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Last Thursday through today, I hosted a visit from one of my good college buddies, Rob.  He was visiting from Massachusetts, and decided to take advantage of some vacation time and visit our little town of Baltimore.  One of the goals of the weekend was to enjoy decent quanties of adult beverages.  It’s pretty safe to say we accomplished that goal.

That said, Rob’s visit did have a rather interesting moment.  Rob arrived Thursday afternoon, so he joined my group of neighborhood friends as we partook in our usual Thursday event called Liquid Therapy.  We had some beers at Spirits Tavern in (upper) Fell’s Point on Thursday night, and I was driving the rest of us back to Federal Hill for a nightcap.  In an attempt to have some fun at my friends’ expense, I decided to run to my car and lock them out.  Rob decides to keep up with me, and we both get to my car.

We get into the car, and my other two buddies come up to the car as well, getting ready to get in.  We have had our fun, and everybody gets into the car.  Suddenly, two Baltimore police cars come up the street and ask us to put our hands where they can see them.  There are a few plain-clothes detectives and one uniformed officer who I shall call Mini-Cop.

They proceed to ask why we were running, and I reply that I was intending to play a prank on my friends before we headed back to Federal Hill, where we lived.  One of the officers states that there has been some assaults in the area, and I make the remark that it is pretty obvious we have not assaulted anybody this evening.  At this point, Mini-Cop has approached the driver’s side window of my car and asks if we have been drinking.  I state honestly, that I had a couple of beers, and my friend Rob interjects by saying, “I drank every ounce of available beer and booze in the joint, so he is sober.”  My thinking is that our height-disadvantaged officer is on a slight power-trip and wants to administer a sobriety test.
Another one of the plain-clothes officers approaches the car and says that we are not the suspects they are looking for and tells Mini-Cop to send us on our way.  Everyone gets in the car, and we are preparing to go when one of the officers tells my buddy Rob “Sir, you can put your hands down now.”  All this time, Rob has had his hands up, even as the officers told us to get on our way.

The entire tale is even funnier if you consider that the officers came up after seeing me run to my car.  I wouldn’t even call it running, as it was more like a goofy jog.  Any poor soul who has seen me run can attest to this.  Even then, the officers descend on our “getaway vehicle,” a silver Honda Accord sedan.  Finally, there is the small problem that not much assaulting is going to take place when your “crew” consists of an IT manager, a software developer, a chemical engineer, and a master carpenter, all of whom live in a decent part of town.

Just goes to show you: There’s never a dull moment in the Home of the Hons.