During my
reckless and irresponsible
youth (okay, it was 2 years ago), I caused myself to be
arrested for
drunk driving. It was
St. Patrick's Day, and what can I say... I'm
Irish. That's no excuse and it's really not funny, but the
irony of it still cracks a smile in my head.
Part of the
punishment for the crime is that the offender is
required to attend
Alcohol Awareness classes for a specific amount of time, depending on his/her
blood alcohol level at the time of the arrest. I was .1, which put me on the
slap on the wrist end of the scale, so I had a
once a week 4 hour class.
The class had more than just
drunk drivers in it, there were all breeds of
drug offenders. There was a middle aged nurse who had tested
positive for
cocaine in her urine. About 5
young men were there for testing positive for
marijuana use, and a couple of guys who'd tested for
crystal meth. We watched informative
videos on the horrors of
REEFER, and angry toned videos about the drunk drivers who murdered my
honor roll student. At the end of our class, we went around the room and announced to the rest of the class what we had done, why it was wrong, and
who we were in society's eyes. This was to give us all
perspective - so that I wouldn't leave the
class thinking "I have to sit in here with all these
losers that I have nothing in common with, they're all trash, and this was just a
transgression for me, it wasn't my fault," or some other such
ego preserving bullshit.
I told everyone my story, and
how I got caught. I told them what I did for a living, and sat down. The next guy was a
trucker. He had tested positive for
crystal meth during a
random drug screen, and ended up here. Everyone asked him questions about it, and he told us that all those
big rigs that you see along the side of the road, or at truck stops - they aren't always sleeping or taking a break. They might be negotiating where to find meth, or smoking on the side of the road. The
tricked out rigs with all the lights and airbrushing were a dead giveaway for a dealer, he said. They hop on the
CB and offer out their "high speed chicken feed." Truckers will hop on the channel and ask who's
hauling the chickens.
Funny, I never would have thought that the
chicken hauler would haul anything but chickens.