South Nogales Highway, Green Valley
July 23, 10:12 p.m.
An extremely intoxicated man made a big spectacle in a tiny town when he entered a family restaurant and promptly passed out in his salad, according to a Pima County Sheriff's Department report.
The owner of the Cow Palace—a quaint diner in the miniscule community of Amado (outside Green Valley)—called deputies to remove a drunk man slumbering at the bar. She worried he'd awaken and lurch drunkenly out onto the highway.
That night, she said, the man had come in requesting alcohol, but since he was already staggering and slurring, a waiter brought him water instead. He then reportedly ordered salad but couldn't eat it because he "kept falling asleep in his food."
Deputies indeed found him firmly face-planted in his plate of salad, having made quite a mess—"there was salad around the plate, off the plate and on the bar area."
The subject eventually awoke with a "dazed and confused look on his face," apparently temporarily incapable of speech but able to provide a driver's license.
Once he was able to talk, he told deputies he believed he was in San Diego, California, and that his wife had just dropped him off and returned to their home (in San Diego).
As it turned out, however, the man had been driving drunk (probably all the way from California) and was simply too intoxicated to remember. Once he'd paid his tab (very slowly)—he was jailed for a DUI.
