so i got a DUI. i'll admit it. no one here is perfect.
it was christmas day. i was in my hometown and i had a couple glasses of wine with my parents then went out to a bar with a couple of old friends. at the bar, i ran into a good friend of my deceased older brother, who didn't know that he was deceased. he asked about him. i had to tell him he passed away two years ago. being the holidays, or just being a sad part of life, i started to lose it. i cried. so i drank. then i drank some more.
on the way home, i was pulled over by a CHP just a little way from the bar. i was given about five sobriety tests (one of them involved walking 8 steps heel to toe and on the 9th step, taking my right foot and turning around). they were very specific.
after blowing a rather high BA, i was cuffed and the cop sped like a bat out of hell to the sheriff's station. while i was getting my mug shots, the officer says . . . "wow, you actually look fine". i thought, yeah i feel fine too. it has to do with the "practice makes perfect" claim.
they had me take off my shoe laces. i asked why and they said "because you can hang yourself with them". i thought, thanks for the tip. but after being subjected to the cell, a white room with two metal bunks on either side, a stainless steel toilet/sink combo and a sac of a bologna and cheese sandwich, i realized i needed a blanket. i asked for one, to which the crumpled-faced, flatulent-looking sheriff replies "we usually don't give blankets to prisoners we release the next day". but he gave me one anyway, and i thought, during all of those hours, how i could actually kill myself and one of them included hanging myself with the blanket.
i told one of my friends in the car, before i was taken away, to call my parents and tell them what happened. so when i called my dad in the morning, he already knew. he asked me how i was doing and i said "i'm in a jail cell". he says, "just let me know when to pick you up". so i did. and when he showed up, i said "i sure fucked up this time" to which he replied "you didn't need me to tell you that". we got home, he went into the fridge, pulled out a bottle of wine and says jokingly, "want a drink?" i love my dad and his sense of humor and i wish to humbly admit that i got it from him. don't get me wrong. my parents don't take this behavior of drinking and driving lightly, but they were surprisingly patient and admitted that (yes mom, you were also practicing awesomeness ) i don't fuck up too often and that they are glad to help out.
so the court date arrives. TODAY. i have been dreading it since christmas, suffering from insomnia and a general phobia of being cuffed and taken to prison on the spot. i go, and on the courtroom walls are drawings from kids of all ages; one that has a woman hiding behind a trashcan while a cop car drives by with his lights ablaze. another depicts a picture of a house, that turns into a bigger house, that turns into a castle, that turns into a blunt, that turns into a jail cell. but the funniest painting has flames and a pot leaf that says "now you're mine!!! burn it!! 4:20". this seems highly inappropriate for a courtroom but i look on.
adorned on an adjoining wall is a quilt with each square sewn by a different person, quoting AA slogans: "it works if you work it", "easy does it" and "just for today". you get the picture.
so i have my trial, in front of a 7th grade class. i am the "BIG BAD CRIMINAL!" and of course, am called first. but actually, the more serious cases were first and i witnessed someone being thrown in jail for 3 years on the spot for 4 convictions of DUI's. the no-shows were fined $25,000 yes, TWENTY-FIVE THOUSAND DOLLARS for making a mockery of the judicial system by signing to appear in court and no-showing. i wish i could do that to my hair clients.
by the way, they really make you feel like an alcoholic by showing you a film about AA meetings, the judge giving a speech declaring "we get all the drug addicts and alcoholics in here" in addiction (did i say addiction?) addition to making you go to THIRTY meetings. i love the saying "i'm not an alcoholic. alcoholics go to meetings". the AA meetings are the easy part for me, regardless of how brain dead i feel after hearing stories of real alcoholics who hide their liquor in the toilet tank, pour water in the vodka and drink AS they are puking in the toilet. (i was in a relationship with a sober person, so i went to check out what he did three to four times a week)
but the biggest shit pile disturbance for me is that i have to take these "driving" classes once a week for eight months. i asked, "what do they teach me? how to drive intoxicated?" (jokingly of course). they didn't seem amused. no. they teach you how hazardous driving under the influence is. to which i agree. i think it was good that i got a DUI instead of meeting a more terrifying fate which would be to kill someone because of my belligerent courage.
summarizing (just kidding, i have not summarized anything. i just wanted to say it). i have to pay the upwards of $2000 and go to a shit load of classes. i make fun, but i know the next time i want to drink and drive, i'll just go pass out in the bushes. it' s way cheaper.
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