I was cruising around one night. The clock had just moved past midnight so it was no longer Christmas eve, it was now Christmas day. It was quiet. You know, nothing was stirring, not even a mouse. It was me and Ninja out trying to pretend like there was something for cops to do in a small town on Christmas Eve.
I was cruising residential areas (yeah, that's just about everything in Tinytown) and saw a car parked in a weird place. One of the cool things about being a cop is that when you hear yourself say, "I wonder why that car is there," you get to go try and find out.
It was parked on a dirt road that was going to become a new part of a subdivision. I drove out there and flipped around on the car, turning on the bright forward lights. The passenger door cracked open, a hand snuck out, and a beer can was put outside the car. The hand snaked back in and the car door was quietly shut. It was like the beer fairy goes around on Christmas Eve and leaves cans of beer by cars of couples that are "just talking." That was the answer that couples always give cops no matter how little clothing they are wearing.
I told Ninja that I was probably going to need back up and had him head my way. I approached the driver, got is ID, and got the admission that he had been drinking. I had him step out so we could do field sobriety tests.
I checked his eyes. They were bouncing all over the place. Only it wasn't just his eyes. My hand was bouncing all over the place too. It was about zero degrees out and neither of us was wearing a coat. I tried again but I was shaking too bad to do the test.
The guy and the girl in the passenger seat that he was "talking" with had left a party about a block away to have some privacy.
It was butt-frio and we were getting colder by the second so I came up with a new plan.
"How's this for a deal?" I said. "We forget about the DUI, I cite you for the open container that your girlfriend tried to sneak out of the car, and you get back to the party and stay there until you are sober."
"Deal," he said.
I had him get back in his car before he froze to death. I went back to my car and cranked up the heater so I could write the ticket. I hadn't really put together what time it was and what day that meant it was until I wrote the date on the ticket. December 25th. "Nice," I thought. "Merry Christmas." That was cold, even for me, the Iceman. My only defense is that my brain was frozen when I made the deal with him. I think it's the only ticket that I ever wrote on Christmas.
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