Ratticus Arsesius

The night shift went like all the others…..drunks, fights, vehicle thefts with injuries after crashing, lots of GP admissions where the doctor had not even bothered to turn out and see the patient resulting in inappropriate admissions to A/E, a woman who was quite literally trying to “Bark at the Moon” and a couple of genuine medical emergencies.

It never ceases to amaze me how alcohol dulls the senses and renders all semblence of intelligence inert for the duration. And the experience of drinkers and their friends/family who believe that they can drink vast quantities of alcohol with out collapsing.

The usual statements are:

• “She/he can hold her/his beer!” “
• He/she never gets drunk, hes/shes a hardened drinker!”
• “Her/his drink must have been spiked!”
• “It must of been something they ate!”
• “Naw! Hes/shes not drunk much…let me see, hes/shes had twelve pints, eight whiskies I think, a couple of brandies and some cider. Oh and some vodka before we left the house to go out!”

So I found myself trying to tell the husband of a woman who was completely “Ratarsed”  that the reason she had vomitted and was unsteady on her feet was due to the copious amounts of beer/wine/vodka and other assorted shorts that she had consumed.

But he was also ratarsed and I found myself in a scene from “Groundhog Day” repeating myself over and over that his wife can not always drink that amount and remain standing! Even if she is “a big lass!”  He kept on asking and asking over and over again “Whats wrong with her?”  So I told him…”Your wife is suffering from Ratticus Arsesius and will recover in the morning!”

Its one thing drinking and getting drunk but its another when its the sole purpose of a night out! My nights out are starting to consist of a few pints of Guinness, a game of shove ha’penny, a chuck on the arra’s at the battered dart board and a pie & pea supper on the way home. Marvellous!

As opposed to my youthful days down at the local “Discotheque”  strutting my stuff in my bright blue “Oxford Bags”  and having the odd fistcuffs with the kid who “was looking at my bird!”  But it was all good clean fun and the pubs shut at proper times.

But thats another story…..