Merry Christmas. Here's Your Citation

A gang of twenty-somethings stumbled out of Hops & Barleys one cold and snowy December evening in 1999, expecting their excitement for the night to be over.

Donna had been hanging out with Mike since Halloween. I guess at this point she called him her boyfriend. And since the relationship was so new, he was still trying to impress her. In fact, earlier tonight Mike told Donna he was friends with all the cops in the area. But Donna topped that by saying she knew Jimmy Harnen, who had the 80s one hit wonder, "Where Are You Now?"

Mike was the door guy at Hops but he liked to pretend he was the mayor of Hops. Donna and his friends sat with him at the front table. It was a tall pub table and the best seat in the house, despite the cold air rushing in anytime someone entered or exited the busy corner bar.

As the gang walked toward Mike's car down the block, Donna saw someone she knew enter the bar and stopped to say hi. So, she was a tad behind Mike and his entourage. As Donna hustled down the snow-covered sidewalk to catch up, she noticed a Christmas tree lying in an old barrel-looking holder. There was tinsel on the tree. She hadn't noticed that there were props like this lining the entire street. This was a Charlie Brown tree; it had fallen over. It was December 19 and Mike still didn't have a Christmas tree. A lightbulb went off inside Donna's brain, something that happens often. After all, she's a radio station promotion director; her job IS ideas.

Donna lifted the tree up and proudly yelled to Mike: "Hey! I found you a Christmas tree!"

Tree in hand, she continued to walk toward Mike and his two friends, who were standing near the entrance to an alley.

"Hey young lady, co'mere," yelled a policeman, who just peeked out of the alley. He witnessed her early Christmas gift-giving attempt. And her blurry vision prevented her from noticing that Mike and the guys were talking to a uniformed officer.

Aha, Thought Donna. They are f-ing with me! I'll play along! Donna dropped the tree and put her hands in front of her. She walked a few yards down to the police officer, arms still extended.

"You can hand-cuff me now," she said, with an intoxicated giggle. "I like that."

She winked at Mike, and looked for his approval. Mike and his friend Doug were shaking their heads back and forth. When the officer started writing Donna a citation for criminal mischief, she laughed. These guys are taking this so far! It's just a silly little tree.

"You have to sign this," he said.

Donna glanced over the carbon-paper layered form and noticed a few things.

"Defendant did remove a decorative tree from its holder" was the explanation of the crime. It wasn't in a holder per se, she argued from inside her head. I didn't uproot it or anything like that... The officer had checked off Caucasian for race. How could he just assume, she thought.

"Hey now. How do you even know that I'm Caucasian? You didn't even ask me. Maybe I am Native American," she boldly asked the cop, still laughing. She noticed that no one else was laughing.

After she signed the paper, the cop said, "You have ten days to plead guilty or not guilty, and if you don't respond within ten days we will come to your house to arrest you."

"Great! On the tenth day, come on by. I'll have a cake baked!" Donna said jokingly.

She glared at Mike whose eyes were popping out of his head. She looked over at his little buddy, Doug who had his lips pursed as if trying to hold in uncontrollable laughter. I'm so funny, she thought. When are they gonna say, 'Ha, Ha' and rip up the citation and introduce me to their friend? Maybe we can all go to Ollie's together for breakfast.

The officer was not amused at Donna's musings. She thought for sure he'd have laughed at her ramblings. However, the cop gave her the yellow copy of the citation and walked back to his car and drove away.

***

"Why didn't you introduce me to your friend," asked Donna as they climbed into Mike's Dodge Shadow.

"Because he's not my friend you dumb ass. I never met him before in my life."