Getting My Day in Court Class

When last we met, I was regaling you with tales of my incarceration at the tender age of 16.

Yes, it was a miserable night, made even more miserable by the lecture I got from my mom as my dad stood by trying to look stern. At the time, all I wanted to do was to crawl into bed and forget about the whole thing. No such luck. Mom was not about to let me off so easy. There were the suspicious looks and disappointed sighs for some time afterward. However, things did improve eventually.

Our little band of misfits had to go to court the morning following the big bust, which was a little nerve wracking. During our appearance before the judge, we were sentenced to "Court Class" which, if completed successfully, would wipe our records clean.

Court Class was a reality check type of program, designed to deter alcohol consumption in teens. Basically, we had to get up and go to court at 8:00 on Saturday mornings for six weeks and watch them haul in the drunks from the night before. The idea was that we'd be so horrified by the ravages of alcoholism being paraded before us that we'd never drink again. This kind of backfired, though, because the judge was an old guy who cracked jokes the entire time. So rather than being horrifying, it was kinda like watching an episode of Night Court.

There were 15 of us that got arrested together, so we filled up an entire bench in court. We started calling it the "Group W" bench and we were all sittin' around, laughin' and havin' a good time talkin' about crime & mother stabbing & father raping and all kinds of groovy things. (Sorry... just a little Alice's Restaurant digression there.) Then afterward we'd go out for lunch at the Best Steak House. My parents even gave me money for lunch. I still remember they made the best Texas Toast there!

That was all great fun, I have to admit. But what made this whole Saturday morning routine particularly satisfying for me, was the fact that in the Larew household Saturday mornings were devoted to cleaning the house and doing laundry. No one was exempt from the Saturday chores... that was unheard of up until this point. And if you know me at all, you know how much I detest housework of any kind. But, since I was busy paying my debt to society I was excused from household drudgery for six glorious weeks.

And that's not all... There were lots of badass boys at my high school who prided themselves on going out drinking every weekend and spending time in jail... but none of them had ever been thrown in a paddywagon before! To them, being thrown in a paddywagon was the ultimate badass thing do do. They were really, really impressed and almost jealous. Go figure! We were the talk of the school for about a week.

So, I have to confess, overall the experience turned out to be quite positive. Not in a scared straight sort of way, but in a "Wow, I actually ended up having a great time and impressed some kids at school" kind of way.

I'm such a badass!