I'm gonna tell y'all a little a story about my one time brush with the law. I should point out that while I take self deprecating liberties in calling myself a pussy several times on here, in reality I'm not THAT much of a pussy. Only a little. But when it comes to law-breaking I'm certainly a career criminal neophyte. But one night I was a law breaker. I was hell in a can. I was a bad ass mother fucker!

That night I got a ticket. For drinking underage. BOW!

Now this story illustrates the ever present factor of timing in my life. For some reason I feel like my awkward moment probability is way off the charts. It's sort of like when you try and get in your car in a parking lot at the exact moment that someone else is. Keep this idea about timing in mind. The summer after my sophomore year of college I studied abroad in London. I actually studied several. HEY-O! It would have been funny if it were true. Ahem.

In honor of me crossing the pond to the land of overcast skies, fried fish wrapped in newspaper, and chocolate toothpaste, my roommates decided to have a "little get together." And by little, I mean that one of my roommates was a pseudo professional DJ with a thousand watt amp, two JBL pro speakers, and an 800 watt subwoofer. For those of you that aren't former DJ's, essentially under the right circumstances that much power can play music loud enough to break fucking windows. I'm not joking.

Oh and when I said "little get together", what I really should have said, was this was a full on rave with heart shattering techno music, with everyone and their mothers invited to our small 1500 square foot apartment. At one point in the night I realized there were more people in my home that I didn't know, then those I did. The party started off right and things were great. Lots of dancing, drinking, and merriment. And anus breaching bass-filled techno music. I was in a great mood. I'm having a party and in 2 days I'm flying to England! What could possible go wrong to ruin my fun?

Then in the span of 15 minutes a chain of events occurred to remind me why one should always stay humble. (this is based off a thorough investigation of the night, involving several key eye witnesses)

A few apartments down from me some enterprising young scholar decided to chuck an empty beer bottle into a car windshield, settling off the car alarm and alerting the owner. At that exact moment in time I was standing in the hallway talking to a girl I was in a show with. She was quite possible the hottest girl I have ever done theatre with. She is touching my arm and smiling a lot. I can tell she totally wants to make out. The car owner decides to call the cops. The police arrive in minutes and after attending to the crime of vandalism below, they hear the intestine churning techno music from apartment 211 upstairs. Since they are cops and technically a few laws are being broken, namely underage drinking and possession of a malted beverage keg without a permit, the decide to pay our little party a visit. This is my very last night ever in this apartment by the way.

Right as I'm summoning the courage to make a move and totally make out with this insanely hot fellow actor I hear a loud pounding at the door. POLICE! Open up!

"Oh. NONONO!!! Goddammit!!!"

At that moment in time a few things happened at once. First, the girl who was mere seconds away from totally making out with me made some kind of ninja escape and was never seen again. The second thing that happened was that my idiot DJ roommate decided to use all 1500 watts of power to announce on the microphone to anyone in a 2 mile radius that "we're not opening the door for those fucking pigs! They can't do anything to us!", and finally what clusterfuck could be complete without a fistfight in my living room between two people I've never seen before in my life?

Of course I had to control the situation because frankly Sir Mixalot wasn't going to do anything except make things worse. I ran out to breakup the fight and then when all parties were 'cool', I regrettably opened up the door to the cops. I swear to god I'm not making this up, the responding officers name was Officer Catch Em. I think it's actually spelled with a K and a U somewhere, but that was his name. Officer Catch Em.

Officer Catch em': Are you a resident!?!
Me: Unfortunately.
Officer Catch Em': How many people live here?
Me: Four.
Officer Catch Em': Get all your roommates out here.

I manage to get all except for the one who was screaming "FUCK THE POLICE" into the microphone. You know, the only one out of the four who exasperated the entire situation.

Officer Catch Em': Where's the fourth?
Me: He's hiding. He won't come out.
Officer Catch Em': Is he the one yelling "fuck the police"?!
Me: Yes sir. If it helps, I believe that he actually might be somewhat mentally retarded.

We go out to the squad car for the 'pat down' and interrogation. Officer Catch Em' decides to use some brilliant cop psychology to turn me against my roommates. Maybe he could leverage more than one drinking ticket out of this deal.

Officer Catch Em': You know if you want my opinion, I'd be mad at your roommates for getting you into this.
Me: Why's that sir?
Officer Catch Em': Well seems like they got a bad attitude
Me: You realize they are pissed because you just put them in the back of a cop car for underage drinking. How do you think they are supposed to feel?
Officer Catch Em': Well...uh..well....here's your ticket. Don't make me come back out here.

By the time myself and my roommates had made it back to the apartment the party had cleared out. Just a few guys left and a keg half full of beer. I was pretty pissed off for getting a drinking ticket, or as I like to call it: college tax, and even more pissed off that my only chance to totally make out with that girl was lost forever. I jumped up onto the sofa that somehow ended up sitting on top of my bed and passed out. I wasn't even drunk.

The aftermath:
I woke up the next morning to  the complete and utter destruction of my apartment. There were solo cups and water stains everywhere. Lifeless passed out drunk bodies littered the floor. My kitchen was a real treat. Dirty dishes were stacked nearly to the ceiling and literally every single cabinet had some sort of hole in it. It honestly looked like the inside of my kitchen had been shelled with mortar fire. There is no rock band on earth capable of replicating the kind of damage done to my apartment. A chair had obviously been set ablaze at some point in the night. A dumbbell was thrown through a door, cracking it in half. The kitchen was flooded. In the bathrooms the mirrors were shattered. It might as well have been the site of violent exorcism. And to top all of it off, in the middle of my living room was a full sized hockey goal, clearly "borrowed" from a campus rec center. Oh college...good thing consequences aren't part of the curriculum.

Apparently when I went to bed the remaining parties decided to take straight pulls of beer from the half empty keg until it turned into an empty keg. Which explains the temporary liberation of the hockey goal to my living room. As for the kitchen mortar fire, my roommate Destructo didn't take the drinking ticket as passively as I did. While I decided to go pass out in my room, he decided to take out his frustration by throwing beer bottles at the kitchen walls and cabinets, which left a considerable amount of goddamn glass on the floor. I'm not sure about the furniture burn marks and the dumbbell incident but I'm sure DJ Retard was to blame for that as well.

The next day I paid my ticket. And the day after that I flew to England, never to sleep in that apartment again.

The irony of this whole thing was that I drank beer 3 days after this incident in a country no less civilized or industrialized than mine own, with no consequence. See in England, the drinking age is 18. Are English 20 year olds somehow genetically predisposed to handle alcohol more maturely than American 20 year olds? Or is a 21 drinking age just an archaic law and is likely supported and enforced heavily in college towns to provide a steady revenue stream for the city budget from college students?

You may have your opinion. But I have mine. Underage drinking tickets are stupid.

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Oh and the hockey goal was returned safe and sound, and I still see it to this day.