It always happens when you’re not thinking about it. You’re driving home, minding your own business, maybe a little happy from a couple of beers. You’re not drunk, but you’re… comfortable. And then you see them. The beautiful, red and blue, and completely terrifying lights in your mirror.
The whole goddamn show is over.
And the first mistake you make is thinking you can talk your way out of it. You can’t. The cop, he’s not your friend. He’s not a peace officer. He’s a goddamn timeshare salesman, and he’s trying to upgrade you from a “broken taillight” violation to a $12,000 “DUI” conviction. He’s just gathering evidence.
Your job is to give him the wrong evidence. You’re not just a defendant; you’re a goddamn actor, and this is your one-man show.
Here’s what you do.
The Preparation: You go to the liquor store. You buy a small, travel-sized bottle of peppermint schnapps. Or, if you want to play the “sick” card, a bottle of NyQuil. And that beautiful, life-saving little bottle, it lives in your glove compartment. It is your “in case of emergency, break glass” solution.
The Performance (Act I: The Stop): The second you see those lights, the show begins. You pull over, slow and respectable. And then, before he gets out of his goddamn car, you perform the most important act of the night.
You turn the car OFF. You take the keys OUT of the ignition. And you place them, clearly and beautifully, on the goddamn DASHBOARD.
Make a show of it. Fumble with them if you have to. You want him to see them lying there, cold and dead. Why? Because it’s not a crime to drink in a parked car with no keys in the ignition. You’re not “driving” anymore. You’re just a sad bastard sitting in a metal box.
The Performance (Act II: The Encounter): The cop walks up. He’s got his hand on his Taser, his eyes full of that quiet, hunter’s look. He smells the two beers you had an hour ago.
“Sir,” he says, his voice all calm and full of a beautiful, phony authority, “have you had anything to drink tonight?”
And you look at him, your eyes wide with a quiet, beautiful, and completely fraudulent innocence. “Officer,” you say, your voice shaking just a little, “I’m so stressed out… I’m not feeling well.”
And then, as he is watching, you reach for the glove compartment. Not the ignition. The glove compartment.
You pull out that beautiful, green bottle of NyQuil, or that festive, little sonofabitch of a schnapps. You crack the seal right there, in front of him. You make sure he hears that beautiful, tiny snap of fresh plastic breaking.
And you fucking chug it.
Take a good, long, beautiful, ugly pull. Let it burn. Let him see your Adam’s apple bobbing. You’re not sipping; you’re committing.
The cop is going to go goddamn ballistic. He’s going to scream at you, he’s going to drag you out of the car, he’s going to cuff you so hard your wrists bleed. Perfect. Let him. He’s your star witness.
The Performance (Act III: The Process): You’re going to jail. That was always going to happen. The second he smelled the booze, you were already a statistic. So don’t fight, don’t argue.
“Can you walk this line?” he’ll ask. “No, officer, I’m too nervous.”
“Can you touch your nose?” “I don’t feel well, officer.”
“Can you blow in this little machine?” “I’d rather not, officer.”
Refuse it all. It’s just theater, designed to make you look like a drunk clown on his bodycam.
They get you to the station, the quiet, antiseptic hell of the processing room. They’ll hold you. And then they’ll play their trump card. The one that matters.
“By law,” they’ll say, “you must submit to a chemical test of your breath or blood, or you will automatically lose your license for a year.”
And that, my friend, that is when you say, “Yes, officer.”
You take their test. You blow into their big, beautiful, and completely honest machine. And the numbers are going to be… glorious. Astronomical. You’re going to blow a .30. A goddamn record. The cops will be high-fiving each other. They’ve got their man.
The Performance (Act IV: The Courtroom): You don’t even need a lawyer for this, though it helps. You can do it yourself. You stand up in front of the judge, a quiet, respectable, and completely sober man.
You call the officer to the stand.
“Officer,” you ask, “when you approached my vehicle, were the keys in the ignition?”
He’ll have to say no. “They were on the dash, Your Honor.”
“And, officer, did you at any time witness me, with your own two eyes, consume an alcoholic beverage inside my parked vehicle?”
And that beautiful, angry sonofabitch will have to say, under oath, “Yes, Your Honor. The defendant chugged half a bottle of peppermint schnapps right in front of me.”
And there it is. The whole goddamn show. You hand the judge a “not guilty” plea.
Because the beautiful, high-octane, and completely damning number on that breathalyzer? It has absolutely nothing to do with the two beers you had an hour before you were driving. It has everything to do with the bottle of NyQuil you drank in a parked car while a cop was watching. There is no evidence you were intoxicated while operating the vehicle. The case is gone.
Now, let’s be clear. If you’re out there, completely obliterated, running over mailboxes and crashing into minivans, you deserve to be in jail. You’re a menace. This trick ain’t for you.
But if you’re just a normal, red-blooded American, driving home, a little buzzed, and some cop on a power trip pulls you over for a broken taillight and tries to ruin your goddamn life for it?
Fuck ’em.
The system is a machine designed to fuck you. It’s not about justice; it’s about revenue. It’s about control. You have to be willing to play as dirty, as beautifully, and as dishonestly as they do.
Keep a bottle in your glove compartment.
You can thank me later.
