A Request to Graduating Seniors

By: Marco Del Rossi

I was surfing the internet the other day and received this in my email. I had a friend send it to me and I'm extremely thankful. I wanted to share it with all of you graduates and undergrads who will be partying in the next few months.

It was written by someone who shall remain nameless because I don't know.

The Quietest Room in Town

They have been waiting for you. They knew you'd show up eventually. It won't be possible for you to know what is happening, so I'm going to take the liberty of filling you in.

The beginning for you will be when you stagger to your car. The beginning for them will be when a bulletin goes out on the police radio reporting the location of a serious accident with instructions to "proceed at once."

You won't hear the sirens. The ambulance and the police arrive together. They will check you over and pronounce you dead. A few curious motorists who heard the crash will stop their cars and walk back to look at your broken, bloody bones. Some of them will get sick.

The ambulance driver will roll out a leather covered stretcher. The attendant will stuff your hands under your belt and grab you under the arms. The driver will take hold of your legs. You will be placed on a stretcher and covered with a blanket.

They will drive you to the coroner's office where a deputy coroner will wheel you over to a big scale. He will remove the blanket, shake his head and say, "Another one."

Your clothes will be cut off with scissors. You will be placed on a scale and measured. The deputy coroner will make a record of your injuries, cover you up again and wheel you to a small room with white tile walls. There are hoses in that room. Traffic victims are almost always a bloody mess.

You will be cleaned up (as much as possible) and moved to a long hall with several stretchers lined up along its pale green walls. In that hall are forty-one crypts. If it's a slow evening, you'll have a stretcher and a crypt to yourself. But if it's Christmas, New Year's, or Memorial Day weekend, you may have lots of company. They'll go away and leave you alone in the quietest room in town.

In an hour or so, they'll come back and move you again. You will be placed behind a large glass window so your wife or husband or parents or partner or friend or sibling can identify you. You won't see the agony and pain in their eyes and it's just as well. Nor will you hear the screams and sobbing when they lower the sheet and ask, "Is this your husband-wife-son-daughter-brother-sister-or friend?"

As I was saying; they're waiting for you-the police, the ambulance crews, the coroners at the morgue, and the morticians. They're expecting you. Remember this tonight, when you toss down that last drink and climb behind the wheel.

Then ask yourself, "Do you want to go to the quietest room in town?"

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I'm not telling you not to drink because it would be a waste of my time writing it and yours reading it. I know some of you will be drinking, just be smart about it. Have a designated driver or stay wherever you are after you take that first drink.

This may never happen to you even if you drink and drive but imagine for one second how you would feel if you managed to send some innocent victim to the quietest room in town because you got behind the wheel.

You aren't only endangering your life when you drive under the influence but you're also endangering anyone you could possibly come across...the three-year-old playing on her front lawn, the mailman, the hospice worker or even a clergyman.

Once again, I'm not trying to preach to you about not drinking or doing drugs...although, I prefer sobriety myself. I just want you to make smart choices if you are going to be under the influence of anything inhibiting.