Happy New Year!
Now searching for parking in San Diego's Gaslamp Quarter is no fun, certainly not at 1145 on New Year's eve, and it is even worse when the minutes tick by, inexorably toward midnight, and you finally end up welcoming the new year asking your Rufie, the driver friend to honk a trifle loudly please. It was when we were turning back toward home, like defeated soldiers who never got to step on the battlefield that the fun started. The police in SD, in an earnest effort to prevent accidents related to drunken driving had put up a barricade right before the entrance to the freeway, asking drivers to do funny stuff in an effort to separate the drunk from the sober. Now Rufie, who was our DD, is by no means a man of trivial courage, but he is particularly vulnerable to anxiety attacks when confronted by the unpleasant face of the law, thus, this story. The cop first asked him to follow his finger with his eyes but Ruffie dear was so clueless he just kept staring at the officer's badge, wide-eyed, struck as if by it's brilliance on the dark night. The officer repeated his request, a little louder this time pulling Ruf out of his stupor, but Ruf was in no mood to oblige, instead of moving just his eyes he moved his whole massive head irritating the cop as we watched the comedy unfold. Obviously the officer's patience had begun to wear thin and when Ruffie did the same thing for the third consecutive time we were clutching our heads in frustration when he was asked to step out and led to the side for further 'investigation'. As Ruf was being subjected to even greater humiliation we started enjoying ourselves, watching Ruf trying to convince the cop he was sober as a can of Arrowhead. He, of course hadn't had anything to drink, just like the rest of us so it was only a matter of seeing Ruf trying to prove he could walk in a straight line and taking a breathalyzer test as we giggled and smiled at our good fortune on getting caught, the night had finally perked up.

That day ended by seeing the moon turn from a lovely honey brown into blood red and wane from half to absolute nothingness as we discussed the merits of diving onto the crashing waves at the edge of the longest pier on the west coast.
posted by ubaid - Thursday, January 01, 2004 at 11:27 PM - 0 comments - post anonymously