If you got caught! When I first came to Canada, some 15 years ago, there was quite a few things that… well, ”made me think”,
but it caught me totally off guard when I saw this “Drinking and driving counterattack” message. What the heck… OK, driving after you had more than a beer, is baaad (actually, in Germany I worked with a guy, who drove a truck, and every day would have two beers for lunch!), but why waste TV time for the obvious?! So, what’s next, “Killing counterattack”? “Raping…”? C’mon, you got to be kidding me! I thought. And then, one of the first things I did after we bought a car, was having a few beers (mooore than two…), sneaking out of the house in the middle of the night, and driving like crazy on an empty freeway… “I’m a f…ing speed king!” Iwas, for over 4 years. And then, one beautiful summer night I had two bottles of wine (well, strong wine, 20% Sherry), got in the car, and suddenly my “lucky streak” ended. I got arrested and thrown to a drunk tank.Right away, I raised hell; “Hey, I have to get out of this hole! Nowww! Hey, seriously, guys, I’m working!” Which was true, I had a graveyard shift, working as a security guard. I had all keys to the place I “was guarding”… But the “blue boys” secured me all right. To make it short, I didn’t get fired and, after 1.5 year of “legal wrangling” (fancy word for being summoned over dozen times to two different Courthouses, I could write a book on that alone) right before Christmas (1997) looked like the Courts were doing a “year end clearance”, and decided to go easy oncriminals like me.A judge offered me a deal I didn’t dream of; one year probation and $ 300 fine. No drivers license suspension! “But, Your Honor…” – pressing luck was always my specialty. “Those guys broke my glasses! They were quite expensive…” “OK, two hundred, then! But that’s final.” He seemed to be getting tired of me, and I couldn’t believe my luck… Not a day of license suspension!
If it sounds like I'm bragging, well... sounds about right. I'm writing this now, but am trying to 'get into my state if mind' back then, 10 or 15 years ago. Right, even then I wasn't a teenager, but my rebelling wasn't against rules, God no! I was never some crazy anarchist, just always hated the way the 'state' (government, whatever you call it) treats it's society like children. Telling an adult person what to do, and what's 'not nice'.
In Europe you can buy alcohol in any gas station. Does it mean that people drink and drive more over there? Back in my DUI time, I'd buy my booze in a liquor store, what a difference? That sometimes I'd drive like crazy to get my new stash before they close this stupid thing? Well, as the historians here say, during the Prohibition, many people (mostly women) who never drunk before, started to, just because of the ‘thrill of it’… Cheers to that!