It’s worth a shot, but unlikely to raise an eyebrow of the cashier who’s just returned from a smoke break—if it does, check as discreetly as possible to make sure it’s not some botched plastic surgery forehead asymmetry).

We are not suggesting here a link between drinking and crime to support condemnable efforts to wrest a pint out of the hand of your average, misdemeanor-at-worst sort of drunk, but rather to point out the cases in which those already given to criminal predilections tend to become emboldened from a bit of extra liquid courage.

In a South Salt Lake City bar, a soused pool shark absconded with another man’s car keys and vamoosed, only to realize he’d left his credit card at the crime scene. This sort of oversight is standard in cases of drunken crime, as is the brilliant plan he devised to recover the incriminating piece of identification. According to the bartender, “he came back here, tried to change his appearance by taking his hat off [and] changing his coat." This bit of subterfuge didn’t work and his 8-ball was sunk. [to see the video news report on this one click here]

Meanwhile at a Santa Barbara California, Carls Jr burger joint (west coast sibling to restaurant chain Hardee's—for purposes of mental imagery picture the obese twins riding the motorbikes in the Guinness Book of Records, and incidentally, the restaurant whose national ad campaign featured a lubed up Paris Hilton provocatively washing a car) a teen was charged with a B&E after breaking into the eatery after hours, not to steal or vandalize, as would have been more acceptable, but rather because he was hungry and was looking to cook up a gratis pre-Thanksgiving Day feast for himself. Police stopped him before he could give himself botulism. [video news report here]