License and nervous breakdown, please

Good morning, my people. I hope this Sorry Honey It's Thursday finds you in good spirits. This, my friends,should be the final installment of the Klein Driving Chronicles, presented by...oh wait, I still don't have any sponsors. I have another story for you, so buckle up. Ha! Buckle up! Like a car! Oh man, I'm on fire today.

This one requires some back story, but if you hang on long enough, I promise I'll get to a part that involves a car. Deal? Cool. I was a pretty good kid growing up and managed to avoid trouble primarily by not actively seeking it out. That said, I wasn't a little angel the entire time either. As a very young adult during my early college years, I pushed the boundaries of legality a bit.

I drank a fair amount of alcohol in college; probably way more than some and definitely way less than others. When I was under 21 years of age, the act of getting the alcohol to drink was sometimes a challenge. If I went to a party where there were kegs,the standard practice was to watch my female friends get cups and ushered to the front of the line while my male friends and I waited patiently to see if we'd be allowed to partake. Of course, I knew some upperclassmen who were happy to help my group out from time to time, and we always appreciated that.

Then one day, my favorite brother gave me his old, expired driver's license. (Mom, don't worry, everything works out fine in the end.) Here's the thing: it didn't look like me, that kind of license wasn't current anymore, and it had expired over a year before he gave it to me. At least it didn't say "McLovin" on it. I'm a rule follower by nature, and so I wasn't sure if I was ever going to have the guts to try it out. Some older friends told me that certain liquor stores in the area would only glance at the license and not care at all that it was expired. After some encouragement from my friends and a couple of boring nights that we would've gladly spent drinking crappy beer, I decided to give it a shot.

The movies actually get this scene close to accurate. I walked in trying to look as calm as possible and picked up a few beverages. I added a pack of gum so that I was clearly not just there for alcohol, and then walked to the counter as if this was a very standard practice for me. I was maybe a little chattier than normal, but I thanked the guy and tried hard to just walk out normally without breaking into a sprint. It had worked, and a new age of underage drinking had begun. Over the next few months, I did the same thing every so often without any incident. Once or twice, the counter person commented that my license was expired, and I expertly said that I had the extension in the car if they wanted me to go get it. They always said it was ok and just to bring it next time. I was king of the fucking castle. And then, one Friday in the early evening, things didn't go quite as smoothly.

As was routine, I went to the liquor store that had served me well and then walked back to my car with a couple of plastic bags full of various bottles. I put the bags in the back on the floor behind the driver's seat and drove over to two friends' place to pick them up and head back to my apartment. Once they were in, we were on our way for what would only be about a two-minute ride. As I approached an intersection, the light turned yellow but I still went through it. It was questionable, but I felt ok with my decision. I told my friends, "Hey, the car behind me wen talso...and he just turned his lights on. Fuck."

I quickly assessed the situation and told myself that as long as the alcohol wasn't in plain view and I fully complied, it would just be a ticket for running a red light (which I really thought was still yellow). Just as the wave of calm was settling in, another thought hit me. "Oh shit," I said, "I still have my brother's license in the front of my wallet." In order to look official in the liquor store, I had put my license in some back flap of the wallet and put Kevin's in the traditional license plate. I normally changed it back as soon as I was out of sight of the store, but I had forgotten to do so this time. I signaled to turn left onto the next side street (there was no shoulder and no right turn where we were), andI started panicking a little. "Ok, as soon as I stop, I'll get my wallet and try to quickly ditch Kevin's license and have mine out like I'm just complying or something," I said.

And then, for reasons I'll never ever know, the officer didn't get in the turn lane behind me. He kept going straight, lights still a-flashin'. My first thought was that it might look like I was trying to ditch him, so the panic was still very much there. I turned left and knew enough backstreets to easily wind my way to our apartment. Was the officer turning at the next street and doubling-back to find me, or was I just scared shitless for no good reason? I proceeded with extreme caution for the next couple of minutes until I made it to the apartment. I made ridiculously complete stops, I signaled way in advance of turns, and I didn't get within 10mph of the speed limit. We were safe; stupid and lucky, but safe nonetheless.

My pulse and breathing eventually returned to normal, and I vowed to use the fake ID only as a last resort in the future. My 21 year-old friends would just need to step up a little for me. That night though, I tossed an extra one or two back in honor of my near-costly mistake. See, Mom, I told you it would all end ok.