It all started when the screens got fuzzy. I stopped watching TV and started watching the smoke roll out of a 16” bong. There were not too many experiments in my adolescence that went under the radar or without the penalty of justice. Through all my years of law violating, public intoxication, and keg stealing ...trouble may have been my middle name, but so was “my grandpa will sue your ass!” Having a well respected lawyer in my family was the best “get out of jail free card” I ever had for urinating on a police car, stealing an 8 gallon keg with the bar owners daughter, and having sex on the court house steps at 3 in the morning.

Verdict? Appear in court? …what the hell are you talking about?
No. None of that shit until grandpa retired… which, unfortunately for me, was 6 months shy of my 21st birthday. I was the eldest of the grand kids, and by the way things were headed he didn’t want to spend his golden years bailing out his grand children with loop holes in the law. So he closed up shop, and not even a month later I was roped into an underage drinking charge.
No grandpa, no loop holes, no smug grin… just a 200$ fine, a lie about where I got the booze, and a 4000$ medical bill. Apparently my sober driver stole, no borrowed, no stole… No she borrowed the vehicle she rolled us in. Yes, yes… that means I had to pay all medical expenses, ambulance ride included, because the insurance company said “Ha ha, fuck you!” I also had no choice but to blow on the breathalyzer as I lay on a stretcher.

I’ll never forget the day that “Sheriff Deb” looked at me smugly, unveiling his Skoal covered teeth as he sneered “Finally gotcha.” The bastard crossed his arms over those mountainous man boobs, adjusted his tinted glasses, and took MY free donut and orange juice from the lobby.