While little can compare with the thrills and spills of our exploits outside the bar last Thursday night, the adventure did not end there. When we last left our players, John was in the back of the ambulance being checked out by the EMT's, and Tim and I were standing nearby drunkenly trying to process what the hell had just happened.

Tim had blood all over his face from sliding it across the pavement, but in addtion to that we both looked ridiculous because it was 1:30 am on a Thursday night, er... Friday morning, and we were both bumbling around drunk and blood-soaked in full softball attire. We were standing right outside the entrance to the bar wearing mesh shorts, high socks, Tim with stirrups, me with my softball bat, and blood covered shirts with the logo and name of the very bar we were at the door of. We looked like two psychotic bouncers who belonged in some Mad Max movie or maybe a gang from The Warriors. At one point a few potential customers arrived, took one look at the two of us, and promptly went to a different bar.

The bar staff finally broke up the crowd and made Tim go inside to get cleaned up. Just then the EMT leaned out of the back of the ambulance and said he could take one person along to the hospital, so I jumped in and proceeded to knock a bunch of medical shit off the inside wall of the ambulance. The EMT told me to settle down, but I didn't hear him because as I tried to catch the falling tubes, gauze, and other medical crap, I dropped my softball bat on the floor of the ambulance with a resounding crash. In the confined space and with the hard metal surfaces of the ambulance the bat bouncing and rattling to a stop sounded like a blitzkrieg. The EMT in front at the wheel whipped his head around with brow furrowed to see what in the world was happening.  Meanwhile the EMT across from me just stared at me and shook his head. It had been three seconds since they let me in the ambulance, and already they had both had enough of me.

Once we arrived at the hospital I tried to help roll John's stretcher into the ER. The EMT didn't like this and sort of hip checked me to the side, which was more than the necessary amount of force to knock me off balance in my drunken state. After I fell sideways and ricocheted of the wall, I fell forward and dropped my bat again. Now it was rolling across the ER floor, which was again a confined space with hard surfaces. Past the open ER doors a doctor whipped his head around with brow furrowed to see what in the world was happening.  Meanwhile the female security guard standing at the doors just stared at me and shook her head. It had been three seconds since they let me in the hospital, and already they had had enough of me.

So after security confiscated my bat…
They finally allowed me to proceed after John into the ER. Just behind where they had parked his stretcher was another stretcher carrying a sixteen year old girl with alcohol poisoning. She had some vomit on her smock, but was sixteen and clearly drunk, so I did the only honorable thing and stopped to hit on her. She wasn't really hot, and truly did have a great deal of vomit on her, but like I said, she was sixteen and clearly drunk. So as we chatted Tim walked up and proceeded to hit on her too... that cockblock.

(Un?)Fortunately John had been placed in a neck brace, so he couldn't lift his head to see us. As Tim and I stood there and flirted with the drunk sixteen year old, both ignoring our friend bleeding on a stretcher with a head wound, I suddenly realized I had no idea where Tim had come from.

Apparently while I was being relieved of my softball bat, tim had been frantically riding his bike to the hospital. He had learned nothing from John's experience, but seemed to have luck on his side this night. Although, he was already so drunk and beat up when I left him, he may have wiped out on the way over and just not remembered.

One of the nurses apparently noticed us flirting with the minor and decided to put an end to it by rolling John into one of the adjacent trauma rooms and instructing that we should follow. Once in the room I turned on the TV, and did the natural thing: search for the most obnoxious television program I could find.  VH1 Classic happened to be having some kind of metal night, so I cranked the volume up all the way. The three of us belted out a semblance of the lyrics as Ozzy Osbourne ripped out a live version of "Crazy Train." I grabbed a clear plastic bag with some tubes attached and began to air guitar, John either started kicking his feet or convulsing, and Tim held down the emergency call nurse button next to John's head.

A male nurse with a shaved head and a sour demeanor walked in, shouted something about what the hell we are doing.  When the song ended and we could hear that the nurse was yelling at us and not singing along as we had assumed, we began to quiet down.  After a couple minutes of telling us this was a hospital and not a mosh pit, he furrowed his brow, and then just shook his head at us. It had been three seconds since they let us in the trauma ward, and already they had had enough of us.