How I Saved the World

It all started at Albertson's

So I had just walked out of Albertson's on Monday night and I was loading my groceries into my car when two local ruffians pulled into the space next to me. Before they got out of the car, one took a swig from a brown glass bottle.

Well, at first I thought it was probably just IBC Root Beer, 'cause no one is stupid enough to drive around with an open beer bottle, much less take a sip from one in a crowded parking lot while still in the car.

Boy was I wrong.

As I loaded my stuff into the car I saw that the bottle was in fact Bud Light. Way to be a genius, take a drink in the car, in a parking lot, with a dude standing right next to your car, leaving it in view, open, and still with beer in it (we were pretty close to a street light, which illuminated the bottle fairly well). Boy, some people are just dumb.

So, being a responsible citizen and not liking the idea of guys racing around P'Cola sipping on Bud Light (not even a very good beer, in my humble opinion), especially when the state sport of Florida is riding a bike a night without reflective clothing, I called the local authorities.

You may think that this was evidnece of me being a tool or something. If so, I invite you to write a comment at the end of this post. Good luck surviving in the Court of Public Opinion with that point of view.

So anyway, I tell the police that I'm chillin at the Albertson's on Nine Mile Road and I give them my description and that of the car. Well, after a couple of minutes I realize, still being a new P'Cola resident, that there are two Albertson's on Nine Mile Road, one at University Parkway and one and Pine Forest Road (where I bought my first tank of gas after the hurricane). Fearing that Tweedle Dumb and Tweedle Lush may reappear at any time, I use my awesome new phone to SMS their license plate number and description of the guys to myself and to my sidekick, my girlfriend Jamie.

Lucky for me, because as I was doing so, the two perps came out with some charcoal and other party-throwing implements and took off. Keep your kids inside, P'Cola moms. So I recalled the authorities and clarified where the heck I was.

The police car had gone to the wrong place, so they retasked it to come find me and when he arrived I gave the Deputy the information. He used all kinds of cool military buzzwords like "Roger that," and "outstanding," and was really cool about being sent to the wrong place. I was new, it was okay.

So the Deputy alerted all the rest of the cops in the US, the FBI, Interpol, and Tom Ridge. I went home to now unload my warm groceries and I called my sidekick to give her the update. You gotta keep communications with your sidekick open; rule number one of crime fighting (for those with a sidekick, that is). At that moment, a helicopter flew over my head, with, like, four spotlights, searching the ground. The Escambia County Sheriffs were on the case. I mean, the helo had to be tasked to my case, right?

What Happened Next

Well, I went inside and breathed easily, knwoing that I had done my civic duty. But that's not where the story ends. This morning I got a call from a high-level government official, who informed me what had happened after I had called the Sheriff.

The two men had left Albertson's and had sped down towards Davis Highway. They worked their way via I-110 to US 98 and to the Gulf Island National Seashore. There they used the charcoal to build a giant altar on the beach. They lit the fire using the charcoal and were preparing a pagan sacrifice. They were going to roast someone alive.

That man, was Amadou Maiga. He, as anyone who has been following the Global War on Terrorism will know, the prince of an important African tribe. This tribe extends over much of West Africa and holds important cloout in the politics of several West African nations. These nations are important holdouts for various terrorist organizations, and support from Maiga's tribe is essential to finding and destroying these terror cells. The prince's tribe not only has great political influence, but it also controls access to several mines containing gold, plutonium and uranium. The ransom was set: the prince's life for nuclear material and gold.

The US Government has been holding a series of talks with the tribe and they have cooperated with anti-terror efforts in West Africa. However, six months ago, the prince disappeared. His father and the US government had been trying to locate him, suspecting that he had been kidnapped by Islamic fundamentalists to intimidate his tribe.

These fundamentalists had captured the prince late in the night and taken him, by camel caravan, across the Sahara Desert and into Egypt. In Egypt they smuggled him aboard a ship bound for the Black Sea. During a storm in the Mediterranean, the prince fell from a ladder and hit his head. He contracted amnesia from the fall and was immediately convinced that he was a member of the terrorist group. The ship transited the Dardenelles and entered the Black Sea, pulling in at Bat'umi, Georgia (the country, not the state). From there, they took the Prince into Chechnya.

The prince, now believeing that he was a Muslim fundamentalist, began to join the fight against the Russians in Chechnya. During a fight in the Chechen capital of Grozy, a motar exploded near the prince and he was wounded in the explosion. The Chechen rebels, pursued by the Russians, left the prince for dead.

Aid workers stumbled upon the prince's body and nursed him back to health. Meanwhile, the rebels, realizing that their ransom was missing, launched and expedition to track down the prince. The aid workers caught wind of the scheme and sent the still memory-less prince away. He was snuck into an aid convoy bound for southern Turkey and he evaded capture.

The terrorists were not discouraged. They found out about the prince's escape and tore off after him. Boarding several high speed boats, armed to the teeth and overtook the prince's ship. Another storm saved the prince, the terrorist boats lost the prince's ship in the rough weather. The ship made it out of the Mediterranean, but the terrorists weren't about to let their prize escape. More terrorists sortied from the west coast of Africa and overtook the boat in the mid-Atlantic. This time the terrorists were more successful and they captured the ship in the Gulf of Mexico.

By now it was early September, the height of this year's hurricane season. In the Antilles, the ship was caught in hurricane Ivan. The storm wrecked the ship and the prince was cast ashore in northern Haiti, barely alive. He was chanced upon by a several witch doctors who thought he might be cursed. Fearful of the recently passed storm that had done so much damage to Haiti, the with doctors saw the prince as an evil omen. They put the prince on a makeshift raft and set him adrift once more with a warning in Creole about his cursed status. This time, the prince was borne to Pensacola, Florida, itself reeling from the hurricane.

A couple of local witch doctors, defying the government and searching the beach in order to find appropriate sacrifices to keep evil spirits from bringing another hurricane to Pensacola, chanced upon the raft.

These with doctors, like all witch doctors, spoke Creole, and read the warning on the prince raft. Thinking this the perfect opportunity to mollify the spirits, they decided to nurse the prince back to health and thus present a worthy scrifice. These witch doctors were not like the stereotypical witch doctors in movies and cartoons. They were white men, less than thirty years of age, who could have fit right in on the university campus in Pensacola. This is, in fact, what they did, seeking out UWF's virgin population in order to sacrifice them to the spirits. For one reason or another, up to that point they had been fairly unsuccessful and they regarded the prince as a way to make up for their previous sacrificial shortcomings.

The terrorists who were the prince's original captors had not lain dormant, however. They had trcked the prince to Pensacola and a local operative saw the witch doctors find the prince. Unable to mount an operation to storm the witch doctors' lair and take the prince by force, the terrorists were forced to the bargaining table.

The witch doctors, torn between appeasing the spirits, getting rich from returning the prince, and their unwillingness to help the terrorists (witch doctors, though pagan and amoral, are usually fairly patriotic), set a deadline for the terrorists to come up with 20 million dollars or one hundred certified sacrifice-elligible virgins. The deadline was October 24th.

That night, the witch doctors stopped by Albertson's on Nine Mile and University to get some last minute supplies. They had been drinking, this was to be their first sacrifice/high level negotiation with a terrorist group, and they needed the gained confidence that comes with several beers.

They didn't expect, however, the sharp eye of Ensign Graham Clayton Scarbro, United States Navy Reserve, concientious citizen.

This part of the story you know. Let's fast forward to what happened after I saw the helicopter.

The helo screamed over Pensacola helping the search for the suspicious car from the air. At this point, the noble Escambia County Sheriffs had no idea that the car was bearing two witch doctors to a shoreline rendez-vous with sacrifice by fire or Islamist terrorists bent on manufacturing nuclear weapons. After traversing Pensacola, the helicopter overflew Gulf Breeze, south of P'Cola and was turning for another run over the town when below on the National Seashore the police spotted a fire.

Now, as we all know, camping isn't permitted on that portion of the Seashore, so the helo called in the Santa Rosa County Sheriff's office to investigate. Luckily, a deputy was nearby at the Gulf Breeze Waffle House and he screamed off to the location. Suspecting a party of college kids, probably rowdy and definitely drunk, he called backup.

The helo returned to scene as the deputies arrived. Finding not a party but a sacrificial altar, two witch doctors, Islamic terrorists and a kidnapped amnesiac African prince, the sheriffs sprung into action and arrested them all.

This morning, the prince was released and returned home. The witch doctors were booked for open container violations, trespassing on Federal property, collaboration with terrorists and illegally trying to conduct human sacrifices. The terrorists were booked on all kinds of terrorism-related charges.

Not bad for a night's work huh? And all because I didn't think the guy was really drinking root beer.

On a Serious Note

These guys could have killed someone. As a guy who has known people involved in alcohol related career -ending incidents and deaths, this is really scary. As my sidekick pointed out, it doesn't have to be an auto accident, these guys could have hit a kid, or they could have just a hit telephone pole and hurt or killed themselves, and no one deserves that. The fact that someone would take such a stupid risk is realy kinda sad. It doesn't matter how far you have to drive, how much you've had to drink, or how much you think you can handle, the law is the law, and if you chose to ignore it like that, you're putting people's lives in jeopardy, and you have no right to do that.

These guys drove a Pontiac Grand Am, silver, with Florida plates : "17I YHF." They were under 6 feet tall, one had dark brown or black hair, the other reddish-blond and the makings of a beard. I hope the cops found these guys, but if not, keep your eyes open. They obviously don't care who they hurt, they probably just wanted to have a good time, fire up the grill, and "keep the buzz" while they went and picked up the charcoal.

But in the End...

The prince visted me today and thanked me for my help. The doctors say they can help him regain almost all of his memory and he is on his way to Johns Hopkins tonight. Later that day, when the government official called me, he offered me the Presidential Medal of Freedom and the Congressional Medal of Honor. I told him no thanks, I was just doing my duty as a US citizen who loves his country and who thinks people shouldn't be idiots and drive around with open containers.

"Well, then, Graham," he continued, "There are a hundred virgins we captured on the beach, maybe you'd like to meet one?"

"No thanks, sir," I replied, "I've already got a sidekick."