DRUNK IN THE WHATABURGER DRIVE-THRUS

No wonder drunks show up in the Whataburger drive-thrus during bar-closing hours. The Whataburger fast food chain makes damn good Texas-size burgers.

DRUNKEN WEE-HOURS WHATABURGER DRIVE-THRUS: A PROUD TEXAS TRADITION
By John Nova Lomax

Houston Press Hair Balls
March 18, 2011

Shamefully, all too many of us have been there: out in the bars since happy hour, it's now a quarter-past closing time. We stagger to the car and suddenly remember we haven't eaten a thing other than beer nuts since lunch. Hunger cuts through the fog of drunkenness, but what's open at that ungodly hour?

The good old Whataburger drive-thru, that's what. We head over, eyes flicking to the rear-view mirror, hoping no cops pick up our fumes. And suddenly, there it is, that ivory-and-traffic-cone-orange beacon of greasy salvation.

Sadly, many, many others have had the same idea. The line snakes all the way around the building, some cars full of drunken twentysomethings merrily singing along, others ferrying morose drunks like you, headed home alone or to an unhappy partner.

The minutes drag by. You tune in some classic rock. You finally make your order: double-meat, double-cheese with everything, and extra grilled jalapeños. Extra large those fries while you're at it. You're already gonna be hating life manana, so you might as well add some lower GI distress into the mix, and hell, maybe if you just pulled over to the side of the parking lot and ate all that food, it might give you that little boost of sobriety that could save you from a DWI.

And still the line drags on and on and on...Zep's "Goin' to California" burbles from your speakers. You wish Whataburger wouldn't insist on cooking everything so fresh. They should call this place Waitaburger. Hey, that's a good one. I'll try to remember that. You hope that girl who gave you her number will pick up when you call, and then, aaaaannnnddd thennnn.....zzzzzzzz

The next thing you know, a cop is tapping his flashlight on your window, asking you to turn off your engine and step out of your car.

You've passed out in your car in the Whataburger drive-thru. You've proven yourself a true Texan.

As residents of the birthplace of Whataburger, citizens of Corpus Christi seem to be hell-bent on showing the rest of us how it's done.

After two straight nights of finding teens passed out behind the wheel at Whataburger drive-thrus, police were called out to a third restaurant on the third night, where they found an allegedly drunken woman behind the wheel of a truck stuck on a curb. She attempted to flee when police arrived, but the cop was able to reach in and put the truck into park before she could make her escape.

But like we said, and as adept at the art as Corpus Christi's proud originators seem to be, Texans from every corner of the Lone Star State proudly partake in the Whataburger drive-thru tradition.

In El Paso, a drunk created a disturbance in the drive-through, fled when the cops arrived and was arrested a short time later for DWI and possession of cocaine.

In North Texas, a Greenville man was hauled off to jail after authorities said he fell asleep in the drive-through.

In the Rio Grande Valley, a Hidalgo County Sheriff’s sergeant got busted after he passed out in the parking lot.

In the Texas Panhandle, a drunk in Lubbock created a disturbance in the drive-through, then took off but got busted when he returned to pick up his food.

As for Houston, we've acquired enough confidential information about certain locations of the chain to last a lifetime.

So yeah, it's endemic. If the cops really wanted to take a bite out of DWI, perhaps they would do well to put up check-points just past the window at every Whataburger in the state.

What's more, the Texan rite has been debated in some of the highest courts in the state.

A couple of years ago, the Third District of the Texas State Court of Appeals upheld our right to pass out behind the wheel at a Whataburger without fear of arrest, so long as we have the snap to come to before the fuzz shows up. (If you're still snoozin' when the law arrives, that's probable cause for DWI, and you're on your own.)

Now how does that old song go? That's what I like about Texas.