Road Trippin' With Steve

A friend of mine and Steve's, Oliver, decided to take Steve on a road trip to try to dry him out. This trip was all at Oliver's expense. The deal was that Oliver would foot the bill for the trip but Steve could not have one sip of alcohol the entire time. Oliver's theory was that if he would get him away from his natural surroundings for a long weekend, he could monitor his alcohol intake and this would help prove to Steve that he could make it without alcohol.

What Oliver had not planned on was Steve drinking a whole weekend's worth of alcohol in the six hours it took for him to get to Steve's house. Oliver told me that Steve had consumed, guzzled, thrown back, and slammed down 32 beers in those six hours. Oliver told me when he arrived at Steve's house, Steve was sitting in the driveway in a sea of empty beer cans with an overnight bag ready to go. Steve's motto was "no beer left behind" and although he had tried his best to drink all 48 beers from the two cases he had bought, he could not finish them before Oliver got there. He thought he should be allowed to take those on the road trip with him. Oliver denied Steve's request and he had to leave them behind. Oliver let Steve pick the destination and after being denied California, Steve ultimately settled on Memphis. He thought it would be cool to go hang out with the ghost of Elvis at Graceland.

Steve had the ability to be obnoxious when he had that much to drink and I cannot imagine a nine hour road trip in a car with him. I would have stopped at a rest area in the middle of Tennessee under the pretense of using the bathroom and I would have burned the tires off of the car heading back home. Oliver said that Steve did stay sober all weekend long but he drove him bat shit crazy. When I think of Oliver trying to help Steve out like this, I think of the quote attributed to Clare Booth Luce "No good deed goes unpunished." Steve promptly "rescued" those 16 beers he deserted upon his arrival back home. Oliver had a great theory but it was a failed experiment.