It’s official. We are lame and have been scared into further lameness. For the first time in ages upon ages, we met another couple (Frent’s parents) out for drinks and appetizers and then went to a really fun fundraiser-party for Sam’s preschool complete with mojitos, cosmos, and a disco ball.
As Bernie was the designated drinker, I was sipping away on my water, feeling cheated and looking suspiciously like a preggo. (In order to quell the rumors, I’m not! As Amy Winehouse would say, “Nooo, Nooo, Nooo!”) Even though I was so tempted to have a cosmo or mojito at the party (or several of both), I held back, but I sure did feel like the only sober person there. Maybe I was. Didn’t 50% of the people there have to drive, too? Why doesn’t anyone worry about drunk driving like Bern and I do?
By the time we left at 11, I was good to go, having only had one glass of wine at the restaurant hours earlier. Well, thank God, because we hit a drunk driving roadblock minutes after leaving the party. Heck, I was sober, and my stomach still plummeted to China. It must be my Catholic upbringing that allows me to feel guilty for something of which I am not guilty. I was so nervous I don’t think I could have walked a straight line, recited the alphabet backwards, or any of the other nonsense if ordered to do so.
When we got to the front of the line, the officer asked for my license. I fumbled around looking for my pocketbook, feeling guilty for the one glass of wine I drank almost four hours earlier, and realized it was in the back seat. After politely offering, the officer got it for me. Once he saw my license, he let us go. He never even asked me if I had been drinking or anything at all for that matter. Very strange — in a good way, I realize.
Did he see the toddler car seat in the back and have pity on us, realizing that parents of two-year-olds need to drink for medicinal purposes every once in a while? Was it the two books on Jesus that were underneath my bag? Was he hoping we’d offer him the bucket of roasted red pepper hummus dip sitting on Bernie’s lap? Who knows, but it was eerie. And he was welcome to the dip by the way.
Virginia law requires that everyone, absolutely everyone, arrested for a DUI spend the night in jail. So if I had indulged in the fruity drinks and not had such an angelic police officer, I would have had to spend the night in the slammer. How would Bernie get home from the roadblock since he couldn’t drive? How would Bernie explain to Sam in the morning that Mommy was in jail and that they had to go pick me up before the 8:45 mass? And the babysitter? Wouldn’t she think it weird for Bern to walk in without me after he left with me a few hours earlier? What if I lost my license? How would Sam go through carpool line at preschool? Would the school not be able to have any more bashes because I couldn’t walk the line? Would everyone know me as the Lush-Mommy-Who-Ruined-the-Fun-Parties and tease Sam at recess?
Lots of stuff to think about, huh? But I don’t need to think about them anymore because I am lame, lamer than ever. I am lame and proud.
LibbY
Whoa. Scary! Definitely a sobering (!) experience.