26.12.05

Why I sleep with my cellphone by my bed

So that I can pick it up within three rings when Terz calls at 3 am to say that the driver he's with has been pulled over by the cops for drunk driving.

The other object lesson is about why you should always keep your cellphone battery charged: so that when it's 3 am and your friend's been pulled over for drunk driving, and you yourself are over the legal limit for driving, you can still call your wife or your friend to come drive the car to Police HQ until the whole case is sorted out and then to drive the lot of you home.

Now I know why parents of teenaged or adult children are so terrified of receiving that phone call in the middle of the night, and why they always go crazy if the call comes. It's a cold shock to one's system to have the phone shrill in the dead of the night, and then, while you're still groggy, to have the voice of a loved one telling you that Something Bad has happened. You're not mad at the kid or the other persons involved, so much as struggling to put the pieces together while all is dark and still, and all your circadian instincts are completely out of sync. On the grand scale of things, last night's phone call wasn't anything bad at all, but my sleep-fogged brain still took at least fifteen minutes to figure that out and settle down.

Anyway, I didn't get to play the sober heroine in last night's adventure. Aanother friend of ours was actually still awake and fully functioning when Terz called him, so he came to the rescue instead.

It seems that the penalty for the first time you fail the cops' breathalyser test is a stiff fine and an immediate suspension of your driving privileges from one year. Hm.

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7 Comments:

At 12/26/2005 2:21 am , Blogger wahj said...

I was gonna say "Tym saves Christmas" till I read down to the end of the post! = )

 
At 12/26/2005 11:24 pm , Blogger Little Miss Drinkalot said...

Aiyayah! On the bright side, no accident. So all's still good.

 
At 12/27/2005 10:51 am , Blogger DK said...

The last thing anyone would attempt is to try driving after drinking on a X-mas/new yr eve night.

The TP are out in full force. The odds of winning is so slim. Why risk?

 
At 12/27/2005 11:20 am , Blogger Tym said...

trisha > I don't need it, since we don't have a car atm, but I might know some people who'd appreciate it!

LMD > Yah, yah, that was my first (and worst) fear!

DK > I guess it's human nature to assume that bad things (be it an accident or a police stop) will happen to other people, not yourself.

 
At 12/27/2005 10:09 pm , Anonymous Anonymous said...

Well Tym, a little piece of advice (and do pass it on to Terz and his beer-chugging friends) - the chaps in white ain't just gonna be playing ball only for the festive period. And not just about drink driving too. Your rear seatbelts, handphone driving, speeding, the works. Enforcement will be tighter now in view of the relaxation of certain traffic rules come next year.

Trust me on this. :)

 
At 12/28/2005 12:42 pm , Blogger Terz said...

This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.

 
At 12/28/2005 12:52 pm , Blogger Terz said...

OK, let's get some things straight:

We were not playing the odds.

The friend I was with was female. She had two beers. All night. Maybe it was because she finished off her second 350 ml bottle, with about two fingers' worth left, just before we left the MacDonald's area at East Coast Park and got nabbed at the Marine Parade flyover.

Apparently, as the traffic cop at the road block told me, it's also because females have lower body weights, they're more likely to fail the test. In fact, I was advised to take a cab next time, even if the female driver had only one all night.

So, no risk-taking, just a system where everyone gets broadbrushed.

 

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