Drunken driving - a very short story

I've met up with my my mate Dangerous Dave at a pub in Manchester. I'm driving so decline on the beers. However we stay longer than we are meant to and my will power decreases by the round. I eventually have a beer and then another and another etc. Maybe surprisingly to some, this type of behaviour is a rarity in my life. I usually have the resolve to prevent it.

We decide to go back to Bury where Dave's mum lives and I am feeling majorly paranoid driving home stinking of alcohol. I'm on edge and therefore making more errors than usual. Minor errors like setting the windscreen wipers off instead of indicating and stopping at green traffic lights, nothing too extreme. Paranoia starts to get the better of me and I am convinced that I am going to get stopped by the police. As the paranoia increases my driving gets worse, until eventually I am a bundle of nerves and can hardly remember how to drive at all. I'm thinking too much about my every move and we all know the problems over thinking can cause. It's like when you're on a run on the pool table and you decide to think about a shot, you invariably mess the shot up.

I'm feeling so nervous that I make a fatal mistake and decide to take the back roads through Cheatham Hill. My reasoning is that I am less likely to get stopped because there will be less police. I give little regard to the the fact that I don't know the back roads of Cheatham Hill.

Ten minutes later and I have driven more in reverse than forward gear, as I keep entering cul-der-sac's. I am more than a little agitated by now and wishing myself back to Dave's mums. I look in my mirror, see a police car right up my rear end and I think "fuck it, the games up". The police car overtakes me and as I expect he pulls up in front of me. I pull my own vehicle up behind him and get out of the car. The police man driving the car gets out of his vehicle and we walk towards each other. My legs are wobbly and I'm fully expecting a driving ban. I estimate that 20 yards separates us at the start of our reverse duel. We meet at the 10 yard mark and I freeze in terror and await my fate. The police man walks straight past me and enters the newsagents a few feet to my left. I'm stood on the pavement, quite unable to assimilate what has just happened. It takes Dave's frantic gesticulations to penetrate my shock bubble and get me back into the car.

I drive back to Dave's mums with perfect control and coordination.