Bad, Bad Beer Blogging

By the way this story comes out of New Berlin, Wisconsin not New Berlin, Illinois home of the Pretzels.

New Berlin - It's not often you see anything but a Fudgsicle fly out the window of an ice cream truck, but when Denell Heller saw an unidentified object land in her front yard, she picked up the phone and called police.

"I couldn't tell what it was, but I am just a freak about littering," she said. "I jumped off the couch and called the police. I told them I don't want him in my neighborhood if he's going to litter."

The object, it turned out, was an empty can of Steel Reserve malt liquor, and the offending ice cream truck driver had a blood-alcohol level three times the legal limit, according to a New Berlin police report. The driver, 43-year-old David A. Blundell of Milwaukee, also is a registered sex offender. He was arrested on suspicion of drunken driving and littering and has a hearing scheduled for today in Waukesha County Circuit Court.

David A. Blundell

Officer Gary Monreal tracked Blundell down a mile away on Deer Park Drive, where, according to a police report, Blundell told him that he had one beer with his breakfast around 11 a.m., about two hours before he went to work. Blundell then failed a series of sobriety tests, getting stuck at the letter M when reciting the alphabet, repeating the numbers nine and 10 when asked to count down from 15 and confusing his right and left when told to touch his nose with fingers on each hand, according to the police report.

[snip]

Reached by phone at his home Monday, Blundell said he did not drink beer while he was driving the ice cream truck.

"I'm driving and selling ice cream to kids, you know, and it's like, dude gave me a beer and I dumped it out and I shot it on the ground," he said. "Why I grabbed it I had no idea. That was just stupid. Then I realized, 'I got to get rid of this, it's not good.' "

Blundell said he didn't know why the result of his Breathalyzer test was three times the level considered evidence of intoxication.

"I told (the officer) there was something wrong with that machine," he said. "He said there wasn't."

OK, two Saturday Night Live related thoughts about this: This incident reminds me of the John Belushi drunk department store Santa and Blundell looks suspiciously like a Bill Murray character (I'm thinking Carl from Caddyshack).