Business will be taking me to Vegas very soon.  My first trip to Sin City was New Years Eve of the Millenium.  Here’s what I remember: My drink was rum and Coke.  We went to a corner store since we were staying in someone’s condo; came back, made our own drinks (I think mine was 1.80 liters of Rum and .2 liters of Coke) and went out. The Strip was closed off so everyone was outside; at the New Year I was hugging every chick who smiled at me as I was pushed me into a cab. And the next morning I was praying to the Porcelain God.

I have no regrets about my hardcore clubbin years, but I’m much happier overall in the place I’m in now.  Truth be told, I’d probably be doing some version of that lifestyle still, but two events happened that ‘scared me straight’…

The first was my girlfriend at the time hitting me with the ‘I’m late’ call one morning.  That one is not really funny at all; for me that whole morning was thinking, ‘You had everything wrapped up, but you couldn’t take 30 seconds to wrap it up…you idiot…you’re going to be one of those dads that hate their kids…you’re never leaving Kansas…but this is what you deserve…’   Then it turned out that she really was late and crisis averted.  And since then, I’ve decided to practice abstinence and not give away the goods again until my wedding night…

(Excuse me for a moment…have to duck this lightning bolt aimed at my right temple…OK.)

The second scared straight story actually is funny (in retrospect). I shared it with a couple of my cousins over the past couple weekends, so I figured I’d repeat it here:

It was the night of the bachelor party of one of my Frat brothers.  So, in that regard, it was already going to be on.  One of the guys knew of a BYOB strip club (which frankly I haven’t heard of before or since) but knowing that going in, we packed a cooler and went to set it off.  I was still in full 2Pac mode, so I gave my keys to one of my running buddies at the door since I knew I was getting lit.  And I did, champagne, rum and coke, shots, whiskey, who knows what else.  We did it up.  Now we had to get home…

My designated driver had a couple drinks, but since he knew he was the designated driver, he didn’t go all in like myself and the others.  So when the cops pulled us over driving home, he was sweating bullets. (Unlike me and the guy in the back seat, who started cracking up…) Po-po comes to the car, asks for my homie’s license, my registration (since it was my car), and goes to run the tags.  It was at this point that the driver had to grab my arm since (in complete drunken seriousness) I was threatening to jump out of the car and run into the fields to see if the cops would chase me…

Cop comes back, gives the driver the breathalyzer.  Takes one look at it, throws it over his shoulder.  So then he looks at me and says, “Sir, this is your car, do you think you can drive?”  With no hesitation I said,

“Me?!?  Officer, I had WAY more to drink than he did!  I can’t drive!!!!”

At that point, the cop looks at me, then the Driver and says, ‘Guys, please be careful getting home.’

And lets us go. No arrests, no DUI, no tickets. He just let us go.

Why? I have NO idea.  None.  But I knew immediately (well not immediately, the next morning as I was popping aspirin like M&Ms, but you catch my drift) that the odds of a white cop pulling over 2 and a half stone drunk black kids at 2 in the morning who are giving themselves up and deciding to let them go were less than zero.  As you can imagine, that story still gets talked about between myself and the others who were there.  I still don’t know why he just let us go.  And I’m not going to act like that was the last night alcohol ever crossed my lips, but that was the definitive “OK Malik, you REALLY have to start slowing down” event  And my ‘born again’ process began.

So since I’ve had two very real strikes, I have no intention of taking myself out of the game.  And oh yes, the moral of the story kids is you can be the smartest, the most talented, the hardest working person in the world, but sometimes, to be honest, you just have to be lucky!

Now if you’ll all excuse me, I want to reminisce on my days playing with fire…