My First Roadside Sobriety Test

Well, I suppose, going by the title, you might think this is a story about my misspent youth. But, as it turns out, this all happened in 2011 when I was, of course, well into middle age. The reason I was driving back from a bar some 90 miles or so from my home at 1:30 am on a beautiful Saturday night that Memorial Day weekend had to do with my concern for my friends' marriage. Well, you see, one of my very best friends has a husband who is in a band. And it had seemed to me that he felt hurt that she didn't follow the band as faithfully as the other band members' women did or even as faithfully as I did. My friend had not been present for their gig that Friday night even though they had played right there in our own town. But she was willing to travel on Saturday if I would go too. The bar in that very small town was paying for the band members and their women to stay in a motel that Saturday night. And wow! What an excellent opportunity for a special time of marital closeness for them! And I really didn't mind driving back home alone. The night was so clear and beautiful. I have so very, very much to tell you, but I have no idea what kind of order to put it all in. So I guess I will just try starting at the beginning and then aim for mostly chronological. A few months before my Memorial Day weekend experience, I was by myself praying for my very good friend and I said, God, please get a message to her somehow that she needs to BE there for her husband's band performances. And God said, YOU tell her. I said, Me? And then I said, Well, of course, me. Yes, I will do it. For a week or so, I pondered how to approach my friend with this message from God. Then one evening the two of us were sitting on her couch and her husband had brought us wine. And we drank two glasses each while watching a documentary on biblical prophecy, which my friend had said was so interesting and awesome that I had to give it my full attention. No coloring! Well, I think it was quite good, but, with the wine and all, I DID fall

asleep. And I woke up feeling relaxed and drifty. And I said, Hey, I got this message from God for you . . . She was interested, so I said, God said you should go to the band's performances. It is IMPORTANT to your husband. And she said, I know, but I'm just sooo tired. I know that, I said, but it's IMPORTANT. So she said she would really try to go more often. And she did, for awhile, but, by that Memorial Day weekend, she had started letting the tiredness keep her home again, most of the time. Anyway, I was ALMOST tired enough to stay home myself at that point since I had already been out dancing until after 1:00 am the night before. But I had promised my friend's husband I would get her there. The bar was small and crowded and the waitresses were very informal and everyone seemed to know each other. There were quite a few big biker dudes in leather and tattoos and the women wore jeans and tshirts and no make-up or fancy hair styles. My friend's husband made a couple of comments to us referencing their small town hillbilly ways. Since we ourselves are such high class city folks and all. (Although, technically speaking, our town probably falls short of medium-sized status too.) Later someone asked my friend and me if we were with the band and I gave my usual answer-- I'm the designated dancer! I used to start out trying to be inconspicuous, dancing in a back corner or something. But now I pretty much just jump right in, right up front, starting with the very first song! The music just gets a hold of me and I HAVE to dance. Often I spend part of the night as the ONLY dancer; and I don't mind that. But I like it better when other people dance too. I don't mind it when all the other people dancing are in pairs. (Well, maybe I do feel a tiny bit of sadness.) But if strangers want to dance WITH me, I prefer that they don't touch me, of course. I don't feel comfortable with men

who want to twirl me around because I'm not used to that kind of dancing and I feel awkward and figure I'm probably doing it wrong. And I don't feel comfortable with the boys and the girls with questionable motives who want to touch me. I try to keep my distance from that sort of thing. I believe humans were designed for intense intimacy and closeness. Sexual encounters with strangers are just sad and empty substitutes for what we REALLY need. I sat with my friend off and on between my dancing episodes. And she told me there was a drunk woman hitting on her and she found it quite disturbing. I just laughed. Well, they do that, I explained, having had a bit more recent bar experience than my friend. Shortly after that conversation, another drunk woman approached me and told me she was the aunt of a young man and she mentioned his name as if I would, of course, know the situation. But I didn't, so she told me he had just recently committed suicide and she was here from out of town for the funeral. I told her I was very sorry and she walked away and didn't talk to me anymore after that. And there was a funny little man who danced several dances with me. I didn't find him attractive, but he didn't try to touch me and I felt comfortable with him. He kept talking about how free he felt after just getting a divorce. Do you know what it's like to finally be free after 32 years of a bad marriage? he asked. I laughed and said, no, I don't. I only stayed in my bad marriage for 20 years. I told my friend about him and she said it was sad that a marriage of 32 years would end. But I thought it was sad that a person would stay married for 32 years feeling like a trapped animal, wanting to escape so bad they were practically ready to chew their own arm off! The funny little man seemed absolutely delighted with his freedom. I haven't drank in 32 years, he said, and I was going to have only one and a half glasses of wine, but, what the hell, I told 'em to just go ahead

and fill the second glass to the top! I thought he was a good dancer and I told him so. He seemed to have quite a lot of energy, though he kept referring to himself as old. I wondered how old he actually was. I can't believe I'm really here, he said, dancing with a young chick I don't even know! And I wondered how old (young?) he thought I was. Eventually he put a number to his oldness, which was something like 56. Silly little man, 56 can't be old, because it is not many years past my age, which, if I was going to put a number to it, would be 52. Oldness is such a relative thing, really. I thought about a time when I was talking with a group of women, the youngest being 50 and the oldest being a very active 72 year old who loves going out polka dancing with her friends. I was saying something about the adjustments we have to face as we age. Then the 72 year old began to speak and I was assuming she thought of herself as someone who was dealing with the adjustments of aging so I assumed she was going to say something about herself. But, instead, she began talking about her 94 year old friend. She talks too much and she's kind of annoying, the woman said, seems like she should find friends her own age. I laughed and said, well, I suppose that might be difficult. Yes, I know, the woman agreed, so we really don't mind including her. Well, who knows? I thought. Maybe a lively 94 year old could find a peer group on the Internet. You can picture it, right? Polka loving 90somethings in your area are looking for YOU! Ok, so now she has to find people her age who are not only still breathing AND still dancing, but can also use the Internet! (Oops, sorry. I have drifted into ageist stereotyping.)

I don't actually know what polka dancing is. I'm assuming it is not as strenuous as dancing to classic rock like we young chicks like to do. But, who knows? And if I ever get to meet that 94 year old lady, I will say, You go, girl. Keep on dancing! And never let any 72 year old young whippersnappers cramp your style!! Anyway, getting back to the funny little man at the bar. He asked me where I lived and I gave him the name of my town. He said that was a long ways away and if I was too tired to drive that far, maybe I could just spend the night at his place. And that's as close as you're gonna get to a proposition from me, he added. Funny little man, I thought, so full of life and delight, don't squander your freedom. Don't make the bar scene your lifestyle. It isn't a place of happiness. Not really. It just looks that way from a distance. But when you get right up close, you see so many people who are so very, very sad. So sad that, when you hear about a suicide, you don't wonder why; you wonder why not? You wonder why more desperately unhappy people don't just get it over with instead of killing themselves slowly and painfully with their addictions and lonely, empty lifestyles. But then again, even though life is so desperately unhappy for everyone at times, when you look at the big picture, it's like a patchwork quilt, with the happy patches mixed in with the sad patches. And overall, the whole thing is just so darn beautiful! You can see it so clearly in those power point videos that people put together these days from old family pictures and then set them to music. Even if I don't know the family, it is so beautiful that it makes me cry. On Father's Day, I watched one that my aunt had made. There were pictures with Christmas trees and beautiful beaches and mountain scenes and babies with their proud grandparents, and childhood pictures of my sisters and me and my cousins, including the one who was a victim of suicide many years ago when he was in his 20's.

In the pictures, he looks just like all the other smiling children who got to grow up and visit more wonderful places and sit beside more Christmas trees and take pictures with their own grandbabies and watch more years pass through the sad and happy patches of life . . . There is so much incredible beauty in that patchwork quilt of life. But when tragedies and painful losses happen, it's like a huge hole gets ripped in your quilt. And you are just so angry, knowing it will never be the same. And people keep handing you a needle and thread, and you toss it aside, wondering why they keep doing that when you don't even know how to sew and would just make things worse if you tried. But years pass and eventually you find yourself sitting there working on the quilt in a big old fashioned sewing circle. God is there and all the people who love you are there, sewing along with you because, of course, it is their quilt too, even though you had forgotten that, when you felt so completely alone. The new sadness patch begins to take shape. And you can see you were right the quilt is not going to look the same. And yet, somehow, it is still a thing of great beauty! I stayed a little longer at the bar in the tiny town far from my home and the drunk woman who had been disturbing my friend got even more rowdy and tripped over a guitar case and hung all over everyone and punched one of the big biker dudes a couple of times. I had planned to leave earlier, but the next thing I knew, it was nearly one o'clock, time for the band to be done playing. So I started my car and headed for home. I turned on the radio to some gospel music and I felt really happy. So many thoughts were spinning through my head. I thought about how, besides the bars, another major hang-out for desperately unhappy people is our churches. And actually, when you look closely, the reason is the same. People are trying to live their lives trapped in cages, some of their own making and others imposed on them. The cages, the traps, are about being out of harmony with our own

unique design. God designed us to live in freedom! It is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm, then, and do not let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery. Galatians 5:1 But we make cages out of rules and judgmentalism and addictions and abusing rather than valuing each other and participating in empty unsatisfying sexual behavior and so many, many other cage making materials. God made us competent to make good choices for ourselves, like one of my favorite Bible passages tells us: Not that we are competent in ourselves to claim anything for ourselves, but our competence comes from God. He has made us competent as ministers of a new covenant not of the letter but of the Spirit; for the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life. 2Corinthians 3:5-6 So, if we CAN make good choices, why don't we do it? Why don't people know things like if we really want to get ourselves feeling good, exercise is so very much better than alcohol and other harmful things. And why don't we know how very, very joyful it can be to spend time in conversation with God ? A REAL conversation, I mean, where we listen to Him instead of just telling Him what to do. If we have conversations with God, He will tell us about life and how to make the most of it. And maybe once in awhile He will even give us a message for someone else. Maybe there are messages in this story. Maybe you will find one that is especially for you. Or maybe, the message will find you. Sometime later. When you are ready . . . I know there are plenty of good people who don't think God approves of dancing in bars or drinking even a very small amount of alcohol. But I think we are capable of being honest with ourselves about whether we can handle the moderation thing or whether we are someone who needs to stay a bit further from temptation in order to protect ourselves from falling into big trouble and major despair. God treats us like responsible adults. And, even if we aren't, well we have to make our own choices anyway because God isn't going to do it for us. And all those people who think they could do a much better job

of running our lives than we are doing, well they can't make our choices for us either, much as they would like to. Still, if we do mess it all up, God is there for us, waiting to help us pick up the pieces (or that needle and thread) and start again. All we have to do is ask. I believe God expects us to treat our fellow humans the same way, not judging or condemning, not building cages, not neglecting or belittling, not jealously trying to control someone and keep them trapped. If we love someone, why would we want to make them feel like a caged animal when we could choose instead to encourage them to soar like a bird far above the clouds, living in freedom above the foolishness and despair. We can encourage our loved ones by showing them how much they are valued. And whatever passion our loved one has, whatever God-given talent or interest brings the sparkle to their eye, don't quench that Spirit! Nurture it, fan that spark into a mighty flame! That's how to keep love in your life, not by trying to trap it! Because, even if that trapped person we love stays with us for 32 years or till death do us part, that is not success and it is NOT love. Those were the kinds of thoughts I was pondering as I traveled on down the highway, feeling good, listening to gospel music, driving the speed limit. I was maybe 20 miles past the town where I had been dancing when I saw a police car behind me with lights flashing! I pulled over and the very nice, courteous young officer asked if I knew I had a headlight out. I told him I didn't, but that I had noticed the lights seemed a bit more dim than they should be. He went to his car and did the stuff they do and came back with a warning ticket and told me to get it fixed as soon as I could. I was on my way again and managed to get to within five miles or so of my home town when I saw another set of flashing police lights. So I pulled over again and met another very courteous young officer. He told me about the headlight too and I explained that I had already been stopped for that and I would get it fixed as quickly as I could.

But then this officer asked me how much I had had to drink. I told him I had had one beer approximately five hours ago. Yep, I thought, one beer and then one Diet Pepsi, and maybe two pitchers of ice water. Ice water!! Yes! Awesome stuff! Always has been, always will be my beverage of choice. And I do love those bars that will serve me my ice water in pitchers! Anyway, the officer seemed to be sniffing around (literally) to see if he could smell any alcohol. He had me follow his flashlight or something with my eyes. Then he asked me where I had been and I told him and he said, you were at a bar for four hours and only had ONE beer? (like that was so unbelievable or something) What were you doing there? Well, you see, there was this band . . . I explained. I tried to do the walk a straight line thing, but I was wearing some chunky out-of-style platform shoes that I actually fell off of the first time I wore them. And how they became my favorite dancing shoes, I'll never know. But they are definitely NOT good walk-a-straight-line shoes! Wow! One foot directly in front of the other, heel to toe, arms to your sides . . . Well, I was laughing and stumbling a bit, wondering how this could be a good sobriety test when a sober person can't do it. So the officer finally ended up doing the breathalyzer thing. Looking at the results, he said, Ah ha! Just as I thought . . . What?! You passed. And I laughed again and promised that, yes, I would definitely get the headlight fixed. I was telling a friend this story some days later and she asked, so, if he really thought you were sober, why did he put you through all that? Was he hitting on you or something?

Aww, no, I answered, He was just a kid. Well, then, maybe he needed the experience, she suggested. Maybe so, I said. Which was fine with me really. It was kind of fun and I was in no hurry. And anyway, I swear this is true I actually got stopped a THIRD time before I managed to get all the way home. This time it was a female officer and she was already laughing herself and she asked, is this the second time you've been stopped for that headlight? No, the third, I answered, and I am actually only two blocks away from my house now . . . So she laughed again and explained that she was hearing something on the scanner about a car like mine; that was why she figured I had already been stopped. She said I should go on home and get the headlight fixed ASAP. And I just have one more thing to say and that is this: If you ever find yourself traveling the prairies of the great Midwest, you can rest assured our highways are well protected from young chicks or old biddies driving, sober or otherwise, with one burned out headlight! RoseDQ July 2011