The Rawsonville Margarita Olympics

Flaw Enforcement

Photo by Kike Salazar N on Unsplash

The cop was approaching the dump truck. Shenk Leeland rolled his window down and spit Almond Butter flavored chewing tobacco.

Shit.

It was a State Trooper.

Shenk knew the two local cops and most of the county.

“Driver’s License and registration please.”

Shenk handed them over.

“You were weaving like you might have had something to drink.”

“I had eight licorice margaritas at Mamie’s Tavern.”

The trooper smiled, looked up and down the dump truck.

“Any particular reason you drove a dump truck to a bar?”

“My cement mixer is in the shop.”

The cop started to tell Shenk not to be a smartass, but Shenk looked like and actually was the kind of guy who would drive a cement mixer to a bar. 

“Step out of the car, sir. I’m going to have to administer a field sobriety test.”

“I ain’t sober,“ Shenk said, “but I’m really good at tests.”

Shenk, grunting, lowered his 6’5” 320lb frame out of the dump truck.

True to his word, Shenk passed the fake tight rope, the fingers to the face, and did the best backward alphabet the cop had ever heard.

“You admitted to drinking, sir, so I’m afraid I’m going to have to do a breath analysis.”

“I got horrible breath,” Shenk said. “I just won the jalapeno popper eating contest down at Mamie’s.”

“The machine doesn’t detect odor, per se, sir it detects–”

“I know what the hell it detects,“ Shenk said. “You gotta be smart to win a jalapeno popper eating contest.”

“I wasn’t aware there was a cerebral element to eating jalapeno poppers.”

Shenk nodded.

“You don’t chew, you swallow ‘em whole.”

The trooper held out the tube and Schenk blew.

The green LED lights flickered and the machine registered a 7.67. Under the legal limit.

“Well,” the cop said, “you did great on your tests and by blood alcohol level you’re not intoxicated, but that dumptruck was definitely weaving across the yellow while you were driving.”

“Well officer, I may or may not have been distracted, pleasuring myself.”

The trooper’s nose wrinkled in a way that didn’t seem probable for a human nose.

“Pleasuring yourself,” he said and immediately regretted it.

Shenk looked at the ground.

“Something about eating jalapeno poppers just gets my blood racing, officer. And it wouldn’t be honest to go home to the wife and say honey, let’s make love, like I was aroused by her beauty or something, when in point of fact it was the unchewed jalapenos. It just don’t seem right. And last time I won the damn contest, I drove the cement mixer, and the cement mixer is a manual transmission, so it’s damn near an impossibility to drive that thing and pleasure yourself at the same time, because it’ll stall out right in the middle of Rawsonville Road, and then I’ll be settin’ there, Jalapeno trophy in the back seat, my little pink camshaft sticking outta my trousers and–”

Shenk heard a noise.

The cop was making a U-turn on the gravel shoulder and headed back up Rawsonville Road toward town.

Shenk grabbed his phone from his pants pocket and called Walter Bikkie.

Walter didn’t say hello, he said “How much?”

Shenk said “seven point six seven. It’s beatable. But get this. I didn’t get Jack or Shirlene, and I didn’t get any of the sheriffs. It was a state guy.”

Walter whistled.

“You were that close and a state badge didn’t haul you in?”

“You’d a loved it Wally, I told him I was weaving  because eatin’ jalapeno poppers makes me aroused and I had to spank the bishop. He couldn’t get outta here fast enough.”

Walter laughed and Shenk heard him blow a snot rocket.

“What’s Eddie’s record again?”

“Seven point eight three,” Shenk said.

“Ok, Shenk, I’m gonna drink about half of another licorice margarita and get on the road. I think I can beat Eddie’s record if I hurry. I loosened a bolt in the bread truck, should make weaving on purpose come real natural.”

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