First order of business: popped 2mg clonazepam washed down with a sip of melted ice vodka. shit, shower, shave, dress. I'm at the train stop 40 min later and two water bottles deep.
blow a 0.09 on the bench outside. Can't tell whether the Asian girl next to me is impressed or disgusted. She's ugly, so Artie don't care.
Chug another water bottle.
0.08. okay cool. I don't feel buzzed and the K-pins are kicking in, so whatever.
20 minutes later, blow a 0.06 on the train. I brag to the guy next to me about the herculean virility of my liver. He is impressed with my contraption. We discuss why Apple products suck.
Throw two pieces of Stride spearmint gum in my mouth. Yeah, two. Because I'm well-off like that.
Just kidding. I get packs for free at work. They need to add some variety to the kitchen though because Five is superior.
Blow a 0.11 after 5 minutes of chewing!
Don't know whether it's just Stride or spearmint in general, but this shit makes your breathalyzer score go up! I wonder how many guys fucked themselves into DUIs when they could have skipped the gum and blew a 0.07.
I subsequently wonder how many guys have gotten out of DUIs with the gum defense. I can't find any solid stats on Google in the 3 minutes I looked, but it's definitely been done.
Fuck do I wish I'd known all this shit about beating DUIs BEFORE I got a DWI. For fucking pot. I've since met a fair amount of lawyers and the ones who know this story say they could have beaten the case easily on multiple grounds. I kind of brought it upon myself though by:
1. Being approached by a cop who had, about six months earlier, come to my home and more or less told me to stop selling drugs or they're coming back with a warrant. And I did stop within two days, returning only once for a brief 3 month period during which I needed cash fast. For drugs, yo. If you're ever cutting a check to someone you don't like, put "Drugs, yo" in the "For:" section.
2. Being approached in a police refueling station (I thought it was a closed-down gas station) while smoking a cigarette, fiddling with my GPS, and having a mini bong in one cup holder and a tin jar of pot in the other. I was being fucking responsible by not driving and playing with my GPS. Take-away? I don't fucking know. My DNA test (shoutout 23andme) did tell me that I don't learn from mistakes well compared to the average European male, so there's that.
3. Telling the officer I had nothing illegal in my car when he asked me to step out. He obviously saw the paraphernalia immediately, but I was high and barred the fuck out and didn't really give a shit about anything at that point in life.
4. After being arrested for pot and paraphernalia possession, being handed my keys back, and being told to get driven home and pick up my car in the morning... and being told that my car was being monitored by video... I chose to get in and attempt to drive home. I was sober by this point, I think. I had just spent 4 hours at the police station acting like a hardass.
Got pulled over for swerving and failing to reduce speed (total bullshit, they just wanted to fuck me. I would have wanted to fuck me too. I'd still fuck me winkeyface). Got a DWI and a few other minor charges. For fucking pot.
Then, I consented to a field sobriety test (which I fucking nailed. I saw the video. I was like a gymnast in that bitch), but I also consented to a piss test. Which I did not fucking nail.
I chose such a shit lawyer that I ended up firing him half way through the drawn-out court proceedings. All-in, it cost me ~$4K in various fees and fines, 2 years of supervised supervision (had to report to a PO monthly), 75 hours of alcohol and drug education classes (where the mustached instructor talked primarily about WWE and fishing and where I met my go-to pharmaceutical guy for the next year). I was going to community college and working as an optician at the time, so making time for these mandatory 3-hour sessions was a headache.
...And 50 hours of public service, which is different from community service. Community service is when you pick what you want to do. Public service is when they assign you to a spot to do your hours at. I put off doing those and never went to the first spot I was assigned, so they reassigned me to a fitness center a mile from where I was living at the time.
The general manager was a cool burly dude with white chest hair poking through his Dickies shirt who would take me to the basement with him and we would chain smoke and he'd complain about his girlfriend and his truck.
The guy who actually ran shit was a little Ukrainian dude. Note: My grandpa, who is a badass who guzzles vodka at 81 and goes alpine skiing, goes to that gym. Also, I'm Ukrainian and so is my grandpa obviously.
Once SovietManager found out who my grandpa was, my pool cleaning days were over. I'd come in, we'd go to his office in the basement, and he would complain about how my grandpa manipulates the sauna temperature by throwing cold water onto the thermometer and tell me about the Old Country. We'd talk for an hour, he'd sign off that I did 8, and I'd go home to do whatever the fuck I was doing those days.
Back to the breathalyzer: The day I was finally sentenced and met my PO, I had been drinking JD the night before and was sweating liquor in court that morning. I didn't know they were going to breathalyze me each visit and I blew a 0.05. PO was a total bro. I joked with him all the time to tip me in on which pawn shops in the area gave the best deals because I would need to pawn all my shit to pay these fucking court fees. Now that I think of it, it'd be good to mail that guy a bottle of nice scotch. But all I have is his work info. I'll figure this out later. There's a short list of people who have been bros to me who I need to mail some good liquor to.
Anyway, I'm pretty sure he knew I was still buzzing. This dude knows what liquor smells like. He's like, 'You don't look so good. You had some cough syrup last night, didn't you?'
'Um, yeah my throat's been sore.' *Throat clear*
'Yeah, that can really throw these things off. Just make sure you don't use any of that next time I see you. I'm using my discretion this time and writing down zero. Which I'm allowed to do, by the way.'
'Yes sir.'
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