Man, so the other night I saw some crazy shit go down.

I was leaving campus about two o’clock in the morning, after a long night of production. Having been slaving over this fine looking magazine for a good dozen or so hours, I was bored, and craved entertainment like the whole student body hopes for a good Spring Fest—hoping like hell, but expecting nothing but crap.

Anyway, to make a long story short, I’m sitting at the Rensch Road light, waiting to head left down Sweethome back to mi casa where I could enjoy a tall, frosty beer or six and a handful of pre-bed cigarettes. All of a sudden I see this Pontiac Grand Am go zinging past, with some schmuck hot on his tail.

So, I did what any person, bored shitless and sober as a judge in the wee hours of a weekend morning would do. I followed them.

I floored my accelerator, trying to close in on the two of them as they barreled up Sweethome, headed toward the highway. From the reckless way the Grand Am was driving, it seemed apparent that he was trying to keep the fiend from passing him. Understandable. After all, you don’t win a drag race from second place.

So anyway, as I made a valiant effort to catch up, the two cars veered suddenly onto the I-990 Westbound ramp, headed for the wide-open, high-speed roadways. It was clear the Grand Am was going to smoke this punk. I mean, he was driving a Grand Am and was already in first place, while the chase car was something crappy. I don’t remember exactly what, maybe a 1990 Ford Tempo, but I distinctly remember a Decemberists bumper sticker. So clearly he was a pussy, and had no business being out on the highways this late past his bedtime.

And so the Grand Am continued to successfully hold his lead, hugging the middle dashed line so as to prevent anyone from passing, swerving left and right to pass slower traffic as was necessary. It was clear this driver had some skills and experience.

But this Tempo driving punk was really starting to irritate me. He was slamming cans of Diet Cokes like it was his job, and to add insult to injury, was tossing the empties from the window. Thankfully, watching The Dukes of Hazzard all through my childhood had endowed me with almost superhuman driving skillz (that’s right, with a “z”), so I was able to deftly avoid his barrage of aluminum grenades.

I started to cautiously close the gap between our vehicles. By this point I was going about 71, well within the range of “human error” if I had to contest my speed to any law enforcement officials, while trying to snag a plate number so I could turn this loser in for speeding. Sadly, the punk drove off the first exit he saw, some five miles from campus. He must’ve been scared to stray from his comfort zone. Or maybe he saw my big, blue Impala and was afraid I was an unmarked cop. Either way—he pussed out.

This left me with quite the conundrum. I really wanted a beer, but I also never back down from a challenge. And seeing as the Grand Am had been steadily increasing in speed and distance ahead of me, I’d have to pull out some of my aforementioned “mad skillz” to put this sum’bitch in last place.

So I went for it. By this point, he had about a half-mile lead on me, and that gap was only growing. So, I put my heel to the steel and cranked my six cylinders into overdrive. Within two minutes, he was swerving left and right, trying to keep me from passing him. Little did he know, I had a plan of attack.

I suddenly flung my car onto the right shoulder, and gunned it, straddling the rumble strip as I inched up closer along his flank. It became apparent that this guy wasn’t as good a driver as I had previously thought—his passenger side mirror was flapping back and forth in the breeze like a big-breasted woman jogging.

He soon noticed my devious plan though, and swerved, narrowly avoiding contact with both my car and the guardrail. I quickly threw my car around to his left side and floored the pedal, bringing me up along side of him. By this point we must have been going about 85, and when I looked over, I saw him glaring at me as I took the lead.

Before long, we were nearing the end of the highway. I was still rather thirsty, and figured I owed my self a Victor E. Beer at the first drinking establishment I came across. Apparently, so did the other guy.

The Grand Am followed as I pulled into a nondescript Lockport bar, parking next to me, angled across two spaces in the lot. I got out, and the guy ran over, or rather stumbled rapidly, and as he approached, his intoxication became apparent. No wonder he was so hard to beat—he was driving with beer muscles.

“Hey man, that’shum goo’drivering you have,” he slurred, in what I now can only assume was his drunken concession speech. “Lemme buy ya’a beer!”

These were almost words, and I couldn’t refuse them. We walked into the bar and while he tried to communicate to the bartender he wanted two beers in his drunken Engrish, I called a taxi to come take him home. Sure, it was a fun and challenging drive, catching up to and beating this inebriated road warrior, but I saw no reason to let him try and drive back home. I slipped him a few bucks out of pity to pay the taxi driver, drank my beer, and headed home, happy that I had won a race, a beer, and taken a drunken driver off the road single handedly.

It sure is nice to make a difference in the world.