The Arrest

I met this guy, we'll call him Rocker (not to be confused with The Rockstar, my fling from earlier this year) b/c he looks like your typical American rocker—super cute, long messy hair, scruffy beard, cool clothes (as Nicole Ritchie put it, "the kind of guy who looks like he smells but he doesn't"), through Cancun (the boy I met at the house party). Rocker and I were introduced at a pub during the Rugby World Cup match, France v. Ireland, and he looked like an asshole and was slightly rude so of course I immediately took a liking to him. You know those guys that look like trouble, like they will break your heart... exactly the kind of boy I always fall for. Anyway, he called me up on Saturday night (at 11:30pm... who asks a girl out that late anyway? Assholes...) and invited me to this house party in the 19th arr. I was already out with another friend so I told him I would try to stop by a bit later.

I ended up showing up at the party around 2:30am. He introduced me to a couple people as ma copine (my girlfriend) then proceeded to ignore me so I went off in search of people to talk to. I ended up spending the night talking to a group of French people who had just got back from studying in Australia and were really in awe of the fact that I was from New York.

Then around 4am, Rocker finally comes to find me, drapes an arm around my shoulders all possessive-like and says “I’m taking her home, lets go”. So we leave the party with his best friend and get into his car. He casually says, “I hope the police don’t stop us, I’m really drunk”. My drunk self didn't think, "hmm, maybe he shouldn't be driving then"… I’m just like "ok whatever”.

And of course, the police stop us at a random checkpoint. They give him a breathalyzer test which he fails so he’s sent off to jail for at least 24 hours!! Meanwhile, his car is sitting in the middle of the street and the police want ME to move it—problem is, it's a manual which I don’t know how to drive. But the other girl with us didn't have a license so she couldn't drive it. The police give me a breathalyzer to see if I am ok to drive (I was just under the legal limit), takes my passport and asks me a million questions, then sends us on our way.

The girl and I spend the next hour trying to drive the car home, unsuccessfully… finally we give up and she calls her ex-boyfriend to come and rescue us since we're stuck in the middle of the street in one of the dodgiest parts of Paris with drivers cursing at us in French to get the hell out of the way… the ex shows up about an hour later, too drunk to drive (plus he had his license taken away the week before for drunk driving)… so he parks the car in an alleyway and we all get on the train and go home… I stumbled in around 6:30am.

So that was my first experience with the French police—the entire time, the girl and her ex were blaming the situation on Sarkozy (France’s new conservative president whom the young student population have a fierce dislike for), saying he’s the one who’s implemented all these tough sanctions and France isn’t want it used to be, blah blah blah… all I’m wondering is what the police plan to do with all my information…