We Can Kiss, But Only If My Lawyer Is Present.

Hi! Sorry I have been out of touch; we have been busy serving as seriously lousy hosts to some visiting friends (other than washing my hair before their arrival-- which is something!--I'm not sure I put any significant effort into making their visit more enjoyable; I blame the children's spring break from school for sapping me of my energy and inspiration!). But I have been meaning to follow up on my previous “law and order” post; you would not *believe* what happened to some friends of mine here. This story is entitled, “There But For the Grace of God Go I.”

So this couple I know, they got into a little bit of trouble with the law. Thus, by the powers vested in me by the state of Blog, I hereby pronounce them "Bonnie and Clyde."

(Note: This story was told to me personally by Clyde; however, my ears were hearing it through the haze of a deceptively potent Cosmopolitan. So apologies in advance to Bonnie and Clyde—who are readers of the blog!—if I miss or screw up important details. Here’s the story as well as I remember it, now that the hangover has worn off.)

Ok. So Bonnie and Clyde go out with their friends, whom we will call Loverboy (a Canadian) and Lovergirl (an American), for drinks one night. Many drinks. Loverboy and Lovergirl are dating; Bonnie and Clyde are married. At some point, the couples part ways. Loverboy and Lovergirl get into a cab. Bonnie and Clyde get into another cab. Clyde sends Loverboy a text message to the effect of, “Let’s now go to X party.” Loverboy responds with this text message: “Love to. But I’ve just been arrested.” And he punctuates it with a sad face emoticon, you know, because he just wanted to make clear that this was an unhappy development.

Several more text messages are exchanged, during which Clyde learns that the following events took place: Loverboy and Lovergirl may or may not have been canoodling in the back of the taxi. The taxi cab is pulled over. NOT by a policeman. But by a UAE CITIZEN—an all-powerful Emirati (whom Clyde refers to as a “National”). Emirati families make up only a small percentage of the population here relative to the kajillions of expatriates, but they are afforded all sorts of privileges simply by virtue of the fact that they are natives to this country (for example, a law was recently passed declaring that Emiratis cannot lose their jobs in a financially-driven employee layoff; Emiratis can only be fired for cause). Furthermore, Emiratis can legendarily get away with almost anything on the roads-- speeding, cutting people off, etc.-- and are conveniently identifiable by their license plates: Emiratis have single, double, or triple digit license plate numbers (i.e., A 26) whereas mine, by contrast, has a letter and 5 digits (translation: go ahead, run me off the road, I’m a nobody here, I have no connections!).

Ok, so back to the story. An Emirati man waves the taxi over to the side of the road. He then opens the door of the taxi and starts yelling at the couple something like, “You are disgusting! Do that in your own country! You have offended me and my wife! I have called the police!” Soonafter, the police show up, and the couple is arrested.

Not sure about Lovergirl, but Loverboy is charged with the following 3 offenses:

(1) Public Drunkenness (You are legally allowed to consume alcohol in hotel-affiliated bars, but the minute you step outside the establishment, you are now technically in violation of the public drunkenness law. Nice!)

(2) Inappropriate Public Display (canoodling, which Loverboy denies took place; he is sticking to the story that he was merely “smelling her hair”) (ahaha)

and here’s the crazy one:

(3) Adultery, even though NEITHER PERSON WAS MARRIED. Here in the UAE, it is considered “adultery” for a man and a woman who are not married TO EACH OTHER to be found alone in a secluded area. As Paris would say, Loves it!

Ok, so at this point in the story, it's pretty late and Loverboy is in the clink. Clyde says, sit tight, I will figure out how to spring you in the morning. (Long night for Loverboy ensues, I would imagine.)

Next day, Clyde prepares to orchestrate Operation Smooch. He dresses up in a fancy sportsjacket and grabs his fancy briefcase. He and Bonnie hop in the car to take a morning drive to jail.

Pulling up to the jailhouse, Clyde wonders aloud whether Bonnie should stay in the car. She is agreeable to staying put. Clyde goes into the jail and takes a seat at a counter not unlike the DMV.

Speaking to the guy behind the counter, Clyde is given a bit of a runaround regarding Loverboy’s likelihood of getting out that day—something about the magistrate not being in the office over the weekend, and how it would be at least 2 days until Loverboy could be sprung. “Go speak to the guy in Office 12,” says desk guy to Clyde. So Clyde gets up and goes into a crowded room looking for Office 12, at which point he is confronted by an angry guy with a Breathalyzer. “Blow into this,” says Breathalyzer officer. Panic!, says Clyde's internal monologue, wondering if there could possibly be any alcohol remaining in Clyde's system from the previous night. He attempts to blow into the device but can't get it on the first few tries, having had no previous Breathalyzer experience (you'd think this would be a plus, but instead the officer warns, “Stop messing around or I will arrest you.” Yikes!). Clyde finally gets the machine to register: 0.02%. At which point the officer says politely, “Would you like us to take care of your car for you?””

And just like that:

CLYDE

IS

PUT

IN

JAIL,

TOO.

Can you stand it??

Meanwhile poor Bonnie, sitting out in the car-- in her words: “playing with the windows, trying to get the cross-breeze right”-- gets this text from Clyde: “In jail.” (No accompanying sad face emoticon, which I think only goes to support the case for Clyde's sobriety.)

Long story short(er), Clyde pretends he took a cab to the station and by text message, sends Bonnie home (presumptively, in the hopes of avoiding a Seinfeld-finale-type scenario in which everyone they know ends up behind bars). Bonnie begins frantically calling everyone she knows, desperate to find someone—anyone!—who has not had a drop to drink in the past 2 days and can go surrender his or her passport to the jail as Clyde’s bond. She finds a stone sober friend, that guy goes to the jail, and minutes later, Clyde is a free man. Clyde later said that his half-day behind bars was more than a little bit scary: instead of even a semi-private jail cell, he was tossed into a jam-packed room of about 40 possibly violent criminals-- at which point Clyde tried to stay out of further trouble by fastidiously reading the newspaper and sending text messages (not unlike my own mornings, come to think of it.)

Sadly, the story did not come so quickly to an end for Loverboy, who ended up spending more than 48 hours in jail... all for kissing his date! Both Loverboy and Clyde have future “court dates,” however, so this sordid tale of international intrigue may not be over yet. Stay tuned…

(And for heaven's sake, if you have the freedom to do it, go make out with your sweetheart in public. Do it for us. Do it for Loverboy!)