Tale of the waiter...The unsung hero: The Fourth of July wedding, 2009

I'm not trying to pat myself on the back, but I may have saved a life tonight//

It was a fourth of July wedding--really, I was sick a year ago when I saw that a Saturday fell on July 4th.. The calender is cruel. Wedding season is here.. And there WAS a wedding tonight, the Fourth of July..

The crowd was as some crowds can be.. Incoherent, drunk, rude, etc etc etc.. I could write a book, I'll tell you.

But a strange situation developed around 8pm.. A man on the front porch appeared to be either extremely intoxicated into oblivion, or as many around him said, having a heart attack...

Luckily, my paranoid father gave me a heart healthy Aspirin only moments before I went to work, he worries about me, and I worry about him for the heart reasons--problems run in the family.

Little did I know that by not taking that heart healthy pill like I should have I would have possibly saved a life only hours later..

When I heard someone may have been having a heart attack, I quickly brought the pill out, instructed the 20 some odd drunk wedding folks around him holding his head and feet up in the air to tell him to chew the pill and keep it under his tongue.. Moments later he walked to the car, and chose his wife to take him to the hospital instead of the ambulance..

A completely unexpected burst of reality on a wedding day filled with "joy" (and rudeness that only two families brought together in love can show)

...Reminds me of the time years ago when I was a busboy and a napkin in a bread basket got too close to a candle on the table and caught ablaze.. I poured a water pitcher with ice over top of it, not caring that I also wettened 6 customers.

It also reminded me of the time--again when I was a busboy--when a woman literally had a stroke in my arms.. I caught her and held her until the ambulance arrived..

We think of ourselves as constant--and we never figure the Angel of Death will show up on our door when we're drinking ourselves into oblivion.. But it can. And sometimes does.

Luckily tonight I had a heart healthy Aspirin.

It didn't wreck the spirit of the evening, either.. fireworks were set off in the parking lot after the wedding.. Few noticed the 65ish-year-old man wasn't there to see them...

P.S. >> After everything was said and done tonight, the evening ended with a clearly large intoxicated male telling me and a bartender that the owner should fire us because of how bad we were at our jobs..

Thanks a million.
Nah, make it a billion.