Old West Tales - Lost, found, lost again.

For an introduction to Old West Tales, click here: Old West Tales - Introduction

One night, near the end of first semester in Old Well, one of my suite-mates, Bell (of the Graham Boys), lent me an ID. It was a NC Drivers License from one of his frat brothers who had recently turned 21. It was the perfect fake ID for me. Bell had thought to loan the ID to me because the photo looked just like me. Actually, the ID looked like me, but better. You could even say that the ID looked more like me than I do, ... You get the idea.

I lost the ID that night and told Bell, who was pissed. A week or so later, I found the ID under the ottoman in my room. I kept it and didn't tell Bell.

First semester ended and it was time to go home for winter break. I put Brian the gold fish in a milk jug with the top cut off full of tap water, and drove back to Columbia.

I had a two friends, Richard and Chip, who lived in a condo In Five Points. One night Raymond and I went down to five-points and went to Group Therapy (a bar). As we stumbled out of the bar with a large stream of people, there was a cop standing there hitting on the girl who worked at Group. The cop randomly plucked me from the stream of people and asked to see my ID. This cop was a huge smart-ass and was showing off for the girl, I confidently handed him my North Carolina ID.

The cop said, "This is a fake ID."

I said, "No its not, that is me."

The cop said "I know its you, but it is not a real ID."

Raymond had stumbled past the cop, but came back when he heard the cop being such an idiot about the ID, "That is a North Carolina ID."

The cop got annoyed with Raymond and walked him over to his police car and put him in the back seat.

Then he walked back over to me, "Where are you staying?"

"Right There." I said, pointing to the condo.

"I tell you what," said the cop, "If you admit this is a fake ID, then you will not get in trouble, but I am going to take the ID and drive you and your friend home and I don't want to ever catch you using a fake ID again."

I didn't know if I could trust the cop or not so I looked at the girl working the door, who I knew somehow. She nodded that the cop would be true to his word, so I fessed up.

"Go get in the car with your friend." said the cop, turning his attentions back to the girl that he was hitting on.

I walked over to the patrol car and opened the back door to get in with Raymond. Raymond jumped out of the car ... said "I'm getting out of here!" ... and started running.

I just stood there dumbfounded. The cop saw Raymond running and ran up to me...

The cop yelled as he ran toward me "Why did your friend run?"

Then, without waiting for an answer, "You should have run too ... get in the car!"

I got in the front seat, next to the cop. The blue light went on, and we took off with high beams on, looking for Raymond who had fled the scene on foot. The cop sped around the five-points area for about ten minutes, all the while with blue lights and high beams on, disregarding stop signs. He was really starting to get pissed and I knew that he was going to take it out on me.

Then, as we rounded a corner in a residential area, Raymond came, trotting and huffing, obviously winded, from behind two houses. We were only about two blocks from Group Therapy.

The cop sped toward Raymond, who froze and put his hands up in the air.

The cop cuffed him and stuffed him, all the while asking "Why did you run?" The cop decided to charge us with under-age drinking, a fine and ticket. As we were driving to the station for processing the cop kept saying "You shouldn't have run."

As I was getting finger-printed, the cop looked at my information and said:

"Turnipseed ... isn't your dad some kind of communist?" Then, without waiting for an answer, "Well he isn't going to get you out of this one!"

So I lost the perfect ID twice. At least I wouldn't be lying to Bell anymore.