On November 29, 2014, my beloved Georgia Bulldogs were playing the Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets in our final home game of the season. The game was far too close, resulting in more consumables being consumed than usual. As we went up 24–21 with eighteen seconds left in regular time, our coach decided to squib kick to the Gnats, resulting in excellent field position for the bugs. The Gnats scored a field goal, tying the game. The game went to overtime, and we lost 30–24 in a game that should not have been close. The shock of the loss was something akin to going through the windshield at seventy miles per hour; the only treatment prescribed was self-induced coma.
Unfortunately, all the coma-inducing medicines had already been consumed, necessitating a trip to the closest purveyor of distilled spirits. As luck would have it, I live in a dry county, surrounded by dry counties. The closest store is over a winding mountain road that is so crooked you think you’re seeing your own taillights ahead of you. My rage and fury guided me safely to the Double Shot Liquor and Gun Store. My time spent in the parking lot self-medicating got me closer to the coma needed to stop the constant replay of my Dawgs’ embarrassment in my head. Unfortunately, listening to the post-game wrap up on my car radio kept ripping the scab off my dulled psyche.
The trip back is forgotten except for suddenly being surrounded by the flashing lights of different-colored police cars, obviously some sort of multi-jurisdictional issue. I sort of remember one officer, who, if he’d been six inches taller, would have been perfectly round, going on and on about a “failure to maintain a lane.” I recollect telling him that whichever lane I was in, was the lane I was maintaining. The last thing I recall was hollering “Hey, that’s mine” as they pushed my head down into the back seat of the patrol car. Officer Round was confiscating my bottle from the front seat. I didn’t want there to be any confusion about ownership.
I awoke in the drunk tank in the Union County jail. I was decked out in a very formfitting, but stylishly tailored, orange jumpsuit. One look around the concrete cell revealed four sets of bunk beds and an open-air toilet. Arraignment was set for 11 a.m., a long time to hold your water. Suffering a shy bladder qualifies as cruel and unusual punishment in my opinion.
At the arraignment, Judge Bald and Rude (Baldwin Rood) read the charges. I was quick to notice that the unique item in this go-round was a charge of property destruction in the amount of $1,500. The goes-without-saying charge of “leaving the scene of an accident” bumped my worst day ever into a new category—felony.
According to eyewitnesses, I left the parking lot of the Double Shot Liquor and Gun Store and drove straight across the highway to the Busy Bee Café. The Busy Bee Café had just that week purchased a large fiberglass bumblebee to act as their logo, kind of like a Shoney’s Big Boy. I am told that the bumblebee was over five and a half feet tall and three feet wide at his waist.
Accounts vary as to how many times I drove back and forth over the bumblebee after knocking him free from his mooring. By all accounts, I didn’t leave until the job was thoroughly done. My work finished, I blasted off into the night, crossing county lines and negotiating treacherous mountain roads until my eventual rendezvous with the local constabulary. I recall none of these actions.
Now, I’m not going to make light of the vehicular homicide of a fiberglass bee. But, truth be told, I am thinking that if I had gotten a jury trial, the University of Georgia faithful would undoubtedly have set me free. According to my attorney, Adam Dimwit, my wife Mulva was not remotely interested in going my bail. Mulva was quoted as having said, “He can rot in jail until he rots in hell.” After forty years, perhaps some of the bloom had gone off the rose.