Growing Up 80s

Sitting in the driver’s seat of my car, in the Gas City parking lot one night with 3 friends, we had one goal — buy beer and go back to Susan’s house and drink it. Two of us were 16 and the other two were 15.

Sounds simple enough.

As we sat in the car at Gas City, a man approaches our car and asks, “Would you like me to buy you some beer?”. We could not believe our good fortune! We were so grateful and amazed at how easy the entire process was for us! We gave the man our money and he went into the store.

A few minutes later, he returns with our beer. As he hands the 12 pack of beer to me in the drivers seat, he pulls out his badge. I almost died – so close!

He asks to see our Driver’s licenses. The two 15 year old friends had no license and my 16 year old friend said she was 15, so I was the only one with a license. Great, thanks guys.

I proceed to beg and explain that my parents are innocently home watching TV and it would not be fair for their night to be ruined because I was stupid. Everyone in the car was begging through tears and finally it was decided that the officer and his friend, now holding our 12 pack, would follow us home. Once home, we agreed to stay in for the evening.

The officers followed us – but instead of going to my house, we drove to Susan’s house because she had her garage door opener and we pulled right in like we lived there. Whew, we made it!

Susan’s parents were out of town for the night and we were there so she would not be alone. So now, we were stuck in the house because we were convinced that the police were looking for our car to hit the road again. What to do? Susan decided that we could find something to drink that her Dad would not miss. At the back of the bar, we found Drambuie! We decided that if it was at the back of the bar, no one would notice it gone.

Rather than drinking 2-3 beers each the entire evening as planned, we were now doing shots of Drambuie. Needless to say, we were wasted. So wasted that we decided to go out on the golf course to see if there were any parties going on out there.

Side note: I grew up in a neighborhood around a golf course in the south suburbs of Chicago.

Out on the golf course, we ran into friends and decided to drink more with them. During this party on the golf course, we all decided we were hungry. We told the group of guys we were with that we could not drive my car because the cops were watching for it (being drunk was not a factor I guess) and the only other car at the house was Susan’s Dad’s stick shift Saab. We were so lucky because one of the guys knew how to drive stick!!

Back at the house, about 8 of us cram into the Saab and away we go.

Somehow this night ends without incident and we arrive home just fine. Part of me thinks that we never got to McDonalds or to White Hen for one of their sandwiches. We may have abandoned the idea of eating and just turned around, unknown.

As I look back on this night – later named Drambuie Night, I believe we were set up by the police at the Gas City. If we were able to just to buy our little 12 pack, we most likely would have had our few beers, stayed home and watched a movie.

In the end, my parent’s innocently continued to watch their TV, the cops got to split a 12 pack of beer that we paid for and my friend’s Dad never realized his bottle of Drambuie was gone or that his precious car was taken out for a joy ride by 8 drunk sophomores in high school.

That my friends is a night in the 80s….and why I have never had a sip of Drambuie again.