In honor of Cinco de Mayo yesterday, I was reminded that I should probably post my cautionary tale of the events that occurred 8 years ago in the wee hours of the morning of May 6th, 2007.  Please note, that the tale I’m about to tell is very A typical for this type of situation.  According to every law enforcement person who’s heard this story, I’m the luckiest girl ever!

It was Cinco de Mayo and my friend was having a party to celebrate because everyone is a little Mexican on Cinco de Mayo.  The party started at noon and the jello shots were refreshing on this warm day in May.  We partied all day and later that evening my good friend, the Doctor, joined us for our evening out.  We bar hopped until we found one we liked and hung out, drinking, until closing, at 2:00am.  We were in the Foster City area and I was driving.  I drove my one friend home to her place and she tried to get the Doctor and I to stay and not drive back to the East Bay.  “You should stay”, she said as she hugged me goodbye.  I didn’t have any stuff with me and I really wanted to go back home so I declined her offer.  Back in the car we went for the 45 minute drive to south Fremont, where I lived at the time.

We got all the way to north/central Fremont on 880 when I noticed the flashing lights in my rear view mirror.  I handed my flip phone to the Doctor and said, “Hold down the 2.  It will call my parents because I’m getting arrested.”  I went to pull over on the freeway when the Highway Patrol behind me bullhorned me to exit the freeway.  I did as they said and pulled off the next exit and into the parking lot on the right.  Two Highway Patrol officers exited their vehicle and approached my car on the driver side.  I rolled down the window and they said, “So, who’s been drinking because we can smell it?”.  Scared to death I couldn’t muster a reply so I pointed at the Doctor.  He pointed at himself.  They then asked me to follow the end of their pen with my eyes only as they moved it back and forth.  I followed directions and when the tip passed out of my line of sight, my eyes fluttered struggling to see the pen.  I later found out this is a sign that a person has been drinking.  They asked me to step out of the car.

They let me know that the male Highway Patrol would be leading me through a series of road side tests.  He asked me to stand with my feet together, arms at my side, head back, and to count in my head to 30 and to let him know when I was done.  In my head, I was thinking, ONE ONE THOUSAND, TWO ONE THOUSAND, THREE ONE THOUSAND. etc., until I got to 30.  He looked surprised when I told him I was done.  Shocked that I was close or right on the nose of 30 seconds.  The Doctor later told me that he was watching me in his side mirror of the car and, while I didn’t step out or lose my balance, I was wavering around like all hell.  The next few tests went surprisingly well, until we got to the last one.  I was to count again but this time out loud on one foot looking at my raised foot with my arms at my side.  As this was the last test, I was seriously anxious to be done.  So anxious that I completed skipped the number 29 to get to 30.  “Oh, sorry!”, I said.  The officer replied, “Don’t worry about it.”  I knew at that moment he was new.  He must be training with the other officer and that night seemed like his first night out.

He brought me over to the front of the patrol car where the other officer had been readying the breathalyzer.  She explained how it worked and that I would need to blow until they told me to stop.  I did everything they said to the letter.  She was surprised I was actually blowing.  Apparently drunk people usually pretend to blow.  If they had told me to do pushups I would have.  I was not messing around with these cops.  She looked at the result and asked him how he thinks I did.  He replied, “I don’t know.  She did great on all the tests.”.  She showed him and then myself the result.  I blew a .0723.  I was less than a hundredth of a percentage point away from automatically going to jail.  Do not pass GO. Do not collect $200.00.  Jail.  They began to lecture me on not lying to the police and how expensive a DUI is.  How could have hurt myself, my friend or a stranger.  They then told me that they weren’t going to be taking me to jail that night.  I began to cry.  They didn’t want me driving so they asked me where I lived.  I told them I lived in south Fremont but that my parents lived on the other side of the freeway.  They chatted for a moment and then told me the plan.  They would pull my passenger out of the car, pat him down and place him in the back of the patrol car.  They would then put me in the passenger seat of my car and she would drive my car to my parents house with the other officer following in the patrol car.

Watching the Doctor get patted down was one of the funniest moments of my life.  When we retell this story together, the reenactment is hilarious.  Now neither one of us has ever been arrested before so we only know to assume the position from what we’ve seen on TV and in movies.  Apparently, when you’re a taller guy, you have to spread your* legs really wide so that a shorter cop can get in your junk and make sure you don’t have any weapons hiding anywhere.  The Doctor didn’t know this and wasn’t spread very wide so when the officer had to ask multiple times for him to spread his legs, “wider Sir…” it was all I could do not to bust out laughing.

Finally, with the Doctor secure in the patrol car, we were off to my parents house.  She small talked with me in the car.  “Is that your boyfriend?”, she asked.  “Just a friend.”, I replied.  It was a short drive.  She parked my car, let the Doctor out, shook our hands, and let us go.  This is always the part where the people who work in law enforcement, who I’ve told this story to, tell me how lucky I am that they didn’t cite me for a wet and reckless and/or have my car towed.  Lucky they all say and I believe them.

Now, I was not about to get back into that car and drive the few miles back to my place from my parents house.  Up to the front door walked the Doctor and I.  When we went inside, my mom was still awake, which was surprising since it was 3:30am.  She looked at us and exclaimed, “What are you doing here?  You don’t live here!”.  I told her, “OK, don’t get mad.”.  The whole story spilled out, while the Doctor hugged me in the doorway.  “OK.”, she replied.  If you knew my mom you’d know this was unlike her.  She is known to scream and be terrifying when ticked off.  She put on a sweatshirt over her nightgown and got her shoes on.  She put the Doctor and I in her car and drove us to my condo.  when we got there, the Doctor asked for a hug, even though this was his first interaction with my mom.  She obliged him.  We went inside and passed out until 8:00am.

When we woke up, the realization of the events of the night before hung over us like a dark storm cloud.  He somberly and silently drove me to my car, parked outside my parents house.  I said goodbye, got in the car, and drove off.  I didn’t go into the house.  To this day, my mother has never discussed the events of that evening with me.  I think she knew I learned my lesson, which I definitely did.

*This was the 1000th word :)!