Among the U.S. armed forces, one of the most honored traditions belongs to the concept of "never leaving a man behind." In real life, sometimes leaving someone behind might be not just more honorable, but better for all parties involved. As Kevin showed in his comment on "I Am Not A Very Good Drinker," climbing into the rear of a vehicle, such as a Ford Ranger with a camper top, cedes a lot of control:
I use to work for a contracting firm doing cable cable work for Comcast Cable. We handled everything from Fairmont and Grafton, WV north through Pittsburgh and all the way up to New Castle, PA.
I was one of the few guys moved to WV to work in the Morgantown district. We were shacked up in an EconoLodge right off of I79 for 3 months.
It was a giant party every night before a day or two off. We would go to strip clubs, get hammered, eat great food on the company's tab. Life was good. Sadly, we had a massive drunk from AZ working with us Pittsburgh guys.
All of our trucks had GPS trackers in them so we couldn't use them for personal use after about 8pm or so without catching shit from the bosses so we decided to head out of the bar. Seeing as I only had a work truck when I was in WV, I rode with a buddy who had his own personal truck (which he used for cable work). A few guys met up with my fellow supervisor and I and we bought them a few rounds at the bar .
One thing leads to another, some guys are buzzed but can make it the 3 miles back to the EconoLodge but one guy, the drunk from AZ, could not drive himself. Since we couldn't leave a GPS equipped truck at a fucking strip club, we had to ditch my buddies truck, and drive the drunks company Ford Ranger back.
So the cab is packed full of work shit to the point that somebody, me, had to ride in the back. I had no choice. I was drunk (seeing as I had a DD, I was allowed), Chuck was driving, and the 300lb drunk couldn't fit his fat ass into the back of a packed work truck with a cap and boxes of shit, tools, and cable boxes.
I weasel my 200lb, 6'3'' frame into a relatively comfortable spot and ready myself for a quick ride back to the hotel. But my buddy had a better idea. Sure, we went back, uneventfully I might add, to the EconoLodge, but as soon as we hit the parking lot, all hell broke loose.
The hotel shared a parking lot with a Monroe Muffler shop, a strip mall of stores, a McDonalds, and some other places, so there were curbs and bumps everywhere. He pulls into the parking lot, guns the truck to about 30-40mph and nails the curb separating the Monroe building from the parking lot. I go flying about the back of this truck like a super bouncy ball on crack with the rest of the 2000lbs worth of shit back there, bust my head off of the roof, bed, and any other metal part you can think of. Thankfully, they resumed normal pace, avoiding cars and curbs alike as we pulled up to the hotel. We were home, thank fucking god.
WRONG
He pulls off into the shopping center's parking lot 100ft away from the hotel and proceeds to do doughnut/circles for 5 minutes (2WD, 4 cylinder Ranger with a ton of shit and me in the back doesn't want to spin tire nearly as much as it just wants to flip over).
I get out, bloody, bruised, and battered from the whole ordeal and puke up the 8 or 9 Killian's Irish Red I drank at the bar.
I had to call off of work for 3 days to recover. I couldn't think let alone climb a ladder up a telephone pole in my state. But when I did get back to work, my guys hated me for about a week. I vented my frustration by screwing over their routes and schedules as payback.
That was singlehandedly the worst drunken ride home of my life.