Got Ice and Got Arrested, Kind Of.

I guess I was around 30 years old, so I'm gonna say this story takes place in the summer of 2007, in Highlands Ranch, Colorado.

Highlands Ranch is, without a doubt, THE PERFECT SUBURB, and my street Heatherton Lane, was the crown jewel; with perfectly painted McMansions and perfectly manicured lawns, hedges, trees and...people.

Wide, clean and perfectly paved streets, master-planned communities with "Final Build Out" dates so you could know when the 7th day was and when the gods of Shea Homes would rest.

There were tons, JUST TONS of white families just multiplying all over the place like it's their job (seriously, I think there was like one black family in the whole town, and two hispanic families...uggghhhh, diversity was a problem), block parties every weekend, game night at somebodies house every other night, new neighbor parties that lasted three days, goodbye parties that lasted a week.

Land Rovers and Volvos perched in every garage and every other house seemed to have a boat or jet skis or a motorcycle or a jetpack sitting out front. Children's bikes and toys littering the streets, neighbor dogs just wandering into your house for a mid-day nap...

...I knew everybody and everybody knew me, which means (of course) that we gossiped the shit out of each others private lives until they weren't private anymore. In fact, after a while nobody in my neighborhood really expected to keep any secrets (air quote) truly secret. (air quote)

It was the ideal of suburban life.

The most perfectly managed community with the most benign and quiet neighborhoods in Americana. (Hey The 50's, Be Jealous!)

The couple that we hung out with the most was A&T. (A&T are now divorced and I'm not friends with either of them anymore, but for all I know they could be doing wet work for the CIA, so I'm just going to use their initials just to be safe. Cool? Cool.)

"A" was my home slice. The cool guy transplant from Detroit. We mountain biked together a bunch of times, brewed beer several times, worked together a few times and bullshitted with eachother most of the time. And when we weren't doing all of that stuff we were just hanging out drinking the hard stuff and telling lies about people we knew.

"A" was, no joke, the best guy friend I think I've ever had.

"T" was (true story) pale, bug-eyed, red-headed, loud-mouthed, tactless, cruel and, well, she was just a real bitch. I never understood why "A" put up with her, let alone married her in the first place.

On this particular night "A", my ex and I, along with a few stragglers from my ex's work were celebrating my new Wii console and trying to distract "A" from the fact that he was headed toward divorce with "T" because she sucked ass (sad story), anywho, we had been going pretty hard at the drinks since early in the evening. I rule at Wii. Btw.

We've got the music blaring now, the Wii is a hit, "A" has temporarily forgotten how shitty his life has become and I'm feeling like that guy in that movie where he says "I am a golden god!" right before he jumps off a roof into somebody's pool. You know the one..? Doesn't matter, I felt that good, only I didn't have a pool to jump into, so I jumped into another cocktail. Wheee! Splash! Drunk.

I guess it was around 2 in the morning when the saddest thing happened...We Ran Out OF ICE!!! I know, I cried too.

Whilst the other party people didn't know that we had run out of ice, "A" and I were all too suddenly aware, and knowing that we were still far too thirsty to quit; we immediately devised a brilliant strategy to get more of the cold stuff.

We were going to steal it. Kind of.

The thing is that since "A" and "T" had been going through the first days of their separation and impending divorce "A" had been staying with us because he and "T" couldn't be in the same room or he might strangle her or worse, forgive her for being a cheating bitch. (truth)

"A" had only been staying with us for a few days so far, but shit was definitely tense between those two and "A" did not want to see her AT ALL.

Now, had I been a better man or more sober I would have been sensitive to that fact.

But I wasn't, and I wasn't. So I wasn't.

A few minutes later I had convinced "A" to join me on the black-ops mission to get more ice.

I think my exact words were "Do it for you. Do it for me bro! WE'VE SIMPLY GOT TO SAVE THIS PARTY!!"...Hi, Drama Club? Yah, it's your Boss.

"A"s house was on the next block over, so cocktail in hand, yes I brought it with, we set out at a fast walk, trying to be as quiet as possible while drunkenly (read: loudly) reciting (read: shouting) the lyrics from Motorheads classic "The Ace Of Spades"..."You know I'm born to lose/and gambling's for fools/But that's the way I like it baby/I don't wanna live forever"...ahhh poetry for the weary soul.

We got to "A"s house and he wanted to see if "T" was even home in the first place so he stood on the bumper of his work truck and peeked into the windows of his garage door. He panicked and said something to the effect of he couldn't "go thru with it", couldn't "stand to see her face, even on accident." (actual quotes)

So, we bailed. We ran back to my house and decided that even great parties have to end sometime.

The End.

j/k.

We went back to "A"s house a few minutes later (after I pumped him up about "Epic Parties" and "Plenty of Fish in the Sea" and "Whiskey Tastes Better With Ice" and "I Won't Be Your Friend If You Don't Man Up And Do This". You know, pep talk stuff.)

We get to the house and for some reason "A" decides that rather than walking calmly into HIS OWN HOME to retrieve the ice, he's going to sneak in as quietly as possible, he's not going to turn on any lights, he's telling me to keep the Motorhead lyrics down and he even takes his sandals off! Ninja!

So I'm standing on the curb, humming metal tunes to myself when "A" comes tearing out of the house AT A FULL SPRINT, carrying the entire fucking ice box! Which he gives to me!

Now "A" is sprinting for my house and I (retarded) don't know why not to run, so I run too!

We're about halfway around the block now, giggling to ourselves about a successful mission and how the party will be "even more epic now", and far, far in the distance we hear police sirens, maybe two police cars.

"Oh man! somebody's in trouble dude!"

"I know right?"

"It must be like three in the morning, who the hell is up at three in the morning in Highlands Ranch!?...Dumb shits!"

"Totally!"

Now, far at the edge of my neighborhood I see them, two police cars with sirens blaring, and one blacked out SUV with a SWAT looking dude hanging off the side of the vehicle.

I shit you not!

"DUDE! I think those guys are after somebody around here!"

"This is crazy! Who do you think they're after!?"

At this point the police and swat cars turned onto my street and gunned their throttles headed in our direction...

"Oh. My. God. Bro! I think they're after somebody in our neighborhood!"

"Damn Dude!"

The cop cars screeched to a very dramatic stop right behind us. Guns Drawn.

"Oh, it's us."

"Oh."

POLICE: "PUT YOUR FUCKING HANDS IN THE AIR!!"

Oops.

Now, I wanted to comply, I wanted to put my hands in the air. I really did.

But you see, I had the ice box.

A's got his hands in the air by now, and I'm just standing there looking at the cop, at the ice, at the cop, at the ice...at the cop.

POLICE: "YOU WITH THE ICE! SIT DOWN!!"

No problem. But, I didn't want to sit on the sidewalk because, let's face it, sitting on the hard concrete is uncomfortable no matter how you sit. So I walked slowly to the curb (POLICE: "SIT DOWN!") gently set the ice box down and sat on the curb with my legs stretched and crossed in front of me. Comfy as Kanga in Roo.

The thing about this cop that's yelling at us is that he's HUGE and really serious looking. Imagine "Bull" from Night Court with the voice of the Sergeant from Full Metal Jacket.

Also, point of interest, the other cops and the one SWAT dude still have drawn guns.

POLICE: "BACK TOWARDS ME"

"A" backs up.

POLICE: "INTERLACE YOUR FINGERS BEHIND YOUR BACK!"

"A" tries, fails, says: "I don't understand" ever so quietly.

The cop rumbles over and demonstrates by turning around and holding his own hand behind his back..."LIKE THIS!"

"A" does it.

The cop grabs "A"s pinkies and pulls up. Hard. He starts frisking him and says "DO YOU HAVE ANYTHING IN YOUR POCKETS THAT WILL POKE, PROD OR GENERALLY MAKE ME UNHAPPY?"

"A" says "I don't think so..."

The cop is now touching the OUTSIDE of "A"s pockets and (no shit) says...

"WHAT'S THIS? GUM!?"

"yes."

"WHAT KIND? STRIDE?!?"

"Wow yah it is!"

"THAT'S GOOD GUM!"

The cop touches the outside of his other pocket and says...

"WHAT'S THIS? A PHONE?!"

"yah"

"IS IT A MOTOROLA RAZOR?!"

"that's incredible! it is!"

"I HAVE THE SAME PHONE!"

The cop pulls out "A"s wallet and shouts "GO SIT NEXT TO YOUR FRIEND WITH THE ICE!"

"A" sits next to me and he's actually smiling at me as he says "That was pretty cool."

"STOP TALKING TO THE GUY WITH THE ICE!"

And then..."YOU! WITH THE ICE! STAND UP...BACK TOWARDS ME!"

I do.

"INTERLACE YOUR FINGERS BEHIND YOUR BACK"

I try, I fail. "I don't understand"

The cop walks over to me and demonstrates by holding his own hand behind his back..."LIKE THIS!"

I do it and the cop grabs me by the pinkies and lifts up. Hard. And starts frisking me...

"DO YOU HAVE ANYTHING IN YOUR POCKETS THAT WILL POKE, PROD OR GENERALLY MAKE ME UNHAPPY?!"

"I don't think so..."

Touching all of my pockets on the outside he shouts into my ear "WHY DON'T YOU HAVE ANYTHING IN YOUR POCKETS!?"

"I didn't plan ahead?"

"WHERE DID YOU GET THE ICE?!"

"From his house...?"

"WHAT'S THE ICE FOR?!"

"Cocktails?"

"GO SIT NEXT TO YOUR ICE!"

So, the cop walks over and talks to his buddies and slowly but surely we see the guns going down and being holstered. The blacked out SUV with the SWAT dude drives off and so does the other cop car...so now it's just me, "A", the cop and the ice. But he's still shouting, even tho he's like, 12 inches from our faces.

"OK GUYS, HERE'S THE DEAL, WE GOT A REPORT OF A COUPLE OF GUYS DRESSED EXACTLY LIKE YOU TWO"...

"Exactly like us?!" ... We were wearing t-shirts and blue jeans, I had sandals on, "A" was barefoot.

"EXACTLY LIKE YOU! ANYWHO (He says "anywho") WE GOT A REPORT OF A COUPLE OF CAR THIEVES CASING A HOUSE ABOUT 30 MINUTES AGO AND THEN WE GOT A REPORT THAT THE SAME THIEVES CAME BACK AND BROKE INTO A HOUSE AND STOLE AN ICE BOX INSTEAD!"

"Ah Ha Moment" here. These cops were bored to death on their night shift and got a report of a couple of idiots sneaking around in the middle of the night with an ice box...this makes so much more sense now.

So, the cop checks "A"s ID and sees that the address on his license is the same as the house where we stole the ice from. We talk to him about the party and how we ran out of ice. He seems to relax (a little) and he actually walks with us back to my house where the music is STILL BLARING and nobody even knows about the drama that was happening less than 30 feet away and at this moment the hard-ass cop becomes the laid-back cop we had suspected was hiding behind that booming voice...

Until he says his goodbyes "DON'T EVER DO THAT AGAIN!"

After all that; the party was, in fact, more epic.

BTW...I found out later it was "T" that had called the cops.