A Run-in with the Law

Time is like oxygen. Until you've got none left, you tend to take it for granted.

So I was pulled over today. Random Breath Testing, my ass - I just knew it'd be me that was picked as soon as I saw them. Time and oxygen, the cops wanted a bit of both.

Now, I had some alcohol last night.

Not a lot, but I really don't know how long it takes for the demon drink to get out of my system.

Also, my being on P's means I cannot have any. The reason for that is a longer story, though since longer doesn't always mean good, I can use it for a blog post another day without any fear of being inconsistent on quality.

Back to my potential drink-driving.

Mathematically there shouldn't be any problem. Maths tends to like me. We get on like 2P to the power of q. Since it was the next day, and probably 12 hours had passed since I'd last had a drink. No screaming hangovers or anything like that, but there's always the chance. "What if... my body evolved in such a way that when it digests things, it actually ferments whatever I've eaten and releases alcohol into my bloodstream and that's why I'm so weird all the time - I'm actually drunk on fermented KFC. I'm screwed!"

They don't do the walky-test they do in the movies, which is great. I can't balance myself ever- walking a straight line isn't a problem, but I'm affected by tiny singularities that orbit me so it LOOKS like I'm not walking straight. Instead, I have to count to ten. Slowly. How slowly... what if I get one wrong. WHAT THE HELL IS AFTER SEVEN?? In the end I was worrying for nothing - before I could get past seven, the cop said "You can go."

PHEW! Talk about your close calls.

I really like the idea of having cops - I think it's a really solid idea, in fact. They just scare me. It's not so much that I know I have something to hide - if I did, I could live with that. It's that I don't know if I have something I should hide. I mean, is it okay to wear two jumpers and a jacket because it's cold? If I start crossing the road seconds before the wittle man goes green, am I going to be tazed? AM I GOING TO BE TAZED?

The uncertainty is tough though. As I tried to remember the numbers, I thought to myself "Um.. I have no fricking idea if I have even the slightest trace of alcohol."

Right at that moment, not only did time seem like it was running out, but so did oxygen. Which could be because those mobile breath testers they use capture some of my breath while they're trying to suck in your soul. It's a known side-effect. "May cause shortness of breath, anal leakage, and soullessness."

Luckily, I still have my soul. I ran a test.

Afterwards I thought - wouldn't it be cool if they asked you to count to 12 instead? I mean, not cool as in "something that is cool", but funny cause then I could count like that old ONETWOTHREEFOURFIVE, SIXSEVENEIGHTNINETEN, ELEVEN TWELVE thing they did on channel 2 back in the day. It kind of gets in your ONETWOTHREEFOURFIVE, SIXSEVENEIGHTNINETEN, ELEVEN TWELVE head a bit, too.

I decided to tell the officer "Have a nice day" as I drove off, rather than my customary farewell for matters of the law. "You don't have to check the boot, right?" It just draws too much attention. I mean, there's a freaking tyre in there, and if they see that, they'll want to know what I did with the rest of the car it came from.

~T