A Midsummer Dream

I have this bike. She's outrageously cowgirlish, because a nice young man has been overhauling it for me and somehow, he just intuits that I really wanna be a cowgirl. He's added tooled leather chaps to the front forks, fringed the saddle and somehow modified the back end with a single Chesterfield couch, the same yellow and black of Pauline Hanson's dress.

I'm off to the studio, right in the middle of town, where my family live and all of our cats and dogs, including some kids and some cats and some dogs that just arrived and never left. The studio is glass-fronted and the glass smells of Windex.

I'm sailing over the hill, around the roundabouts of Aberdeen Street. I know I'm way over the limit, because it's New Years Eve and I've got that flying, soaring feeling before the heaviness. Ahead of me, blue lights flash. They are always ahead of me, I never actually see the police car, just that shadowy, blue loom of lights. I fly over the hill on my beautiful cowgirl bicycle and know that they'll be picking someone else up and I'll just be able to sail past while they are busy.

But at the next roundabout, they're waiting for me. Three police cars, their lights spinning like one of those Red Dot battery operated disco balls, are clogging the road. But I'm fine ("not", a little voice says) because I'm riding such a beautiful bike.

A blond policewoman, coiffed, a kinder, prettier version of Bronwyn Bishop, white gloves and even a handbag, she pulls me over. All the blokes begin to look rather interested when they see my bike. But I'm fine. (Not.)

Everyone is surprised, including me, when I blow 6.945. They were too busy admiring my bike, checking out the tooled leather chaps, and having their pictures taken sitting in the Chesterfield couch behind the fringed saddle. They all look at each other, not quite sure what to do. "We've never booked anyone for being this drunk on a bicycle before."

But they book me anyway. Not even the production of a cute black puppy from the fringed saddlebags works. NicePretty BronwinBishop Policewoman collects her winnings, from all the wagers they'd made on the state of my sobriety, and smiles gorgeously at me. I know exactly what I blew - 6.945 - because she gave me the little white plastic thingy and the number is written on the side, like a pregnancy test, but in numbers, not colours.

I put it in my coat pocket because, I think, I might just go home and blog about it.