The Stories

Over the Legal Limit

Names have been changed due to the sheer stupidity of this act. Don't try this at home.

This is a story about people doing stupid things after drinking too much. I don't recommend drinking too much, and I hesitated to put this story up as I don't really want to seem like I'm glorifying drunken debauchery. After all, there are so few role models in the world, and I'm starting to lose hope in the individual intelligence of Americans and in humanity in general. So please don't blame me or the participants of this story after you do stupid things. Blame Marilyn Manson, he's a good scapegoat. That being said, please enjoy the story.

One night not too long ago, three of my friends were hanging out. I believe there were more people there earlier that evening, but most everyone else, including myself, had gone home by this point. So, in the wee small hours of the morning, three of my friends, who will be known as Boston, Ploy, and Dopey, were in Dopey's house drinking.

In order to regulate the driving habits of our citizens, who are notoriously bad drivers (not really, that's just what the cops think), the police occasionally mount machines on the streets that have a radar detector and then digitally post your speed on it as you drive by. So if you're driving at 38 mph in a 25 mph zone, the machine will have a huge red display that says "38 mph." In addition, there is a sign right above the display that says "Speed Limit 25 mph." It's a pretty cool piece of technology, but if you think about it, it's really quite intrusive. It doesn't write you a ticket or anything, but it's just a ploy by the police to make you think they're watching you.

Anyway, the police decided that Dopey's street needed a speed checker on that particular evening. Dopey's house is right near the corner, so the machine was pretty much right outside his house. Everyone who was at Dopey's that evening got to see how much they were speeding when they arrived, and nearly everyone commented on it when they came in.

As I said before, only Boston, Ploy, and Dopey were left that evening, and they decided to play a drinking game called Beeramid. To summarize, it's basically just a card game where the stakes rise as you get further along in the game. If you take a chance and lose towards the end of the game, you are then forced to drink quite a lot. It's nearly impossible to pay Beeramid and come out of it level headed.

The game progressed. Drinks were drunk, as were our participants at this point (that's a great sentence). The end of the game came upon them. The gyst of beeramid is that if you happen to have the card that is flipped over at that point, you can make someone else drink. If they think you are lying, they can call you on it and then you have to prove that you have the card. The last card flipped in that game was a 2. The sun even shines on a dog's ass some days, and on that day Boston's ass got a sunburn. He was holding two 2s and could therefore make both Ploy and Dopey drink. As it turns out, both Ploy and Dopey called him on it, and when the two 2s were revealed they had to drink twice as much, what amounts to an entire beer.

Dopey pleaded for leniency. He argued that there was no way he could drink a whole beer at that point without vomiting. Boston and Ploy would hear none of it. The rules of the game were very clear and it was therefore required that Dopey, as well as Ploy, drink their fill. Since it was a foregone conclusion that at least one of them would vomit, it was decided that they would go outside to finish the game.

Outside they went, beers in hand. Dopey was attempting to stall and steered the men in the direction of the speed machine. They had been commenting on it all night and decided to get a closer look. There was a discussion about how stupid the thing was, especially on a street with virtually no traffic, like Dopey's. The game of beeramid, however, was not over. There was a small matter of chugging to take care of, and Boston would not let his friends forget.

And so it began. Beers were cracked open and summarily chugged. Ploy and Dopey turned up their cans and soon hit their stride. Ploy finished his in an uneventful manner, but Dopey was not so lucky. Or perhaps it was the speed machine which was not so lucky. True to his word, Dopey could not finish the entire beer. It was evident that Dopey would soon begin to vomit. Ploy pushed Dopey in the direction of the machine and all but ordered him to vomit on it. Ploy must have figured that this would be a good way to stick it to the proverbial Man. Dopey's beer, and the other beers he had earlier that evening, and his dinner, and then his lunch were soon strewn about the speed machine with the precision that only projectile vomiting affords. Dopey was in a bad way, but Ploy and Boston only laughed.

Just then, something quite unexpected happened. In an event that must have seemed supernatural at this point so late at night on this deserted street in this drunken state, a voice emanated from the heavens.

"Step away from the machine. Please step away from the machine."

The laughter stopped. Dopey tried to compose himself. Ploy and Boston quickly became wary that perhaps they were not alone on the street. Without really thinking about it, the three vandals ran back towards Dopey's house at top speed.

As soon as they started to run, the three of them had basically the same realization at nearly the same time. The voice was not coming from some undercover cop, hiding in a bush and stuck with the assignment of guarding the speed checker overnight, but was coming from the machine itself. Obviously these three were not the first people to consider tampering with the evil speed checking machine. The police had clearly had to run reconnaissance missions on their beloved speed checkers in the past, and decided that it now needed a car alarm, or checker alarm as it were. At the first sign of tampering, the machine was equipped to chastize its badgerer until it embarrassed him into leaving it alone. It's probably not the best form of defense, but on this night it worked.

The boys got back into the house without further incident. Dopey left a trail of nearly digested food and drink going from the speed checker to the sidewalk outside his house. Ploy nearly hopped the fence and broke off the lock of the neighbor's tool shed in order to hide in it. Boston was readying his defense, just in case he had to explain it to someone. Once inside, however, the threat was forgotten and the hilarity of the situation was realized. The three relished in the fact that they would not only live free another day, but that they now had a great story to relay the next night to those who had the temerity to leave early.