Behold, a Tale of Why it is Best (Legally) to Drive, Rather than Walk
As can be guessed from the title, this post involves booze.
Small party at Grrt's tonight. Nothing big, few beers for everyone. We adjourned at 4:30. I declined the offer of a ride and walked to KG, where I talked to the usual crowd for about five minutes, then left.
As I walked the street past Michelle's church, I was thinking about when I used to go that church, etc. And for some drunken reason, was thinking about aesthetics . . . like, why do American humans find this particular shape (steeple, other churchy shapes) to be suited for temples? What about this shape implies spirituality? Or is at least suited to it?
After about twenty seconds, a police car turns the corner and stops next to me. Young cop gets out, rolls down the window.
"So, why are you hiding?"
I have already gone through all the initial cop-sighting emotions: pants-soiling fear, understanding, relaxation. So I tell him I'm not hiding, that I was just looking at the church. So he sighs, steps out of the car, pulls out a flashlight. He tells me that he drove by me on Main and I saw him and started walking into shadows. Which didn't happen, but . . . to him it did.
So he asks if he can pat me down, and since I love a good pat down from a man any day, I let him have his dirty way. I think he was a bit turned off by the used kleenex in my right pocket. He was pretty nice, though, and laid back during the whole thing. Let me pull things out, talked pretty normally. So I was pretty relaxed. Once he was satisfied I wasn't armed, he asked me to sit in the car.
He runs my ID, and while that's going on he quizzes me about booze. I tell him I had three or four starting at eleven (five hours before). He nods, tells me he thinks I'm sober, and when the license checks out asks if I have anywhere to be. I say no, so he asks if I want to do a field sobriety test. He says he's fresh from the academy and needs practice, but thinks it wouldn't hurt to do it anyway, and I'm thinking what the fuck, I'm good, so I say that it'll be interesting.
If you're familiar with this series of tests, feel free to skip this part, cause it's pretty uneventful. He moves this pen around while I follow it with my eyes, has me walk 9 steps forward and back, and then hold a foot out for thirty seconds with my hands at my sides (failed this one because I sneezed and had to touch my nose--that equals hand not at the side). Satisfied that I was not pants-peeingly drunk, he had me blow into the rubber phallis of the breathalizer, which revealed......
that I was safe to drive. But he was quick to point out that if he wanted to arrest me for public intox, he could. Because if you blow .0001, you can legally be arrested (at least, according to him). The decimel I made up, but he said that if you blow anything at all you're done. Then he pointed out that I would be legal to drive. So although he could have arrested me for walking, had I been driving I would have been fine. So fucked up. I just said that it was interesting, but really I was thinking a variety of phrases involving the fuck word. Then he mentions that if I hadn't been hiding, he wouldn't have stopped in the first place. Which made me think a completely different variety of phrases involving the fuck word. But over all, it was actually a pretty fun experience. It was interesting to do the field sobriety test without actually being drunk and falling on my face. And successfully blowing the boozalizer was good too.
Anyway, I didn't get arrested.
In other news, I have a job interview at the bookstore Tuesday. Andy, I will be at your birthday shindig next weekend. And what are your plans for this weekend? Trying to decide when to go to Cedar Falls.
Ummmmmmmmmmmmmmm....that's it.
Small party at Grrt's tonight. Nothing big, few beers for everyone. We adjourned at 4:30. I declined the offer of a ride and walked to KG, where I talked to the usual crowd for about five minutes, then left.
As I walked the street past Michelle's church, I was thinking about when I used to go that church, etc. And for some drunken reason, was thinking about aesthetics . . . like, why do American humans find this particular shape (steeple, other churchy shapes) to be suited for temples? What about this shape implies spirituality? Or is at least suited to it?
After about twenty seconds, a police car turns the corner and stops next to me. Young cop gets out, rolls down the window.
"So, why are you hiding?"
I have already gone through all the initial cop-sighting emotions: pants-soiling fear, understanding, relaxation. So I tell him I'm not hiding, that I was just looking at the church. So he sighs, steps out of the car, pulls out a flashlight. He tells me that he drove by me on Main and I saw him and started walking into shadows. Which didn't happen, but . . . to him it did.
So he asks if he can pat me down, and since I love a good pat down from a man any day, I let him have his dirty way. I think he was a bit turned off by the used kleenex in my right pocket. He was pretty nice, though, and laid back during the whole thing. Let me pull things out, talked pretty normally. So I was pretty relaxed. Once he was satisfied I wasn't armed, he asked me to sit in the car.
He runs my ID, and while that's going on he quizzes me about booze. I tell him I had three or four starting at eleven (five hours before). He nods, tells me he thinks I'm sober, and when the license checks out asks if I have anywhere to be. I say no, so he asks if I want to do a field sobriety test. He says he's fresh from the academy and needs practice, but thinks it wouldn't hurt to do it anyway, and I'm thinking what the fuck, I'm good, so I say that it'll be interesting.
If you're familiar with this series of tests, feel free to skip this part, cause it's pretty uneventful. He moves this pen around while I follow it with my eyes, has me walk 9 steps forward and back, and then hold a foot out for thirty seconds with my hands at my sides (failed this one because I sneezed and had to touch my nose--that equals hand not at the side). Satisfied that I was not pants-peeingly drunk, he had me blow into the rubber phallis of the breathalizer, which revealed......
that I was safe to drive. But he was quick to point out that if he wanted to arrest me for public intox, he could. Because if you blow .0001, you can legally be arrested (at least, according to him). The decimel I made up, but he said that if you blow anything at all you're done. Then he pointed out that I would be legal to drive. So although he could have arrested me for walking, had I been driving I would have been fine. So fucked up. I just said that it was interesting, but really I was thinking a variety of phrases involving the fuck word. Then he mentions that if I hadn't been hiding, he wouldn't have stopped in the first place. Which made me think a completely different variety of phrases involving the fuck word. But over all, it was actually a pretty fun experience. It was interesting to do the field sobriety test without actually being drunk and falling on my face. And successfully blowing the boozalizer was good too.
Anyway, I didn't get arrested.
In other news, I have a job interview at the bookstore Tuesday. Andy, I will be at your birthday shindig next weekend. And what are your plans for this weekend? Trying to decide when to go to Cedar Falls.
Ummmmmmmmmmmmmmm....that's it.
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