I was awake now, but couldn’t open my eyes.  The lids were welded together by some biological glue, and with the dull burning in the back of my head I could tell I had been sleeping for quite some time.  I reached toward my face to open my eyes and pawed at my face with a massive bandage that covered my hands.  Someone said something in spanish and I immediately felt euphoric and dumb, and sank back into blackness.

There was light this time.  My eyes had been freed from their sleepy cage and I could make out some shapes in the brightness.  “Mister, you have been in a horrible accident.  Don’t try to get up, you will feel better in a few minutes.” somebody said to me in a thick mexican accent.  I tried to answer, but all that came out was a wheezing and coughing that seemed to come from my throat.  A hand reached across me from behind and adjusted a tube coming from below my chin, a strange sensation.  A pulling feeling that started at my core.  I could sense some spittle pouring from the corner of my mouth, but when I tried to lick it away I realized there was no tongue.  Or teeth.  But I didn’t care.  Good drugs, whatever they were.

An hour or so later I came to realize the pile of shit I was in.  They tried to be easy on me, breaking the news that I barely survived a car crash and subsequent suicide attempt, but I had no tears to give anymore.  I lost everything back in the desert when I left Vanessa to rot on the bed of a honeymoon suite.  My hands were both badly broken, with one finger amputated on my left.  Most of my teeth and tongue had been blown through a hole in the back of my head, a hole that was now packed with gauze.  They said the tube in my throat was needed for me to breathe normally, that the pressure in my mouth could disrupt the dressings and lead to a possibly fatal infection.  Fuck them for saving me, I kept thinking.  If only I had aimed higher, maybe under the chin, this nightmare would be over.

I was certain that they had amputated my legs, too, but I could see a lumpy form under the blankets.  For the first few hours I was sure that I already was fitted for prosthetic legs until they told me I was paralyzed. I am so fucking stupid.  Through the glass at the end of the bed I could see two uniformed policemen guarding the door.  Mexican policemen.  And without legs, hands, or any way to communicate, I was at their mercy.  I couldn’t write for them with my crippled hands, and trying to lip-synch words to  someone that barely speaks english is tough enough, but trying to do it with swollen, burned lips and no tongue is impossible.  They could tell I was frustrated, and one doctor went into another room to get a keyboard.  He pointed at the keys until I nodded, patiently writing down the letters.

O-D M-E.  D-I-E N-O-W.

It took a while for them to figure it out.  They smiled and shared a laugh and then emptied the room.  I wonder where they send mute paraplegic murderers in this country?

THE END

There is a reason that the irish called the sweet intoxicating nectar that has dominated their lives for centuries "whiskey", or "water of life" in gaelic. It is because this fluid has the miraculous capacity to make almost everything we love in life like a thousand times better! And unlike that fraudulent gutter-piss they call "holy water", you don't even need to waste your sundays listening to old men lie to you for it to work! So let's take a moment to review some of the wonderful and useful benefits of whiskey that led to the age-old expression "a bottle a day keeps the reaper away"!

Whiskey makes you more attractive to the opposite sex, and makes YOU more attractive to them! That's right, sexual magnetism is 99% confidence, and when are you more confident than when you are slobbering drunk? And combine those effects with the loosening standards that come with drunkenness and you have a perfect storm of baby makin'! Just make sure the object of your desire is likewise imbibing copious amounts of drink or you might find yourself in forcible rape territory. Don't say I didn't warn you.

Whiskey boosts your intelligence to near superhuman levels! Have you ever met a sage individual that was able to add relevance and insight into the most convoluted subject matter with seemingly absent-minded ease? Chances are, that person was blind drunk on whiskey. It is for this reason that I make a concerted effort to drink at least six shots before attending a business meeting, job interview, or parole hearing. Nothing leaves an impression like drunken ramblings.

Whiskey What about medical issues? The public has been misinformed about the health effects of regular whiskey consumption by a campaign from big businesses like the soft drink leaders Coca Cola and Pepsi. Does soda cure your withdrawal symptoms, personality disorders, and halitosis? I think not. Can a liter of Sprite cure a young woman of an unwanted pregnancy? Surely the answer is a resounding "no". Score another point for whiskey.

Whiskey helps you make more sound and well-informed decisions! If there is one thing I could teach all the children that will grow up to be tomorrow's world leaders, it would be "If you are ever faced with a problem that holds you money, relationships, or life in the balance, just resolve to drink on it for a while!" You basically can't go wrong with this advice. Without whiskey we would be without the kind of thinking that ended the second world war, brought on the industrial age, and gave us... Chappaquiddick.

So keep these things in mind before condemning the binge drinking of whiskey that is going on all around you. After all, if it wasn't for whiskey your mother and father might not have ever created you in the back seat of a rusted out buick. And you might not have that lazy eye that gives you so much character!

My personal collection