Sean C. Morgan
Of The New Era
It was about 11:15 a.m. on Dec. 16 when Sweet Home Police Sgt. George Dominy showed up to give me a ride to the Elks Lodge where I would perform a service for my community with 10 other volunteers ? I would get drunk, or at least try.
I don?t drink often, and when I do, I have one beer. Then I?m on to coffee or Mountain Dew, so I was naturally surprised when the police officers running the show told me I could drink nine beers, especially when one of my poor drinking buddies was limited to four.
I settled in with a microbrew donated by the Elks Lodge and quickly found myself playing some game called ?31? for quarters. I had to trade some change for quarters to play.
I discovered I?m just not a good drinker. I was still on my first beer when I think everyone else was on their second or third. That was the first time I?ve ever had a police officer tell me to drink faster.
I was solidly into the first half of the second bottle when I determined I was too drunk to drive. I only blew a .04 blood alcohol content ? I?m a lightweight.
I had a third and fourth, and well, stopped. Nine would kill me. Unfortunately, I was only blowing a .05 at that point.
I was convinced I was drunk, and although I did blow a bogus .09 once, I couldn?t blow anything higher than a 0.5.
By this point, the officer monitoring the drinkers said I was showing clues that I was impaired, but after officers completed testing me perhaps an hour later, I blew a .03. No one would have arrested me for drunken driving during the tests.
I?d like to say more about our card game, but I was informed that what happened there stayed up there. And someone owes me 75 cents.
Moving to a passive voice to protect the guilty, there was much laughing and conversation, most of it not even beyond a PG rating. Folks traded war stories, and it was time to go.
And go I did ? Right to the business office, so to speak. When I came out, everyone was gone, back to the police station.
Dispatcher Carol Ann Salsbury answered my call and sent Chief Bob Burford back to pick me up.
Burford?s got a new rig, one that actually runs; but it must have taken him 20 minutes to drive that whopping mile and get back to me. I think the city got taken to the cleaners on that one ? I mean, 4 mph, come on. Fortunately, I had my book with me.
We got back to the police station where I was quickly found innocent of drunkenness, and Sgt. Jason Van Eck accused me of not actually drinking. I had four, Jason. Count ?em. Four. And I really believed I was drunk.
Moral of the story here: Err on the side of caution during the upcoming holidays. At least one of the drinkers over the legal limit felt good enough to drive. I overestimated my state of drunkenness. We couldn?t tell very well ourselves what our condition was without a breathalyzer test. We were all curious about the results.
The cops usually could tell, even when we weren?t at the legal limit. All they had to do was look at our eyes.
Remember, you are still driving under the influence if you are under the .08 limit if it impairs your ability to drive.
And the cops are pretty good at figuring that out. The eyes don?t lie.