Friday, October 23, 2009

Driving drunk in a La-Z-Boy chair

As an avid follower of current events, I get to know what my neighbors (approximately 6.5 billion of them, by last count) are doing. I think I'm a bit of a snoop. When I was a young boy, I used to sneak out of the house with my brother ostensively to peek in the windows of pretty girls, but we often found ourselves simply sitting outside a window watching an elderly couple chatted or dozed off in their chairs while the husband was reading and the wife was knitting -- sort of an early 1970s version of reality shows. It was fun watching people when they didn't know you were watching. It was wrong of us to violate private property, but, hey, I wouldn't be reading Ayn Rand for another 17 years, and we didn't really mean anyone any harm -- and that one particular blonde who took her top off and admired herself in the mirror from all possible angles, well that was ...

Anyway, back to the subject. A Minnesota guy pled guilty yesterday to driving his La-Z-Boy (who the hell came up with the spelling for that name?!!!) after he had had "8 or 9 beers" and "crashing" into the back of a car. The guy had put a lawnmower motor on his chair and outfitted it with a stereo and cupholders. Ha!

Now, this is the kind of stuff you simply can't make up, and that's what makes it so damned interesting -- the lengths people will go to to enjoy themselves and have what they want and think outside the box. I mean just get inside this guy's head for a moment. "I love my La-Z-Boy. I wish I could have it at my favorite bar. I don't want to take a chance driving home drunk from the bar. I wish I could listen to my favorite tunes. I wish I could have my drinks while driving home without getting into a lot of trouble with the law ..."

"Aha!!!! I'll put my lawnmower motor on my La-Z-Boy and my stereo system on it and make some cupholders. The police can't arrest me because I'm not in my car and I'm not endangering anyone, and I can show it to all my friends ...!"

But the poor schmuck didn't realize the extent of the long-arm of the PC crowd. He was arrested for and convicted of (get ready to shake your head) driving under the influence. The judge stayed his 180 days of jail time but gave him 2 years of probation (presumably from DWIL -- Driving While In La-Z-Boy).

I've been asked before what I, an Objectivist, think of cops. Are they good or bad? And my answer is that they are just people, and people are good or bad. But the thing that can make a good cop (or good judge) bad is bad laws that they are obliged to execute. That is when the police become a police state, and the creative town drunk isn't just laughed at but also put in jail or threatened with such.

I hope that Dennis LeRoy Anderson (good name for the drunk La-Z-Boy cowboy) doesn't get too downhearted about this and remembers next time to have a pretty designated driver in his lap while cruising home from his favorite bar.

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