Post comedy show on Wednesday night a few comics and I decided to celebrate the holidays with a few frosty brews n such. Great time! It was a good chance to kick it with a few guys and gals who I think are both funny AND friendly... something I find to be rare in this business of joke telling.
Drinks were cheap and they were flowing as the laughs from casual conversations had me feeling full of holiday spirit. After my 4th tall boy I had developed a pretty good buzz, so I decided to hit the road as it was getting a bit late and I had a big holiday weekend ahead of me. I said my peace-outs and dipped.
Plan "B" is somewhat an expert in the ways of intoxicated driving, it's become something of a past time for me. Now, in no way do I advocate in favor of drunk driving but ya gotta get home some how!
So here I am making my way through the city on my way to the west side highway. Once I hit that it's a straight shot home. I make a left on to 14th street when I see the shine of red and blue lights in my rear view. It's the cops. My first reaction to seeing the lights was to move out of the way so they can pass. City cops have more important things to take care of then stupid traffic violations....or so I thought. Regardless, I hadn't done anything that would warrant them to pull me over...or so I thought. I keep driving until 5-0 hits the siren "whoop whoop"! That's when I knew they were after me. "Ohhhh, shit!" I thought as I pull over to the side of the road. I immediately reach for some gum stashed in my drivers console only to find there's nothing in it! "FUCK!".
Turns out I'm being pulled over for not wearing a seat belt, which is the STUPIDEST FUCKING LAW! If I don't want to wear a seat belt that's my business! Fuck off!
I roll down my window 'cuz my car is ghetto and doesnt have power windows. Whatever. Cop goes through his license and registration schtick. As I'm handing him my info he sticks his big head inside my car and starts sniffing around. I knew what he was up to. Our faces had to have been 6 inches away from each other while he's asking me questions. He asked if I had been drinking to which I replied, "yea, I had 1 beer at this comedy club I was performing at". I knew he could smell it on me and I felt like lying about it would have made a bad situation worse.
"Step out of the car please..."
My stomach tightens up and an inner sense of doom starts flowing through my body as I step out of the car. A million and one thoughts race through your mind in a situation like this. The ones I can recall went like this: "Please God don't let this happen to me!" "This is gonna take every skill you have to get out of this!" "Keep cool" "Please God, Please don't let this happen to me!"
This sense of dread isn't something that was new to me. When you're a rebel like Plan "B" run in's with the law are common place but they definitely aren't fun. My now famous "Airport" story buries this one! Talk about scared!?? Sheeeeiiiitttt.... But I won't get into all that right now...
Back to the story... after a short round of stupid questions, copper bust out the breathalyzer. He tells me to take a deep breath and to blow as hard and as long as I can. He puts the contraption in my mouth and I start to blow. I was blowing as slowly and lightly as possible but making it look like I was doing it really hard. He's screaming "harder, harder harder!!" I stop blowing and start gasping like I'm out of breath. Grade A acting! There's Heath Ledger's Joker and my DWI stop, flawless acting. "I didn't tell you to stop! Why'd you stop!?" I told him I was out of breath from blowing so hard and I was just doing what he was telling me to do. He makes me do it a second and a third time. Each of the times I do the same exact thing! Blowing soft and acting out of breath etc, etc.
I don't know why, but I felt like the soft blowing technique might have been effective in defeating the dreaded breathalyzer. I had no scientific proof, I just went with it! It seemed to be somewhat effective because he made take the test 3 times.
I don't know what I blew. If it was under the limit or I was just fucking the machine up with my soft blow style but he didn't arrest me! The dread began to dissipate and a morphine-like sense of euphoria took over! He told me I was lying to him about the number of beers I drank (which I did) and he literally threw my license at me and told me to "get outta here". He wanted to bust me so bad! Getting a DWI bust for a cop is equivalent to hitting a homerun in the major league. But it looks like he struck out swinging on this night! I got back in my car and thanked my lucky stars! He got in his van and literally peeled out. As he drove past I yelled out "I had 4 beers suckaaaaa!!!"
That's when God shined his light on me!
Up to and included this incident Plan "B" has been doing some major philosophizing on his life. Just feeling down on my luck...a born loser. Many unfortunate things have gone down within the past few months that have made me question the direction of my life is taking. I've been pushing the envelope closer and closer to the edge and it's teetering. It's like I'm playing a game of Jenga and pulling all the blocks out from the bottom first.
I've never been a very religious person. Until recently I used to think God hated me and enjoyed watching me struggle... sort of like when you catch a spider and throw it in the toilet, then you piss on the spider and then flush it... like that. But there have been a few situations in my life where Plan "B" could easily be dead or in jail (Airport story) if it were not for the guiding hand of the LORD!! I know that now. I don't know what God has in store for me yet but in the past I just shut him out but now.....I'm listening!!! Holla @ me G.O.D!
