Miranda Rights

Day: 111

After another badass Cuban lunch we loaded our car, said our goodbyes to Aaron’s grandparents, and filled into Skittles. We were headed to Daytona Beach, Florida, where I had found a three bedroom house with a spa to rent for four nights for less than $200 a night; and since we had one more friend, Ryan, coming out to meet us we thought it would be way sweeter than a hotel room. When we arrived after a two hour drive a man name Harry met us at the house, took our money and let us in. We quickly felt at home and were mixing drinks before we took a stroll around the beach to see what the next four days would consist of.

We started drinking and before we knew it was last call and the lights came on in the bar, killing my precious night vision. I had been talking to a fellow photographer (and sexy lady), Lu, and tricked her into heading down to the beach for a walk along the deserted sands and even a moonlit swim in the warm Florida water before she headed off to her room for bed and I set out to find a taxi back to the house. Everyone else had headed back about an hour before, so when I got back to our house I expected everyone to be asleep. That was the case, except for Matt who had a beer in his hand and was about to set out to wander around alone through the streets of Daytona. He saw my cab coming and he was calling my name out as soon as the door opened and my foot hit the asphalt.

We wandered the deserted streets and beaches, swimming a bunch of hotel pools and the ocean, went back to the house for a refill and hit the beaches once more. Now Daytona was completely empty and it was coming up on 4 am and there was no one to be seen for miles in either direction. What are two drunk guys going to do completely alone other than start making trouble. We finally stumbled into a hotel pool and, after a quick swim, Matt lifted a life preserver from its perch and he and I set off down the beach with our booty. We wandered with the thing on his shoulder for a long time (time being relative to our state of mind) and decided to head home. Walking along the main drag, Matt ready to save someone from drowning, we made it about three blocks from home before Matt looks up and says:

“Shit, I think thats a cop.” He quickly, but without any form of stealth, proceeded to ditch his treasure in the bushes and we kept walking. The police car hit its breaks and flipped a bitch.

The spotlight hit us, “You boys dropped your life preserver.”

Blank stares from both of us as one officer went back to get the life ring and the other asked us where we got it.

Matt said “I don’t remember” at the same time as I said “We found it on the beach”

Damn. Our stories didn’t jive. We knew it, and they knew it. They started playing good cop/bad cop to scare us. We started talking, telling all, and I even tried to make a joke (to make friends with the Police) only to have the bad cop yell from the car:

“Do they think this shit is funny?”

“No officer… (hardly contained internal giggle)” I quickly replied.

We stood there ready to giggle while they ran all our information, read us our rights, took all our specifics, and took our pictures. We have officially been warned by the Daytona Beach Police Department. After fucking with us for about half an hour, they finally let us go after telling us they would try to return the life ring and let us hope the hotel didn’t press charges.

We staggered back to the house laughing the whole way, to wake up the other three boys for a quick five in the morning retelling.

Life can sure be funny.