Douglas County is Douglas Countawesome
This gives me a great idea for Trainwreck.
So, tonight I spent the evening getting totally wired out of my skin on Red Bulls and coffee. Twitching and excitable after spending an evening shooting pool with a smoking hot redheaded girland discussing our mutual adoration for retarded, overwrought metal music (sorry GoG, this story doesn't end up as fantastically as yours). It was well after midnight when I left the bar (Hamdog's in Gardnerville. If you're ever in my neck of the woods, give me a jingle-ingle and we'll go have some cocktails, I can introduce you to my buddies and the several way-hot hotties that work behind the bar. Be forewarned, you can take the girl out of the trailer park... Digressious Maximus), stepping out into the frozen subalpine air instantly turned my nipples into hard-cured epoxy nuggets. Oh Jesus oh Buddha oh Allah it was C-O-L-D out.
But I was wired to the gills on caffeinated beverages, so it was all good. I cranked over the Ayatolla (loving nickname for my '88 Corolla wagon), it coughed and sputtered, struggling to run against the biting cold. There was three inches of snow on my roof, held in place by the ski rack that has never in its life seen a set of skis. Frigid air, colder than that outside blasted from the defroster vents. Oh holy shit. My courderoy jacket and fleece sweater were nowhere near a match for this frigidity. My fleece gloves and GI cold-weather helmet liner (the ultimate in cold-weather headgear, if you don't have one, I highly suggest you make a trip to the local Army / Navy store and purchase one on the post-haste) proved useless against the cold. The nylon of the helmet liner was actually frozen stiff. Can you believe this shit?
I left the car idling as I wandered back into the bar. One of the nice things about living in rural Nevada is that I actually can leave my automobile running out in the cold without fear of some yahoo just coming up and stealing the thing. The only people within a quarter of a mile were Ray, the seven-foot, four hundred pound giant behind the bar, Kim (the girl with whom I was playing pool) and that Chinese kid with the German name in the kitchen. Everything was just as I left it.
I went back up to the bar and hit on Kim for a bit (again, GoG, that book you sent me is doing me wonders on the whole talking-to-girls front), and waited for The Ayatolla to warm itself. I found myself wanting a cigarette more than anything in the world. Just my luck, the idiots in this state voted in a wholly unconstitutional smoking ban which was effective only in small places like this: places that have both a limited gaming license and serve food. The smoking ban is not in effect for the large casinos or the small bars that elect to not serve food. The small-town Bar and Grill is now dead in Nevada. Thanks a lot, assholes.
Again, I digress.
After smiling and laughing and throwing methamphetamine-user jokes back and forth with Kim and the bar staff (tres ironique), I make my eye-twitching exit. I climb into The Ayatolla, fight with the sticky clutch, slap her into gear and take off into the cold Nevada night.
See, I live at least five miles away from the places I like to drink, so I make certain that I don't drink to the point of impairment. After all, I cross well over three miles worth of open range and I have stopped bothering counting the close calls I've had with a rancher's cows or some of the mustangs that roam these hills (as an aside, I fucking hate mustangs. I wish the State would issue tags for them. I would apply every year. I would kill them just for the sheer pleasure of removing them from the ecosystem), tonight however, I was impaired. I was jacked to the gills on stimulant and a meanace behind the wheel.
Naturally, one of Douglas County's Finest hit me with the flashing red-and-blue, and on the side of the road I was.
The Deputy walks up to my window with his Mag-Lite in hand, shining it on my face. I have dutifully already produced my drivers license, proof of insurance and carry concealed weapon permit. I informed the Deputy outright that I was carrying my Kel-Tec .380, right front pocket.
"That's all right, son. Just don't reach."
"Not a problem." I said, putting both hands on the wheel and squeezing, fidgeting with the ridges on the ventral surface of the steering wheel and shifting around uncomfortably in my seat.
Instantly came the question I was dreading: "Y'all had anything to drink tonight?"
My immediate response was, of course: "Yeah, about five Red Bulls. A-a-a-and like three cups of coffee..."
The Deputy rolled his eyes, I could hear him sigh, one of those "it's cold, it's late, I really do not want to put up with this shit tonight" kind of sighs.
"I'm gonna have to ask you to step out of the car, son."
Shit.
"I can't."
"Why's that?" The Deputy asked with an annoyed sigh.
"Because you asked me not to reach. My seatbelt is connected on the same side as where I keep my pistol."
The Deputy's stunned silence may as well have been a regimental fusillade. If this were a wacky comedy manga series, he simply would have had a speech balloon adorned with little comic icicles containing a sole elipsis.
I waited almost a full beat before asking "Please Advise."
The Deputy informed me that I could move my left hand to reach across and undiddle the seatbelt latch mechanism. Okay. That makes sense. I can't possibly reach into my right pocket with my left hand. Turns out that due to my gigantic proportions, it was also incredibly difficult to reach the seat belt latch. See also: two coats, fleece gloves.
After I had freed myself from the seat belt, I was once again out in the nipple-hardening cold.
"I'm gonna have to ask you to put your hands on the hood of your car."
Oh Jesus, you can't be serious. So, I comply. Hands on hood, feet spread apart. I have "assumed the position."
The Deputy reaches into my pocket and produces my pistol. He drops it right into the three inches of snow on my roof. He then asks me if I had any other weapons on me. I said that I had a Gerber multi-tool, pocket knife and Mini-Mag flashlight on my person. The Deputy has me lift up my jacket and shirt, exposing my tender white unexposables to the still, frozen air. Jesus.
"Uh and I also have a little knife on my key ring, but that's attached to my ignition key, which is still in the ignition. And uh, I have a Star 9mm pistol in the car. And uh... My 20" AR..."
The Deputy's eyes get wide like saucers.
"...And I think I have a bayonet in there somewhere too."
Shortly thereafter, all of my hardware ended up on the roof of my car. Rifle, two pistols, old Mauser bayonet. Several assorted magazines (a couple of post-ban Glock magazines and that Ruger Mk.II magazine that I thought I had lost several months ago, how's that for a happy accident) and a veritable stack of gun porn liberated from the "please take these" pile over at Nevada Gun Exchange. Cell phone, Mini-Mag, Gerber, generic Swiss Army... all up on the roof. At this point, I was thanking my stars that I wasn't in Marin County. I was also surprised that backup hadn't yet shown up. Rural cops tend to fly "Wild Weasel." That is one cop, one car, but they tend to travel in mated sets. Again with the digression.
"All right son. I want you to lean back..."
Oh Jesus, he's not going to give me a field sobriety test, is he?
"...close your eyes and touch your nose."
I felt like this cop had just recently seen Super Troopers and was fucking with me. He's giving me the old F.S.T. for caffeine.
In retrospect, he should have. Because I was bouncing. Seriously, just sort of hopping there in place while he shot "cop talk" into the radio handset that dangled from his eapulet.
So, I touch my nose. Right hand, then left hand. Then right again. Hey! This is a pretty fun game! I should have a children's show! "Right! Left! Right! Left!" I began chanting and shouting. I do believe I threw in more than my fair share of "woo!"
At this point, the Deputy pushed his forehead into his palm and sighed. "See that line on the side of the road there?"
"Sort of, it's kind of obscured by all the snow."
"I want you to walk along it in a straight line, one foot in front of the other."
"Okay!" I shouted excitably and hopped straight to. I love performing in front of an audience.
Hup! Hup! Hup! Hup! Up and down the line, one foot in front of the other.
"Son, you don't have to go all "hup" with each step."
"But it's great fun. You should try it." Christables, I was wired (almost five hours later, as I write this, I still am).
So! I passed the field sobriety test, right?
Sort of. The Deputy, visually just tired of my bullshit told me to stay put, lean against the fender or something. He then went back to his squad car. This told me that he saw me as completely harmless, as he left me within easy reach of my firearms.
Moments later, the Deputy climed out of his very warm, very comfortable Yukon and told me that I can pack up my stuff and be on my way. Hey great! I had a sinking suspicion that I was going to end up spending the night in the Drunk Tank. Having never actually seen the inside of a County Jail first hand, I was fairly relieved at the outcome of this scenario. The Deputy helped me pack my hardware back into the auto. He slid the rifle back into its nylon case, and handed me my Mini-Mag. Luckily it was so amazingly cold out that the snow on my roof had solidified into a massive hunk of soft ice, leaving remarkably little wetness on my possessions.
After I had loaded up, he asked how I knew Karri.
Oh shit! I had totally forgotten that a friend of mine's wife worked Dispatch. I just said that her husband was my boss at a previous job (God's honest truth) and completely left out how the two of us sometimes dress up as Nazis and shoot at people (harmless extracirricular activities!). The Deputy saw me on my way and informed me that the roads were slick and that I should be careful. Noted, thanks!
Moral: Be Nice To Everyone. Especially people that work for the Police Department. Being friends with someone sort of got me out of a D.U.I. rap. ^______^
Now how in the hell does this give me an idea for a Trainwreck character?
Dig: Company (run by aliens or whatever) releases a new energy drink onto the market. This energy drink is actually jam-packed with nanomachines that act in ways that are similar-to but legally distinct-from the worms from that episode of Futurama. These nanomachines enhance the physical and intellectual capacities of its consumers. But to nefarious ends. The Aliens want to use these enhanced humans as shock troops for their upcoming invasion. Jerry and Vania (both energy drink addicts. Vania likes Red Bull whereas Jerry prefers Monster ((haw haw))) fall into the Aliens' trap and become brainwashed Plan Nine Zombies. Honus (All-American coffee drinker) and Rex Rathcock (hard liquor or nothing at all, please) fight to free their companions (and uh, the rest of the world) from these Aliens' horrific scheme.
Trainwreck is going to be Trainwrawesome.
It's also almost 0600 and I'm still wired.
So, tonight I spent the evening getting totally wired out of my skin on Red Bulls and coffee. Twitching and excitable after spending an evening shooting pool with a smoking hot redheaded girland discussing our mutual adoration for retarded, overwrought metal music (sorry GoG, this story doesn't end up as fantastically as yours). It was well after midnight when I left the bar (Hamdog's in Gardnerville. If you're ever in my neck of the woods, give me a jingle-ingle and we'll go have some cocktails, I can introduce you to my buddies and the several way-hot hotties that work behind the bar. Be forewarned, you can take the girl out of the trailer park... Digressious Maximus), stepping out into the frozen subalpine air instantly turned my nipples into hard-cured epoxy nuggets. Oh Jesus oh Buddha oh Allah it was C-O-L-D out.
But I was wired to the gills on caffeinated beverages, so it was all good. I cranked over the Ayatolla (loving nickname for my '88 Corolla wagon), it coughed and sputtered, struggling to run against the biting cold. There was three inches of snow on my roof, held in place by the ski rack that has never in its life seen a set of skis. Frigid air, colder than that outside blasted from the defroster vents. Oh holy shit. My courderoy jacket and fleece sweater were nowhere near a match for this frigidity. My fleece gloves and GI cold-weather helmet liner (the ultimate in cold-weather headgear, if you don't have one, I highly suggest you make a trip to the local Army / Navy store and purchase one on the post-haste) proved useless against the cold. The nylon of the helmet liner was actually frozen stiff. Can you believe this shit?
I left the car idling as I wandered back into the bar. One of the nice things about living in rural Nevada is that I actually can leave my automobile running out in the cold without fear of some yahoo just coming up and stealing the thing. The only people within a quarter of a mile were Ray, the seven-foot, four hundred pound giant behind the bar, Kim (the girl with whom I was playing pool) and that Chinese kid with the German name in the kitchen. Everything was just as I left it.
I went back up to the bar and hit on Kim for a bit (again, GoG, that book you sent me is doing me wonders on the whole talking-to-girls front), and waited for The Ayatolla to warm itself. I found myself wanting a cigarette more than anything in the world. Just my luck, the idiots in this state voted in a wholly unconstitutional smoking ban which was effective only in small places like this: places that have both a limited gaming license and serve food. The smoking ban is not in effect for the large casinos or the small bars that elect to not serve food. The small-town Bar and Grill is now dead in Nevada. Thanks a lot, assholes.
Again, I digress.
After smiling and laughing and throwing methamphetamine-user jokes back and forth with Kim and the bar staff (tres ironique), I make my eye-twitching exit. I climb into The Ayatolla, fight with the sticky clutch, slap her into gear and take off into the cold Nevada night.
See, I live at least five miles away from the places I like to drink, so I make certain that I don't drink to the point of impairment. After all, I cross well over three miles worth of open range and I have stopped bothering counting the close calls I've had with a rancher's cows or some of the mustangs that roam these hills (as an aside, I fucking hate mustangs. I wish the State would issue tags for them. I would apply every year. I would kill them just for the sheer pleasure of removing them from the ecosystem), tonight however, I was impaired. I was jacked to the gills on stimulant and a meanace behind the wheel.
Naturally, one of Douglas County's Finest hit me with the flashing red-and-blue, and on the side of the road I was.
The Deputy walks up to my window with his Mag-Lite in hand, shining it on my face. I have dutifully already produced my drivers license, proof of insurance and carry concealed weapon permit. I informed the Deputy outright that I was carrying my Kel-Tec .380, right front pocket.
"That's all right, son. Just don't reach."
"Not a problem." I said, putting both hands on the wheel and squeezing, fidgeting with the ridges on the ventral surface of the steering wheel and shifting around uncomfortably in my seat.
Instantly came the question I was dreading: "Y'all had anything to drink tonight?"
My immediate response was, of course: "Yeah, about five Red Bulls. A-a-a-and like three cups of coffee..."
The Deputy rolled his eyes, I could hear him sigh, one of those "it's cold, it's late, I really do not want to put up with this shit tonight" kind of sighs.
"I'm gonna have to ask you to step out of the car, son."
Shit.
"I can't."
"Why's that?" The Deputy asked with an annoyed sigh.
"Because you asked me not to reach. My seatbelt is connected on the same side as where I keep my pistol."
The Deputy's stunned silence may as well have been a regimental fusillade. If this were a wacky comedy manga series, he simply would have had a speech balloon adorned with little comic icicles containing a sole elipsis.
I waited almost a full beat before asking "Please Advise."
The Deputy informed me that I could move my left hand to reach across and undiddle the seatbelt latch mechanism. Okay. That makes sense. I can't possibly reach into my right pocket with my left hand. Turns out that due to my gigantic proportions, it was also incredibly difficult to reach the seat belt latch. See also: two coats, fleece gloves.
After I had freed myself from the seat belt, I was once again out in the nipple-hardening cold.
"I'm gonna have to ask you to put your hands on the hood of your car."
Oh Jesus, you can't be serious. So, I comply. Hands on hood, feet spread apart. I have "assumed the position."
The Deputy reaches into my pocket and produces my pistol. He drops it right into the three inches of snow on my roof. He then asks me if I had any other weapons on me. I said that I had a Gerber multi-tool, pocket knife and Mini-Mag flashlight on my person. The Deputy has me lift up my jacket and shirt, exposing my tender white unexposables to the still, frozen air. Jesus.
"Uh and I also have a little knife on my key ring, but that's attached to my ignition key, which is still in the ignition. And uh, I have a Star 9mm pistol in the car. And uh... My 20" AR..."
The Deputy's eyes get wide like saucers.
"...And I think I have a bayonet in there somewhere too."
Shortly thereafter, all of my hardware ended up on the roof of my car. Rifle, two pistols, old Mauser bayonet. Several assorted magazines (a couple of post-ban Glock magazines and that Ruger Mk.II magazine that I thought I had lost several months ago, how's that for a happy accident) and a veritable stack of gun porn liberated from the "please take these" pile over at Nevada Gun Exchange. Cell phone, Mini-Mag, Gerber, generic Swiss Army... all up on the roof. At this point, I was thanking my stars that I wasn't in Marin County. I was also surprised that backup hadn't yet shown up. Rural cops tend to fly "Wild Weasel." That is one cop, one car, but they tend to travel in mated sets. Again with the digression.
"All right son. I want you to lean back..."
Oh Jesus, he's not going to give me a field sobriety test, is he?
"...close your eyes and touch your nose."
I felt like this cop had just recently seen Super Troopers and was fucking with me. He's giving me the old F.S.T. for caffeine.
In retrospect, he should have. Because I was bouncing. Seriously, just sort of hopping there in place while he shot "cop talk" into the radio handset that dangled from his eapulet.
So, I touch my nose. Right hand, then left hand. Then right again. Hey! This is a pretty fun game! I should have a children's show! "Right! Left! Right! Left!" I began chanting and shouting. I do believe I threw in more than my fair share of "woo!"
At this point, the Deputy pushed his forehead into his palm and sighed. "See that line on the side of the road there?"
"Sort of, it's kind of obscured by all the snow."
"I want you to walk along it in a straight line, one foot in front of the other."
"Okay!" I shouted excitably and hopped straight to. I love performing in front of an audience.
Hup! Hup! Hup! Hup! Up and down the line, one foot in front of the other.
"Son, you don't have to go all "hup" with each step."
"But it's great fun. You should try it." Christables, I was wired (almost five hours later, as I write this, I still am).
So! I passed the field sobriety test, right?
Sort of. The Deputy, visually just tired of my bullshit told me to stay put, lean against the fender or something. He then went back to his squad car. This told me that he saw me as completely harmless, as he left me within easy reach of my firearms.
Moments later, the Deputy climed out of his very warm, very comfortable Yukon and told me that I can pack up my stuff and be on my way. Hey great! I had a sinking suspicion that I was going to end up spending the night in the Drunk Tank. Having never actually seen the inside of a County Jail first hand, I was fairly relieved at the outcome of this scenario. The Deputy helped me pack my hardware back into the auto. He slid the rifle back into its nylon case, and handed me my Mini-Mag. Luckily it was so amazingly cold out that the snow on my roof had solidified into a massive hunk of soft ice, leaving remarkably little wetness on my possessions.
After I had loaded up, he asked how I knew Karri.
Oh shit! I had totally forgotten that a friend of mine's wife worked Dispatch. I just said that her husband was my boss at a previous job (God's honest truth) and completely left out how the two of us sometimes dress up as Nazis and shoot at people (harmless extracirricular activities!). The Deputy saw me on my way and informed me that the roads were slick and that I should be careful. Noted, thanks!
Moral: Be Nice To Everyone. Especially people that work for the Police Department. Being friends with someone sort of got me out of a D.U.I. rap. ^______^
Now how in the hell does this give me an idea for a Trainwreck character?
Dig: Company (run by aliens or whatever) releases a new energy drink onto the market. This energy drink is actually jam-packed with nanomachines that act in ways that are similar-to but legally distinct-from the worms from that episode of Futurama. These nanomachines enhance the physical and intellectual capacities of its consumers. But to nefarious ends. The Aliens want to use these enhanced humans as shock troops for their upcoming invasion. Jerry and Vania (both energy drink addicts. Vania likes Red Bull whereas Jerry prefers Monster ((haw haw))) fall into the Aliens' trap and become brainwashed Plan Nine Zombies. Honus (All-American coffee drinker) and Rex Rathcock (hard liquor or nothing at all, please) fight to free their companions (and uh, the rest of the world) from these Aliens' horrific scheme.
Trainwreck is going to be Trainwrawesome.
It's also almost 0600 and I'm still wired.