Almost Arrested Story.

All right. So it all started when I went to Millersville University to visit my friend, Doug. I traveled there with some other friends, Ryan and Sara. It was a Saturday night around 2am and I was pretty drunk playing some card games at Doug's friend's house. This house was in an appartment type complex which I think was somehow affiliated with the university. Ryan and Sara were outside smoking when Ryan comes back in and says he will give $20 to anyone who can ride a certain bike around the sidewalk. So I, of course wanting $20, accept this offer and go outside to find out whats going on.

This really has nothing to do with the story, it was at the house and just kind of impressive.

Of course, even drunk, I know Ryan would not readily hand over $20 and sure enough, I look at the bike I have to ride and it has an extremely bent front wheel. In fact, I think the wheel was actually broken at this time. I try anyway and, unable to even push the bike forward with the bent wheel, I lay the bike down start carefully stomping on the wheel trying to bend it back into place. While jumping up and down on the wheel with full drunken intent of fixing it, the wheel magically pops into place. Precision craftmanship. Surpised at my success I stop jumping and pick the bike up. Ryan and the rest of the laughing people watching are also surprised by this miraculously straightened wheel.

I then began to ride the bike again with great success, to the shock of all. The great success soon fails when I try the first turn. The frame of the wheel breaks again and bends even more than before. I am left again with a broken bike. Unfortunately, this time, even my precision jumping up and down method does not fix it and I decide to stop. This is about when I wonder who's bike this was in the first place. No one knows and I leave the bike. Doug recommends instead of leaving the bike I throw the bike into a nearby "marsh". This sounds like a good idea to me, for some reason, and I grab the bike and head in the direction of the "marsh". Sara follows to keep me company. The "marsh" turned out to just be a small grassy valley separating the appartment complex which had houses curved around it like the letter "C". Deciding this was a dumb place to leave a bike I look around for a more suitable place to leave it. I spot some drainage pipes on the other side of the field. My thought process was to stuff the bike into the pipes. I know what your thinking....genius.

Upon closer inspection of the pipes I see that they are too small to fit the bike. Still determined, I walk up the hill and leave the little grassy area. We are now near the houses adjacent to Doug's friend's house. I spot a large bush at the top of the hill next to someones house and figure the bike would look perfect placed right on top of this bush. I place the bike on top of this bush with the help of Sara, admire my completion of the task and start walking away; a job well done.

While walking away towards the parking lot, I see three cop cars about 50 feet away. Three cops were walking towards Sara and I with flashlights blazing.

Rookie 1: Where is the bike? Where is the bike?
Me (looking confused): What? Whats going on?
Rookie 1: Where is the bike. We saw you had a bike. We are going to go look for it and if we find it....
Me: Woh, what is going on?
Rookie 2 (wandering around searching): OK. I found the bike. It was on top of the bush.
Me: Oh, yeah that's my friends bike...
Sara: Check the VIN! Check the VIN! It's our friend's bike!
Sergent: OK, I'm placing you both under arrest for disorderly conduct.
Me: wuh oh. What? That seems a little ridiculous.
Sara: Check the VIN!
Me (to sara): I don't think bikes have VINs.
Rookie 1: Turn around and put your hands behind your back.
Me (after patting us down and putting the cuff one one wrist and starting the second): Woh, oww, not so tight. Not so tight.
Me (internally, with a big goofy smile on my face): Wow, this is pretty awesome.

At the sound of me asking the guy to not put the cuffs on so tight, my friends back across the field at the house realize what is going on. We tell the cops our friends over yonder will tell them what is going on. Rookie 2 goes over to talk to my friends while Sara and I get placed in the back of separate cop cars. I get placed in Rookie 1's car and he leaves the door open while he fiddles with papers. We continue to say the bike is a friend of ours and we are just playing a joke on him.

So I am now in the cop car, the door was left open and the cop was sitting in the front seat doing something. I manage to pull my hand out of the loose cuff and, surprised that I could, crazy ideas start going through my drunken head.

Me (internally): I already kind of escaped, why not just run now...
Me (internally): Hmm, oh yeah, your an idiot.

Luckily, I quicky realized how dumb that was and just sat there. The door was closed and the cop sat in the front seat. The guy in my car was a rookie with apparantly no authority. The sergent was the guy calling the shots. I began telling the cop, with both my hands up on the glass separator that I accept whatever was going on but I am going to basically argue with him about how this was bullshit. He was surprised I was out of the cuffs. I told him if he didnt want to deal with me I would just shut up and be quiet but he didnt say anything. So, I berrated him for the next half hour or so with some good drunken logic.

While all this is going on my friends somehow convinced the cops that it was their bike and a "fat kid rode it into the sidewalk which bent the wheel." They also learn that the bush I placed the bike on belonged to an ex-cop. Eventually the cops let us out, uncuffed us, and the Sergent gave us citations for "millersville noise control ordinance violations". The exact crime was, "shouting and yelling as to be heard audibly across property lines to cause a noise disturbance." Looking at the charge, I laughed at how bullshit it was since we were not "yelling or shouting" at all. It did not seem like a good time to argue so we took the little yellow slips, the cops gave us "our" bike back, and we went on our way.

Turned out no one even called the cops. They were apparantly just patrolling. The citation we recieved had to be phoned into the Judge by us over the next few days so a fine could be given. I called the judge a few days later and the secretary said that even if we didn't get charged anything for the fine, there is a $50 charge if we plead guilty. When I finally talked to the judge he quickly gave us a $100 fine each for a grand total of $150 each.

I would, at this point, like to call shenanigans on this whole thing and plead not guilty but that will require me to set a hearing date and drive out there again, probably find a lawyer or something, and prove I was not "yelling or shouting." I came up with a plan to actually ask the ex-cop who owned the bush if any noises were heard. I also wanted to call the Rookie 1 I was talking to and ask him if we were yelling or shouting. Actually going through with this plan seems almost like a waste of time as I'm thinking cops probably like to stick together. So, in conculsion, the damn cop tried to pin anything they could on us. He realized we were not the masterful criminals we seemed but still wanted to screw us. Damn bitter cops. Well, actually just the old crotchity Sergent; the rookies weren't bad. I guess the cops did give us a crappy bike. Anyone want to buy it? Has a broken wheel.

Sara and I walking home with our new bike.