About seventeen months ago I had one of the most frightening experiences of my life. I spent the night in jail. This entire event could have easily been avoided. My parents, as well as the police, and I over-reacted to the situation. Being sent to jail, for anyone who has not been, is not an exciting encounter, but at least in my situation, was not quite as bad as some people make it out to be. Everything started when I came back from a party one night after drinking a fair amount.
             Late one night after a party, and after a few drinks, I came home with the intention of going straight to sleep. My parents were still awake, and could smell the alcohol on my breath. At the time, my parents were still getting used to the fact that I was growing up, going to parties, drinking, and all the rest of the pastimes of a high-school teenager. My mom tends to worry quite a bit, so she wanted me to take a B.A.C. test to allow her to know how much alcohol was actually in my system. She feared I would get alcohol poisoning, even though I had not had near that much to drink. I was dead tired and did not feel like going all the way to some late-night emergency room just to pee in a cup so my mom could know I just had a few drinks, so I told her I was not going to go. My dad tends to agree with my mom all of the time, so he as well tried to get me to go, unsuccessfully. Then my mom decided to call the local cop to get him to make me take the test.
             Our neighborhood had a new, young "has-to-prove-something" cop. We previously had an older man, who was a very nice person, and would have done nothing to me but perhaps drive me around the neighborhood in his car, give me a little scare, and bring me home. This was not the procedure of the new guy. A couple months ago I had a run-in with this new cop when one of my friends and I were on our way home from someone's house. We each were in our own cars, and had stopped for a few ...