Arrest Record.

I was reminiscing earlier today with an old friend of mine about past experiences with the law, and how both of us had very few. Next we talked about how that made us sad a little bit. Now, I'm not saying that either him or I should go out and commit a felony to make up for our lack of a "law breaking" life. But it did remind me of the only time I've been put in the back of a cop car against my will.

Let me take you back almost a decade. July 31st, 1998. I had been screwing up a lot during this period of my life. I can't explain it, but no matter what I did, for 3 consecutive friday's something went horribly wrong and I ended up in a shitload of trouble from my parents.

First Friday: I got into a fender bender while at a stop light. No real damage to the car, but the lady I hit had a 5 month old infant in the backseat and she flipped out on me. Although, she wasn't as bad as when I spoke with her husband a couple hours later. All in all that ended up costing my Stepdad $500.00 for a new fender on a piece of shit '93 Toyota.

Second Friday: I was at work and about half way through my shift a couple buddies showed up and asked if they could borrow my car to run an errand real quick. I was hesitant, but then again I was a dumb 16 year old. I handed over the car keys and said they had to be back in an hour when my shift was over with. Oh they came back alright...without my fucking car. Turns out, they were joy riding and got pulled over. Well the dipshit buddy of mine couldn't find my insurance or registration in the vehicle (it was in the glovebox), so the car was impounded. We headed down to police station to get the car out, and the registered owner of the car had to come and pick it up...guess who that was? That's right. My Stepdad. That was the hardest phone call I've ever had to make.

Long story short. The friends paid the 200 bucks to get the car out of impound, I got grounded for a week, and my cd player mysteriously vanished out of the car.

Fast forward to the...

Third Friday: I was fresh off grounding and on my way to the store when BAM! my tire popped. So I got the spare on, and tooled it back home. But that killed my car for the night because I didn't have time to get to the tire company to get a new one. So my best friend came over and picked me up, and that night we had one goal...

Get drunk...

His parents were gone for the weekend and his Grandma was staying over so that he didn't get into any trouble. But she goes to bed by 8pm and is exceptionally hard of hearing. Brian and I pooled together our money, grabbed our friend Jessie and found someone to buy us as much alcohol as we could get for 40 bucks. With the alcohol in hand, we needed a place to drink. Next to Brian's house was an elementary school that both him and I had attended. No one is there during the summer, and its the safest place we could possibly go to have a good time. So the three of us hoofed it over to the school, and found something new...a big ass fence that surrounded the entire property. Lucky for us, someone had already cut a hole in the chain link, and we were able to slip through.

The next hour was a lot of fun, a trio of friends drinking 40's like we were gangstas. Retelling old stories with a new found flare for exaggeration, and generally having a good time...Well, it looks like we had too much of a good time.

I heard a noise from behind us, and when I turned I saw a bright light shining right at me. My first reaction was to run, but none of us moved. When the light lowered we saw that it was just a security guard, and he was pissed. Apparently kids had been breaking in all summer long and they had been vandalizing the school while it was being renovated. Well, he took it out on us. Before we knew it, we were posed on the front steps of the school as the Sheriff was searching our bags and cataloging the beer we had left. Then came the scariest thing I had ever experienced at the moment in time. The Sheriff asked for my number so he could call my parents.

I gave him the number and started sweating bullets as he pushed buttons on his really large cell phone. But that all came to a halt when he got our answering machine. I think I let out the biggest "sigh" of my entire life at that moment. To me that was just like dodging a bullet the size of a sleepy, pissed off ex-marine.

Getting chastised by Jessie's mom wasn't fun either. She was yelling at Brian and I, pointing her finger say that we were bad influences and blah...blah...blah - I'm just bummed we didn't have a crystal ball that showed us Jessie's future of becoming a coke whore in New York, that would of been sweet.

The Sheriff drove us back to Brian's house, and as we were in the back of the squad car, I just kept thinking how fucking hard these plastic seats were. It was the only thing I could think of to keep me from freaking out when my parents found out what we had done. Luckily he let me stay at Brian's house, but we had to talk to his Grandma, and that was terrible. She wasn't stupid, and she played it up like it was all her fault and that she was a terrible person for what happened. Suffice to say, Brian and I kissed her ass for months to come after that.

I was under the impression that the Sheriff was going to call my parents and talk to them. He didn't. He didn't have to, my guilt got the better of me, and I confessed to my mom. Which was good timing on my part, no less than 30 minutes later Brian's parents called and wanted to hash it out with my mom over who's kid was the worst influence on each other.

I was pleasantly surprised with the aftermath of that event. I wasn't grounded, neither was Brian. We were banned from hanging out for a month, but we both had our driver's license and worked night jobs. So we were just limited in our hanging out for the rest of the summer. Jessie, Brian and I had to spend 40 bucks and attend a 3 hour class on drug and alcohol abuse. I would like to say these classes work, but they don't.

Did it stop me from drinking underage? No. But it did teach me to be more careful with how and where I chose to get drunk.

I guess the moral of the story is this: Use your brain and don't drink in an elementary school playground at 3am.

-Script-