Oh, the side-splitting counter-Darwinian hijinks those headline-capturing police blotter inebriates produce each week on the highways, byways and beaches of the Lowcountry![1]

Whether it be a wobbly motorist telling a cop “he’s had five beers plus one beer,” a naked bicyclist peddling towards a fast-food drive-thru, or a domestic dispute involving tire irons and trash can lids, the police blotter is sure to bring a winsome smile to even the crabbiest of malcontents.

Not too long ago, you had to riffle to the back of the City Paper, Folly Current, or Section 12B of the Post and Courier to discover who had tried to drive his car up the stairs leading to the Battery’s promenade or who had stuffed two bottles of champagne in his pants in a failed heist; however, in these latter days seeking out the absurd is almost too easy.  For example, here is a screen capture from a recent Live 5 web posting:

Still, I prefer the paper, whose account of the Halloween mishaps of a luckless 21-year-old who drove his vehicle into Colonial Lake offers more details than Live-5’s recap.  For example, in the paper we learn that divers were employed to see if another passenger was in the car, the one the 21-year-old claimed had been driving.  Live-5 did, however, estimate the parameters of his intoxication, between .10 and .16.

I’m not one to talk, though. I once drove my MG Midget down the steps of a parking garage into Campus Police Headquarters, which resulted in a reckless driving ticket and six points off my license and a hefty increase in my insurance rates.

Too bad I didn’t pay more heed to those street preachers who haunted the streets of Columbia back in the day.

Street Preacher

 

 

A fire-breathing preacher named Mitch

From a street corner bellowed his pitch

He warned of the horrors of hell

Where one day I was bound to dwell,

That sanctimonious, psalm-singing son-of-a-bitch.

 

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[1]  Not to mention beneath bridges, inside the cabs of heavy construction equipment, and upon picnic tables.