These days when I go out (which is every day), I just don’t drink as much or party as hard as I used to. Is it age? Ennui? NEITHER!! My problem is that I was spanked pretty hard by the long arm of the law back in August 2010, when I got my first (and ONLY, dog willing) DUI. I’ve been wanting to write about this awful experience for quite some time, and now enough time has passed where I feel I can relate all the sordid details. Let me tell you about it!

Ever since I started drinking around age 23, I’ve considered myself an Alcoholist. Not an alcoholIC — an alcoholIST, as in, one who studies and appreciates wonderful, life-enhancing alcoholic beverages. Like a scientIST loves science and a chemIST loves chemicals…I love booze.

But not in your lame-ass typical binge-drinking-frat-boy, drink-til-you-puke kinda way. I was always more the type to enjoy a few well-mixed cocktails (but none o’that pretentious mixology shit that requires muddling or coddling; I like classy no-nonsense drinks like white Russians and Campari & soda). I have never once drank to the point of passing out, and can still count on two hands the number of times I have vomited due to overconsumption (I think…might have to use my toes, too). I prefer to enjoy my drinks, not slam them.

Now to be honest, there has been many a time when I’ve used alcohol as a crutch — a little known fact is that I’m a cripplingly shy person, moreso back in the day before I discovered booze. Alcohol helped me open up and become comfortable talking to strange people, so I owe booze a HUGE thank-you. I used to have to have a drink EVERY SINGLE NIGHT before going to work taking souvenir photos in the showroom — I was simply too shy to approach strangers and hustle them for photos, otherwise. This went on for 4 or 5 years, shamefully…until one evening I realized I didn’t need it anymore, and have been working sober (for the most part) ever since.

But just because I realized I didn’t NEED booze, doesn’t mean I still didn’t ENJOY it! Going out for a night of revelry, karaoke or otherwise, is simply more fun with a buzz. But three drinks was pretty much my limit. Any more than that, and I’d get sick. And NO SHOTS! Shots of any kind are a surefire way to get me to puke all over the place, so please don’t even ask. Again, I like to enjoy my liquor…so what exactly is the point of shooting it, I ask you?!

Anyhoo, I was lucky for many, many years in that I’m positive I drove around Vegas with a blood alcohol content over the legal limit (.08) many times. But I never got caught, even though in those days I careened around town in a ginormous 18-and-a-half-foot Lincoln Town Car that was painted bright pink. !!! I was lucky, I tells ya. But even the luckiest girl’s luck runs out sooner or later…and mine caught up with me in August 2010.

I remember it well…I had just finished shooting a bunch of crazy fetish videos for my friend Trixxie’s website, HumiliatedLosers.com, and Trixxie and I decided to go out for drinks afterward. I was also celebrating this new job I had just gotten, writing a sort of adult column for this web guide to XXX Vegas called AfterDarkVegas (now defunct due to morality constraints). It was my first professional writing job, and the site was sponsored by the local newspaper, so they paid me pretty well and put all these full-color ads in the local papers to advertise it, of which I was inordinately proud. The first ad appeared in the paper that very day, so Trixxie and I went out to have a few drinks in celebration.

We first headed over to Trixxie’s house so she could change clothes, and while there I enjoyed an impossibly genteel can of champagne — that’s right, Sofia Coppola sells champagne in a CAN! After finishing that, we headed over to this awful local bar called Blue Martini. I fucking hate that bar — it’s the worst kind of annoying local meat market, chock full o’ desperate local hags in their sluttiest bebe dresses, looking to get picked up on by assy douchebags in Affliction t-shirts and the like. You won’t find one single interesting person in this bar, EVER, but I went here anyway because they have ginormous, delicious martinis full of shit like marshmallows and chocolate syrup, and it was sort of near Trixxie’s house.

At Blue Martini I had THREE martinis (and you can see from the photo how ginormous they are), before Trixxie and I decided to go downtown and check out this new gay strip club that had just opened. Trixxie didn’t feel sober enough to drive, so I assured her I’d do the dirty work, and we piled into my truck, got on the freeway, and started cruising back down toward the gay place.

But just as I was preparing to exit the freeway (SO close @#$%#$&*!!!!!!!), a highway patrol car started flashing its lights behind me. Fuck!! The freeway exit I had been heading toward is kind of a weird one (Spring Mountain Rd, for those of you who know Vegas), where it’s like a sort of flyover, requiring that you cross over a few lanes of traffic to get where you’re going. I couldn’t just stop right in the middle of the freeway, so I kept going until I reached a spot where I felt it was safe to pull over — apparently enraging the big fat dyke cop who was flashing her lights at me, causing her to accuse me of “evading arrest.” OK boss, next time I’ll stop right in the middle of the fuckin’ freeway!

Anyhoo, once I pulled over she came at me huffing and puffing and snorting like an angry bull. There was NO talking to this woman, so I didn’t even try, which seemed to make her even angrier. She was screaming at me about my evading her and not pulling over in a timely manner, and when people yell at me like that it makes me cry, so I started bawling like an idiot. I gave her my license and insurance and stuff, and she made me get out of the car and do one of those field sobriety tests, right there on the freeway offramp, which was so embarrassing that it made me cry even harder. But it was my own fuckin’ fault — the sad truth of the matter was that I was WAY over the limit. She said I had been swerving in and out of my lane, but to this day I swear I was not — I was changing lanes without signaling, also illegal, and also unsafe; but I was not swerving, I swear!

I felt like I did a passable job on the sobriety test (walking a straight line and looking at her flashlight while she moved it around), but apparently I “FAILED MISERABLY” (her angrily bellowed words), so she shoved a Breathalyzer in my face and exhorted me to “BLOW.” Apparently I failed that, too, and I was going downtown with her that very minute. She clamped handcuffs on me and shoved me in the back of the squad car, and I had no idea what to do. Meanwhile, she wouldn’t let Trixxie talk to me, so I was really freaking out. I had never ever run afoul of the law before, and as corny as it sounds I was really scared.

Now, what really sucks in this scenario is, I have friends who have been pulled over for drunk driving before, and the cop has let them go as long as they were able to call a friend to come pick them up. But this big fat bitch wasn’t about to cut me any slack. Her male partner, the “good” cop in the good cop/bad cop scenario, was kind enough to allow Trixxie to call a friend to come pick her up, and then they impounded my truck and took my ass down to the county jail.

I’m telling you, I was so embarrassed to be going to jail — say what you will about me and my upbringing, I am not that kind of a gal!!! For once in my life I was even dressed in a semi-ladylike manner, with a button-down blouse and high heels. Well, I was wearing high heels — I had taken them off while I was driving, and the bitch-ass cop wouldn’t even let me put them back on for the trip down to jail. So technically, I was barefoot. But still!!!! I had a nice hairdo and my makeup was tastefully done and all, so I didn’t look like your typical Vegas whore/party girl…for once in my life!

Still, that means nothing in the eyes of the law. I got downtown to the jail and they unloaded me and passed me off to this really mean, flinty-eyed brace-faced Mexican woman cop, who grabbed my arm with her talons and shoved me into the booking area, where they gave me another Breathalyzer, fingerprinted me, and took my mug shot. I do remember having the presence of mind to maintain a chastened-yet-unbroken expression in my mug shot, but despite having scoured the Internets many times, I have been unable to find a copy of it anywhere. Where the hell do these news people get their celebrity mugshots?!  I couldn’t find mine anywhere.

Then they marched me over to the counter where you surrender all your belongings into a giant brown paper bag. They took my purse (contents: driver’s license, compact, lip gloss, breath mints), my necklace and earrings, and my BlackBerry. I offered up the contents of my bra, as well, because I was trying to be helpful and honest…but they would never have even known I had anything in there if I hadn’t told them, since they never patted me down or anything. Dumbasses! As it was, I surrendered about $160 cash and a $100 traveler’s check. (The traveler’s check was payment received for this dumbass Smirnoff Vodka commercial I had filmed the night before…ironically, the only two requirements for being in that commercial had been that you had to be 21, and you had to have never had a DUI. HAH!!! I squeaked that one in under the door, motherfuckers!!! But seriously, being paid with a fuckin’ traveler’s check was a real royal pain in the ass, since I couldn’t deposit it in the drive-thru ATM — you had to take traveler’s checks in to the counter in person, and I hadn’t gotten around to it yet.)

Aaaaanyhoo, as I was heading over to surrender all my possessions, the Mexican lady cop who had me by the arm asked me something technical about my booking, and I didn’t understand the lingo, being as I had never been arrested before. So I guess I sounded dumb, because she sighed angrily, rolled her eyes at me and seethed through gritted teeth, “God, I hate STUPID PEOPLE!” That just made me cry even harder, because Jeez, I wasn’t really stupid…I just didn’t know what the fuck she was asking me about!

So I was distracted when they took all my possessions, and didn’t really pay attention to what was going on…just let them lead me away into this sort of holding tank, with a bunch of other losers who were sitting around talking in their ghetto dialects about baby daddy this and parole officer that. Depressing!!!!!!!! I was freaked the fuck out, because in the movies the women in jail are always super-cruel dykes who can’t wait to rape and/or cut you…but I’m here to tell you, these chicks were actually pretty cool. This one big fat lesbian chick took a shine to me — but not that kind of shine, you perverts! She was just nice and friendly, and everyone else sort of followed her example. I sat in there awhile without incident, before they finally came and got me out, and brought me into this giant sort of central waiting area.

There, they plunked me down into a chair and told me not to move. And they left me there for a LONG time! I had no idea what was going on — no one explained anything, so I wasn’t sure if I was supposed to call someone from the pay phone on the wall, or if I was just supposed to keep sitting there, or what. Other inmates were getting up and using the phone, so I figured maybe I was being dumb by just sitting there like an idiot, and I was actually supposed to take the initiative and make a phone call or something. This went on for a loooooong time, and I’m ashamed to say I sat there weeping like a little bitch the whole time. Cops kept passing to and fro, but none said anything to me, and I got more and more confused. I think the Mexican lady bitch cop passed by and cussed me out again, which made it even worse.

Finally this one avuncular mustachioed cop took pity on me and explained that I was about to go through some kind of interview so that they could release me, and that I should just sit tight. I was still crying like a puss, because I was afraid I’d lose my new journalism job and everything — despite the fact that thousands of people drive drunk every single night in Vegas, getting a DUI still has a terrible stigma attached to it, and some employers will fire you for it!

So finally, they brought me over to the desk of this big, fat black bitch, who glared at me with unmitigated hate and began snapping questions at me: “Name? Address? Employer? How long you live in Vegas? You own your home, or rent?” I had all the right answers — at the time, I was a homeowner, had lived in town 12 years and had held the same job all 12 years…all very nice, responsible answers. And honestly, I WAS a responsible person — I just made a terrible fucking mistake! There was no call to treat me like such a piece of shit. (I’m sure if you know anyone who was hit or killed by a drunk driver, you’d disagree…but in my defense, I didn’t hit anyone or anything.)

Finally, she asked me whom she should call — I guess they have to call someone to confirm that you are who you say you are (??? I can’t figure out any other reason for this; it’s not so they can come pick you up, or anything). I said she could call my mom, and she asked for her number.

“Uhhh…I don’t know, it’s in my phone, and they took it when they booked me.”

“You mean to tell me you are SO DUMB you don’t even know your own mother’s phone number?!!”

“No! I don’t remember it! It’s in my phone!!!” Now I was really crying — I felt stupid for not remembering my mom’s number, but I mean WTF! I remembered our old landline phone number growing up, but my mom had recently disconnected the landline, and I hadn’t memorized her cell number yet!!! When I call her, I just punch in “M-O-T-H-E-R” and it comes up!!!!

“Well, give me someone’s number,” she hissed. “I got to call someone to vouch for you.”

“I don’t know anyone’s,” I sobbed. “I’m all alone here! My family all lives in California!” (That had nothing to do with anything, except for the fact that I felt really alone and lonely at this pathetic juncture of my life.)

She hissed and rolled her eyes and went on and on about how stupid I was, and how she just didn’t like me. Come to find out, when I surrendered my possessions at the booking window, there was a big sign warning inmates to copy down phone numbers from their cell phones — but it you’ll recall, the Mexican bitch who had me by the arm was bitching at me so hardcore she distracted me from even noticing it!!! If I’d SEEN the fucking sign, I would have obeyed — I’m nothing if not obedient when called upon to be so!!!!!!!!

“I could let you go,” this black woman said again, “but I don’t like you. And because I don’t like you, I’ma make you stay here allllll night. Now get outta here!” I mean, she was so mean!!  I gave this woman no cause whatsoever to be so cruel — I guess she hated me just because I was where I was. It was very disheartening.

With that, they sent me over to another desk for a psychiatric evaluation, and then to another desk for a medical evaluation and a TB test. Now I was really weeping in despair, and figured I had nothing to lose — so when I passed by that big, fat ugly bitch’s desk again, I leaned over and told her, “If you have a daughter, and anything like this ever happens to her…I hope people treat her the way you treated me!”

“My daughter is dead!!!!” she hissed, before shouting for security.

At once, I was surrounded by about 10 cops, as if I had tried to attack her (I didn’t even raise my voice, I swear to you — I just sort of muttered it angrily at her!) and I was now escorted away and put into the violent disruptive psycho holding tank, with all the REAL looney-tunes!!!!

Oy, vey. It was a NIGHTMARE. Now I wasn’t even in the regular holding tank anymore with all the friendly lesbians and whatnot — my only cellmates here were a passed-out barefoot crackwhore, asleep on the bench; a sunbaked, toothless, homeless Tammy Wynette lookalike who was picking at her green toenails and muttering to herself incoherently; and a stocky bull dyke with a buzz-cut and masive biceps. At least the bulldyke was friendly, and chatted with me a little bit to pass the time. But soon she was taken out, and it was just me, the crack whore and Tammy Wynette. The worst part was, due to my terrible insomnia (I had it even back then) I couldn’t even SLEEP to pass the time! I ended up just sitting there weeping. There were no clocks, no windows, no nothing. I had no idea what time it was or even what DAY it was! The worst part was, there was a pay phone on the wall right there in the cell that allowed collect calls to be made…but I couldn’t remember ONE FUCKING PERSON’S phone number! The phone had a list of bail bondsmen’s numbers, but I didn’t even have any way of paying them without having my purse, so I figured it was pointless to call unless I could remember someone’s phone number.

(Only in hindsight did I realize I should have had one of the bail bondsmen email my mom or sister… I knew their EMAIL addresses, and they would have gotten the messages on their phones, anyway, and could have called to spring my bail. Oh well, I wasn’t thinking clearly!!)

Aaaaaanyhoo, after weeping around 100 buckets of tears, they finally admitted another woman into the cell — a fellow barefooted DUI arrestee, a voluptuous stripper by the name of Dulce. She was wasted — but she was one of those affectionate, lovey-dovey drunks, and she was very friendly. She told me it was her son’s birthday that day, but he was back in Mississippi with his father, and she was missing him terribly and feeling shitty about the life choices she had made that resulted in her being a stripper in Vegas while he was turning 8 back in Mississippi…so she had gone out and gotten wasted, and was now in the klink for DUI.

All of this she told me in this amazingly sweet, sexy accent — she was Panamanian, and had this really sultry, earthy, lovey vibe about her that was just irresistible. Plus, her ginormous DD tits were spilling out of her cheap stretchy party dress — you just couldn’t help but like her. After chatting with me, she next turned her affections on the homeless, toothless Tammy Wynette lookalike, who was still sitting in the corner picking at her toenails and muttering to herself.

“Why you peek at yourself?” Dulce asked. “Stop it! You gonna hurt yourself!”

“Fuckin’ beeyitch! Shet up!!”

“Why you call me a bitch? I like you!”

“Shet up fuckin’ beeyitch, I said shet up! Fuck off ya fuckin’ beeyitch!!!!!”

“Stop it,” Dulce pleaded in her velvety stripper lilt. “I like you. You can’t make me stop liking you!!!”

“Fuckin’ bitch!!!!!”

“What’s your favorite color, honey?”

“Fuckin’ BEEYITCH!!!!! I SAID SHET UP! I’LL CUT YE, YE FUCKIN’ BEEEYITCH!!!!!!!”

This went ON and ON — Dulce just WOULDN’T GIVE UP trying to win over this crusty old homeless crackhead…but it never worked, I’m here to tell you. At the very least it was astoundingly entertaining — I had to bite my lip not to laugh, which was a nice change from crying, for once.

After a few hours, Dulce gave up and went to sleep, and I went back to weeping. FINALLY, a young male cop took pity on me and let me out, as long as I promised not to “attack” anyone again, which I wholeheartedly agreed not to. Now they at least let me back into the regular holding tank, with all the regular losers…which was a real upgrade, believe it or not!!!

There were probably about 20 women in there, mostly prostitutes, and a few strippers in there for DUI or drug possession. It was ASININE how much time and taxpayer money was being wasted on these women — and for what?! Having sex with willing customers. Seriously?!! Even worse, many of them had been busted with elaborate sting operations, requiring the wasting of even MORE taxpayer money!!!! Give me a fucking break!!

One chick was in there because a couple had hired her for sex, but didn’t have a hotel room, so they all three got it on in the backseat of the couple’s car in some parking lot somewhere. A passing cop noticed the flailing of limbs in the wildly rocking car and stopped to investigate — but of course, neither party admitted to paying for anything…so she was busted for PUBLIC NUDITY!!!! OMG…PLEASE STOP WASTING MY FUCKING TAX DOLLARS ON THIS NONSENSE!!!!!

I sat in that holding tank for around 10 hours (literally), and it felt like ETERNITY! There was one television bolted to the ceiling playing some godawful Tyler Perry movie that made my brain bleed, but as exhausted as I was, I COULD NOT FALL ASLEEP! Worse, I was freaking out because there was a clock in this cell, and I could see that it was around 6pm on Saturday night — and I was supposed to go to this big Playboy Midsummer Night’s Eve party at 9pm, that I had been planning for all month!! I had this fabulous costume and everything rigged up, and I was overly distraught to think that I might miss the ball. Booooo hoo hoo, poor me. Back then I didn’t know any better — those parties are LAME as hell, and I didn’t miss a goddamn thing! But as it was, I was freaking out. I told everyone in the holding tank about it, and this one young black pross kept reminding me how late it was getting: “Girl, you ain’t going to no party!!”

Meanwhile, this other woman came over to chat — an Asian stripper in her 40s, who was pretty beat-up looking, but claimed to work at Spearmint Rhino. “Are you dancer?” she asked. “No,” I said…”I wish I were a dancer; I know the money’s great, but I could never do it. I’m the world’s WORST dancer! They’d laugh me off the stage!”

“No honey, it easy!! I show you!” I let her demonstrate her technique right there on the bench, where she gave me a lap dance and showed me how it was done. While she was grinding on me, I noticed she had severely deformed hands, like lobster claws — only two sort of thumb-y appendages on one hand, and only three or four fingers on the other. Creepy!!

“Um…where did you say you danced again?” I asked her. Spearmint Rhino is supposedly home to the hottest girls in Vegas — I couldn’t imagine them allowing the likes of her to dance there!

But yeah, she confirmed it was the Rhino!!! Only they made her leave at 9pm, and then let her come back at 3am, so she didn’t poison the waters during prime time!! During this window she would often go down the street to dance at less discerning clubs, which I found utterly tragic. Out of curiosity, I asked what she was in jail for…DOMESTIC ABUSE!!! She kicked the shit out of her husband, LOL!!!!! Don’t fuck with Lobster Woman, boys!!!

Now, after sitting in there for 10 hours and suffering through two disgusting meals of what looked like dog chow mixed with vomit and horse jizz (of which I ate only one Hydrox cookie), and having to piss on a nasty-ass stainless steel toilet in front of everyone (actually not a problem for me, since I’m used to being naked in public), I finally remembered my sister’s cell phone number — it has the numbers “420” in it, so that helped, haha!!! I was able to call her and get her to post bail for me, but then I found out that my friend Trixxie had already posted bail for me anyway, and that all this motherfucking time (20 hours I was in there….ugh) her bail bondsman had been trying to navigate the byzantine legal system to get me out. FINALLY, after TWENTY LONG, MISERABLE HOURS OF TORTURE, I waved goodbye to my cellmates and got the fuck out of there.

Dulce was released at the same time (she was in way less time than me, because I had mouthed off to that black woman, which earned me an extra 10 hours or so. But guess what…I’m still glad I did it. It had to be said to that smug bitch), so we collected our belongings together and started to leave. But since both of us had been booked barefooted, the cop who released us very generously allowed us to keep our ugly orange rubber jail shoes, so that we wouldn’t cut our feet walking down the street. NICE!

We headed next door to the Golden Nugget valet area, where both of us had arranged for our friends to come pick us up. We sat there in the valet area going through our stuff, which had been bagged up and itemized neatly, and I found that I had an extra $100 — I think the booking agent was confused by my traveler’s check or something. That means I made $5 an hour for the entire time I was in jail! Whatever, I had to pay it back in spades, anyway, what with all the fines and shit I had to pay after that.

Humiliatingly, the Golden Nugget valet jockey came over as we were going through our stuff: “Um, you girls can’t sit here doing that.” I guess they get a lot of jailbirds in that valet, and don’t want their classy-ass patrons being scandalized by the sight of two tore-up alkie bitches in orange jail shoes digging through paper bags!! Embarrasssssssssing!!

Our rides finally came, but we exchanged numbers and kept in touch, somewhat. I went out for drinks with her once, but she really just wanted to use me as a way to get her old job back as a stripper at one of the clubs — the manager had fired her for being an alcoholic, but she figured if she brought a friend along, he might go easier on her, if the friend was interested in becoming a dancer too. So I had to PRETEND to be interested in dancing at that shithole, and it was pretty hairy there for a minute, because he wanted me to start THAT VERY NIGHT!!! I barely escaped with my integrity intact, and never went out with that poor alkie nut job again.

Aaaaaaanyhoo, getting that DUI really changed my life — it was a classic case of once bitten, twice shy. I had to ride my fuckin’ bike around for 45 days, then drive on a temporary license another 45, and it was HELL! Not being able to drive is MADDENING!!!!! I almost went INSANE! But I suffered through my punishment, and paid up all the fines (over $1000 at the end of it all), and went to the classes and kissed all the right asses….and FINALLY got my beloved license back.

I went straight out and bought a $300 Breathalyzer of my own, so that this would never happen again — but now I think I was putting myself at risk of another DUI anyway, because some nights I would go out and drink, and then sleep in my car to sober up, waking every hour or so to Breathalyze, until I blew low enough to be able to drive home. But come to find out, I think you can get a DUI just for BEING in the car drunk!!!!! WTF!!!! I WAS TRYING, ASSHOLES! WHAT DO YOU WANT ME TO DO?????

Anyway, some asshole broke into my truck and stole my Breathalyzer this past January, so I have no choice these days — I either don’t drink, drink very little, or get a ride from someone else. IT SUCKS. I’m here to tell you — a DUI will really put a damper on your party life….but guess what?! Being HIT and/or KILLED by a drunk driver would REALLY put a damper on your LIFE IN GENERAL! So, I consider my self very, very lucky 🙂

The scary thing is, I know a chick who just got her FOURTH DUI!!!!! She’s on house arrest for 90 days, and can’t drink for 3 years. God, that would be a fate worse than death. With that in mind….with dog as my witness, I AM NEVER DRINKING AND DRIVING AGAIN!

 

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