Lortab and Listerine

I really miss my time in Bethel some days. We had such great friends and the community was great. BFD was my first paid position as a firefighter and what a great experience it turned out to be.

Another aspect of village life that I miss is the nut jobs. We had people possessed with demons, suffering from complete exhaustion after attempting to exterminate the bugs coming out of their carpet (for 4 days), and even a man who thought that if the battery in his phone died, his heart would stop beating.

Also in abundance were the plain old drunk and stupid. Today brought me back to that time when we went to assist a gentleman who had taken more than his prescribed amount of Lortab. Not a sin in its own right, who am I to judge his pain. It was the Listerine chaser that put over that proverbial edge.

For those of you who may not know, Bethel is a damp village. This means you can consume alcohol, but you can't buy or sell alcoholic beverages in town. This lead to people looking for alternate means to get their booze. Listerine for instance. Also on the list are Lysol (gently filtered through a pristine piece of white bread), extracts like vanilla and root beer, and lastly perfume, which knocks you out AND gets all the guys-not always a good combination.

That's why this call brought back that flood of memories. It's been such a long, long time since I've been able to smell the minty fresh breath of an alcoholic looking for that certain something. That certain something left this guy unable to walk. He was awake and relatively alert, but could get up off the road where he apparently was dropped off by his girlfriend.

He didn't want any help other than to get to his bed to sleep it off, so we obliged and propped him up against the wall of his apartment.

Sure miss those good ol' days of Bethel.