In order to talk my former co-worker Andreina into coming to my party and bringing her out-of-town guests, I had to offer to pick them all up from her apartment building in DC. Shawn, who drives a Nissan Maxima, which can fit 5, maybe 6, offered to drive them back. He doesn't drink, so I refrained from drinking with the intent of catching up with the other partygoers when I got back.

So I drove up to Andre's apartment in DC, and got there very quickly because Whitehurst Freeway is now open again (woo hoo) so I could take a really direct, hassle-free route, which is a rare thing indeed in DC. They came downstairs and piled in the car, and there were 5 of them. Mind you, my car is an Acura Integra which seats 2 comfortably, or 4 not so comfortably (small back seats). So Andre's 3 Venezuelan guests (cousin, brother, and friend, 2 of whom don't speak English) are in the back seat, 3 across. Andre (who is also Venezuelan) is on Pax's lap, which is clearly not a comfortable situation. They are seat-belted together. This is not a terribly unsafe driving situation, but it isn't entirely safe either. So I now have a 15 minute, easy drive home. Zoom, off we go to Whitehurst again and across Key Bridge into Rosslyn.

I made a right turn onto Lee Highway and boom, right in front of me is an Arlington County Police sobriety checkpoint. There were about a dozen cop cars, cones guiding me to the right place to stop and be tested, a bunch of officers with flashlights, and some of those big signs with the purple alphanumeric display that you usually see when there's scheduled construction, rotating through a few different messages.

At this point we are all thinking the same thing. There are 3 Venezuelan tourists in the back seat, who I assume had tourist visas of some sort. Andre's practical training visa is about to run out, and we were hoping to talk at the party about the circumstances that led her to have to leave the country on this coming Thursday. Pax is a native-born American but Andre was in his lap. And I was driving this thing. Lots of bad interpretations could be made about exactly was going on. But thankfully I was totally sober and all my license, registration, etc. was up to date so as far as that was concerned I was squeaky clean.

After passing about 10 cops who waved me along, I stopped and was pulled over. An officer asked for my license and I gave it to him. He asked if I was still living at [my current address] and I said yes. He then asked me to step out of the car. Doh!

We stepped onto the sidewalk and he asked me if I knew why he had stopped me. I had an idea - the 4 immigrants squeezed into my little Japanese sports car perhaps? He said it was because it was a routine sobriety checkpoint. Ah. He asked me what level of education I had and I told him 2 years of college. He seemed surprised. He then asked me to recite the alphabet and I did so very quickly, realizing at the end that I might make a mistake and get in trouble from trying to go so fast. Anyway I got it right, and he handed my my license back. He then told me that I couldn't have more passengers than seat belts, and asked if I was going very far. I said no. He said to go ahead and leave but that I would have to drop off some of those people. I was not sure if he meant immediately, or when I got where I was going.

So, I drove away slowly, nobody pursued me, and I joined the party.