Two: Growing up, I was a Good Girl. I never got into trouble, even when I deserved it, and I rarely did. Teachers loved me. I didn't take my first drink or swallow my first pills of dubious origin or enjoy that lung-burning first toke on a joint until well into college. In high school, I had one remarkably chaste relationship with a very sweet and considerate boy named Tim. I came home every evening by dinnertime, unless I was working at the grocery store or babysitting. While I skipped school from time to time by pretending to be sick with a migraine (which I did get, though not as frequently as it might have appeared), I'd spend the day with my Grandmama, drinking Coke and eating soup and watching daytime television and napping in Granddaddy's recliner. That was my exciting high school life.

So, I was a Good Girl, doing what was expected, more or less (the whole lesbian thing was a bit of a snag, but was an ernest lesbian, one of those non-threatening hippie types who read Sylvia Plath and Adrienne Rich and dreamed of one day owning lots of cats. People laughed at me when I said the word "fuck," even in college.

That all changed when I hit my long-delayed adolescence in my mid-20s. I spent the first half of my 20s continuing to be a Good Girl -- I acted like a grown-up while I lived with Evil Ex. I worked several jobs, I avoided debt, I went to school and I came home to have the occasional drink or the even more occasional hit or two of pot. And, of course, I did exactly what Evil Ex told me to do. When she dumped me, I realized my options were much wider than I'd ever imagined. I had disposable income. I had a car. I had the ability to see long-term consequences of a 15-year-old.

But this story isn't about how I dyed my hair purple or got my tongue pierced or dropped out of graduate school. These two snippets are about how I, somehow, led a charmed life through those adolescent years. These are just the two where I actually interacted with law enforcement. I cannot count the number of times I skirted the law and never had any consequences at all.  (As an aside, my experience is in direct contrast to my brother's. He was never able to get away with anything and has successfully fought two DUIs, and has walked away from numerous car crashes. Well, not direct contrast, I suppose. He has no criminal record, but he spent a lot more money than me keeping it that way).

One: The year I lived in Asheville, the year after I dropped out of my PhD program and worked for $8/hour plus whatever tips I could scam as assistant manager of a Damon's restaurant, I coasted in an alcohol- and drug-induced fog. I didn't much care what happened to me that year, and when I received a bill for six months worth of car insurance that I had no way of paying, I simply tossed it into the bin. I felt bad about it, a little, but I tried not to think too much about the fact that I was driving -- often drunk -- a car with no legal tags or registration. A couple of months after I failed to pay the bill, I was taking my dog to the dog park at the edge of a state park. I took a short cut, and around a corner, saw a police checkpoint.

"Ah, well, the gig's up," I thought. I wondered if they'd impound my car. I wondered how I'd get me and my dog home, and who I could borrow money from to get the mess I'd created straightened out. I wasn't even going to try to talk myself out of it, because I knew I had no excuses whatsoever. I rolled down my window, and the officer asked for my license and registration. I handed the over, saying nothing. I fiddled with my cigarette lighter. Sadie licked my ear and wagged her butt in the direction of the cop and whined to be let out of the car.

"Soon," I whispered. The cop returned from wherever he'd gone with my paperwork, and said that because my license was out-of-county they'd had to call it in to verify my insurance, and that everything was fine. Drive carefully, you can go now.

I smiled and said thank you, and drove off. My heart pounded. I was giddy with adrenaline. I have no idea what actually happened there or why I wasn't busted.

Almost a year later, my mom found out I'd been driving with now-expired tags, in addition to invalid ones, and why. She paid for my insurance to be reinstated, and it hasn't lapsed since. Not quite a month after I got insurance again, I was rear-ended by a large SUV, and because I had insurance, I called the cops. The money I got from the accident to fix my car, I used to move back to Wilmington and hit the reset button on my life. Again.

Two: I was getting my life back on track in Wilmington. I was substantially less self-destructive, for one thing. When I moved from Asheville, I stuck with the legal intoxicants - caffeine, nicotine, and alcohol. I went to a party a co-worker's place at Wrightsville Beach one night, and had a few beers. I was, most likely, over the legal limit, but only just. My co-workers passed around a joint, and I enjoyed the smell of the second-hand smoke but did not smoke any myself. I left around two, following another friend. As we turned onto the main road off the island, I gunned the engine of my 1986 Chevy Blazer to go around her, and immediately saw the blue lights behind me.

I lit a cigarette. That's what my mom had told me to do if I got pulled over for drinking. The smoke would hide the smell of the alcohol.

"Please put the cigarette out," said the officer as he approached my window. I did as I was told. "License and registration." I had them in my hand, legal ones, even before he asked. He asked me if I'd been drinking. I said I'd had a couple of beers over the course of a night, but that it had been an hour or so since I'd had anything. He asked me if I'd been smoking marijuana. "No!" I responded vehemently, and then began to stammer that I'd been at a party, that other people had been smoking and that I used to smoke a long time ago, but that I'd quit and that I never do any sort of illegal drugs anymore. I couldn't stop myself.

Another officer arrived, and they asked me to step out of the vehicle. The second officer asked if it would be okay if they searched my car because of the smell of marijuana. I shrugged. "Okay," I said. I knew there was nothing to hide. I hoped there was nothing to hide. There couldn't be anything to hide, could there?

"Please take everything out of your pockets, ma'am," officer two said, as officer one dragged out old cigarette packs, fast food wrappers from earlier in the day, a stack of mail, dog toys, a change of clothes, several cracked cd cases, and god only knows what else.

"I'm going to tell you what I have in my pockets," I said. "My brother is a police officer and he's told me that there have been misunderstandings about what people pull out, so I just want to tell you up front." I listed my cigarettes, my zippo lighter, my pocketknife, my keys, a couple of pens, a bunch of change, and a wad of one-dollar bills. He asked me again if I'd been drinking and I responded the same way. He asked if I knew why I'd been pulled, and I said no, that I'd been obeying traffic laws. Apparently, I swerved out into the outside lane of a four-lane road and that was "suspicious behavior."

"Huh," I said. "My brother the police officer never told me about that."

The officer looked over at officer one, who was still poking through my belongings.  "Your brother's a cop, huh? Where at?"

Finally, he'd taken the bait. "Wallace," I said.

"Oh yeah? What's his name?"

I told him.

"Whaddaya know, I taught him in basic law enforcement training. Hold on a second." He walked over to the other cop, said a few words and together, they reloaded my truck with my stuff, including my garbage.

"Tell your brother I said hey," said officer one. "Drive carefully and you have a good night. Be careful about what friends you're hangin' around with. They can get you into trouble even if you ain't done anything yourself."

I nodded, and got into my truck. I lit a cigarette, and thought about what I was going to say to my brother when I got to a phone. Thank you didn't seem enough.