I meant to do something with this forever ago. then life happened. So, uh, have this now.
Say what you will about the way the US handles DWI laws. Oh, please, by all means, say what you will. But before you do, consider this. It’s 8:45 AM on a Sunday morning. You’ve been drinking more than enough to put you over the legal limit. You’ve been drinking exactly enough to actually double the legal limit. And you’re officially out of booze. Now, there’s a couple ways you could handle this. You could actually decide it might be time to go sleep off your very near future one hell of a hangover. You could, assuming you’re not drinking alone, try and find yourself someone sober who wouldn’t mind making a run to the grocery store for beer–I’m still a little jealous you folks in Quebec can pick up your beer when you pick up a bag of milk, I’m just saying. You can get creative and try walking to your nearest grocery store for the offending beer run. Or you can pour your drunk ass into the driver’s seat and head off to help yourself.
If you picked that last one, congratulations. Odds are you are the next Maurice Larrivee. Odds are also that you will be intercepted by well-meaning grocery store employees who valiantly attempt to talk some sober second thought into your alcohol-hazed brain and try to get across to you that you don’t, in fact, want to be driving home in your way past “I only had one or two” condition. Odds are you’ll dismiss the caution, because hell, you got here just fine didn’t you? And odds are you’ll drive yourself straight into your 17th arrest for drunk driving. But you can rest safely in the knowledge that you won’t actually see much if any jail time. And, hey, if you play your cards right you might just be back in a position to take a run at arrest number 18. Because worse than the fact some of these folks haven’t yet stopped by the clue shop on their way home is the fact there’s not a whole lot the police can actually do about it. Well, unless you’ve gone and killed someone before they managed to arrest you for driving while sloshed beyond belief.
sure, the police can take your car, or suspend your license–and they have. But you can–and often times do–eventually get one or both of those back before entirely too long. Meanwhile the police are kind of left with escentially wagging a finger at you and saying pretty much “don’t do that again, or else.” Or else what? Well, or else they’ll tell you not to do that again. Because, you know, that worked so well the first, second, third and sixteenth times. But hey, one can always hope 17’s this one’s lucky number. And somewhere, someone with at least as many convictions just drank to that.