Have I ever told you the story about how I went on an unplanned "ride-along" in Denver?
It was the January of my senior year of college and I flew to Denver to meet up with a few friends and attend the National Western Livestock Show and Rodeo.
I am all about honesty, both on this blog and in real life, so in the following lines you are going to read about some bad decisions that were made by me and some friends.
The good news is, I have grown up and moved past these decisions.
So, we're in Denver. I'm staying with a friend and she lives way out of town. Luckily, a friend of hers lives in town so the plan was to pick her up, hit the town, and end up back at her house for the night.
We started the night (afternoon) at the Yard Bar. We drank our share of adult beverages before decided that we should move on to the Grizzly Rose for some concert, and then Teddy's at the Holiday Inn.
You see, this is the natural progression of events for the National Western.
So we spent a little time at Teddy's, as our last stop, and then things get a little fuzzy.
I think that we were going to drop the one friend off at a hotel to meet a guy that she knew. So, off we went.
My friend was driving her car, a VW Jetta, and she tried to make a left turn in the wrong place and got the car high-centered on the railroad tracks. Her attempts to get it unstuck probably made it worse.
It was probably close to one in the morning and there weren't many cars on the road. So we sat there, in the car, on the railroad tracks, for what felt like forever, trying to figure out what to do.
For some reason, I knew that if you were under the influence of alcohol and sitting in the driver's seat of a car, regardless of it was on or not, you could get a DUI.
So my friend turned the car off, put the keys on the floorboard, and climbed into the back seat with me. Where we proceeded to make up a story about the person who was driving the car and where they went.
At one point a car pulled up, and I'm pretty sure the people in it had been drinking. They told us that we should get out of the car in case a train came and then they left in a hurry - probably because the police were coming.
One police car arrived and knocked on the front window, the friend rolled down the window and the officer asked her what we were doing. So she proceeded to tell him our story.
It went something like this: We were at the bar and we realized that we needed someone to drive us to that hotel over there to stay with our friends, but none of us could drive. So we found a guy that we had met earlier in the night, named Jeff, to drive us there. When we got stuck, Jeff told us that he was going to go get a friend's truck to pull us off of the tracks.
The officer asked us what Jeff's last name was. None of us knew.
He asked what Jeff was wearing. A blue jacket and jeans.
He asked which direction Jeff headed. We all pointed in the same direction.
We were good. The police officer was getting angry.
So he called for back-up.
Another police car arrived and they put me and the friend in the back of it. Then they put my friend in the back of the other one. But they left the cars parked next to each other and the windows rolled down, so we continued to talk.
They realized what was happening and moved our car away from hers. Then our officer got in the car and started asking us the same questions.
We stuck to our answers.
Finally, they decided that they weren't going to break us down so they drove the friend and me to the police station.
We asked if we were in trouble, the officer said no.
We asked how we were going to get home. The officer said that we could use the phone at the station to call someone.
It was now close to three in the morning, we had no one to call who could drive to the police station to get us and our purses were in the car so we didn't have money for a cab.
But we didn't have a choice. We called the cab company and they picked us up at the police station. While we were waiting we looked up the number for the hotel that the girls' friends were staying at and we called them to say that we would be pulling up in a cab shortly and we would need someone to come out and pay for it.
Oh, and by the way, we'll be staying with you.
Oh, and we don't know where my friend is.
As the cab driver was driving us to the hotel, we see my friend up ahead, walking.
We stop to pick her up and get the rest of the story.
The officer dropped her off at another hotel and told her that if the car was moved before noon the following day, he would come and arrest her for DUI.
I'm pretty sure he couldn't do that, but we definitely didn't move the car until 2 pm the next day.
The good news is, I have grown up and moved past these decisions.
So, we're in Denver. I'm staying with a friend and she lives way out of town. Luckily, a friend of hers lives in town so the plan was to pick her up, hit the town, and end up back at her house for the night.
We started the night (afternoon) at the Yard Bar. We drank our share of adult beverages before decided that we should move on to the Grizzly Rose for some concert, and then Teddy's at the Holiday Inn.
You see, this is the natural progression of events for the National Western.
So we spent a little time at Teddy's, as our last stop, and then things get a little fuzzy.
I think that we were going to drop the one friend off at a hotel to meet a guy that she knew. So, off we went.
My friend was driving her car, a VW Jetta, and she tried to make a left turn in the wrong place and got the car high-centered on the railroad tracks. Her attempts to get it unstuck probably made it worse.
It was probably close to one in the morning and there weren't many cars on the road. So we sat there, in the car, on the railroad tracks, for what felt like forever, trying to figure out what to do.
For some reason, I knew that if you were under the influence of alcohol and sitting in the driver's seat of a car, regardless of it was on or not, you could get a DUI.
So my friend turned the car off, put the keys on the floorboard, and climbed into the back seat with me. Where we proceeded to make up a story about the person who was driving the car and where they went.
At one point a car pulled up, and I'm pretty sure the people in it had been drinking. They told us that we should get out of the car in case a train came and then they left in a hurry - probably because the police were coming.
One police car arrived and knocked on the front window, the friend rolled down the window and the officer asked her what we were doing. So she proceeded to tell him our story.
It went something like this: We were at the bar and we realized that we needed someone to drive us to that hotel over there to stay with our friends, but none of us could drive. So we found a guy that we had met earlier in the night, named Jeff, to drive us there. When we got stuck, Jeff told us that he was going to go get a friend's truck to pull us off of the tracks.
The officer asked us what Jeff's last name was. None of us knew.
He asked what Jeff was wearing. A blue jacket and jeans.
He asked which direction Jeff headed. We all pointed in the same direction.
We were good. The police officer was getting angry.
So he called for back-up.
Another police car arrived and they put me and the friend in the back of it. Then they put my friend in the back of the other one. But they left the cars parked next to each other and the windows rolled down, so we continued to talk.
They realized what was happening and moved our car away from hers. Then our officer got in the car and started asking us the same questions.
We stuck to our answers.
Finally, they decided that they weren't going to break us down so they drove the friend and me to the police station.
We asked if we were in trouble, the officer said no.
We asked how we were going to get home. The officer said that we could use the phone at the station to call someone.
It was now close to three in the morning, we had no one to call who could drive to the police station to get us and our purses were in the car so we didn't have money for a cab.
But we didn't have a choice. We called the cab company and they picked us up at the police station. While we were waiting we looked up the number for the hotel that the girls' friends were staying at and we called them to say that we would be pulling up in a cab shortly and we would need someone to come out and pay for it.
Oh, and by the way, we'll be staying with you.
Oh, and we don't know where my friend is.
As the cab driver was driving us to the hotel, we see my friend up ahead, walking.
We stop to pick her up and get the rest of the story.
The officer dropped her off at another hotel and told her that if the car was moved before noon the following day, he would come and arrest her for DUI.
I'm pretty sure he couldn't do that, but we definitely didn't move the car until 2 pm the next day.
No comments:
Post a Comment