Get Busted

Another installment from the archives - and your welcome, for Locklear and Shatner, and that other guy.




At my kids’ recent physical, the doctor busted me.

“Anyone in the house smoke?”

“No,” I said, totally telling the truth.

“Mom,” my daughter said. She looked at me wide-eyed as if I’d said a bad word. Then she turned from me to her new role model, the kind and presumably honest lady doctor.

“My dad smokes,” she said.

“Busted!” said the doctor.

Cut to me backpedaling and using way too many words to explain away my husband’s weekly cigar. Or was it nightly? Either way, he smoked outside so it didn’t really count.
Right?

“Right,” the doctor assured. She was nice, unlike the little traitor I’d been feeding for half a decade.

That brush with not-even-bad behavior made me want to let out a rebel yell. Being a grown up can be so lame. We’re not allowed to do anything!

Last summer I got busted at a friend’s backyard pool party.

By the time the cops showed up, we had dwindled to a dozen thirty-somethings around a half empty keg making really bad karaoke. Back in the day, I rocked a pretty hard Love Shack baby, but that involved way more alcohol than my adult liver cares to process. There I was, having fun in a mature and non-rebellious way, drinking beer not purchased by anyone’s older sister or boyfriend, but by the tax-paying homeowner himself. We’d already gathered up our bags and started goodbyes when two young officers appeared inside the gate.

I would have sworn they were strippers.

Either that or our host put them up to it to make us all feel younger and badder.
But they were totally serious.

After interrupting a particularly heartbreaking rendition of Prince’s “Kiss” they said to the homeowners – and I quote – “don’t make us come back out here.”

Had someone been watching Cops?

I was dying for the DJ to cue up that Bad Boys song.
What-chou Gonna Do?

The guy who’d had to stop mid-Falsetto looked like my eight-year-old when I say lights out.
Just a little longer? Pleeeeeze!

I wondered what they expected to find. No rebels here. Just a bunch of adults with too many mayonnaise based salads and a beer fridge full of milk.

My husband, who hadn’t been too hot on the party idea, gave me a look that said this never happens while watching World’s Greatest Engineering Feats. But we’d had great time. Who can argue with burgers, brew and ‘tater salad? The only thing missing were my his cigars.

The big question – other than don’t the police have some Meth labs to eradicate? - was who would call the cops on us? Did the shrill of our under-primed voices at 10:15 on a Saturday night rile the neighbors? Was backyard karaoke now a crime? Bad words crowded the tip of my well-behaved, un-pierced tongue.

Wary of the fuzz and their dreaded breathalyzers, we retreated, sharing stories from Fondmemoryland where life was one big kegger. We recalled busts long past and embellished tales of daring escapes and stealth camouflage in basements and shrubberies.

I accept that booze must now be tempered with chips and dips, the babysitter needs to be home by eleven, and I really shouldn’t swear anymore, but can’t we have any fun at all? On the drive home I wondered if the OnStar people could fine me for singing off key to the radio.

I wanted to be irked about the cops showing up to ruin our fun, but truth was, the party was pretty much over anyway. Plus, there’s nothing to make you feel like your old rebel self than getting busted by the cops.

Even if it was only for really bad singing.

So slam one back, light one up, sing off key. Get busted! I dare you.