Ooops.
Standing on the corner of a main road in town with some mates, rather pissed and trying to decide where to go next, we were passed by a
police van. Five minutes or so pass and we're all still there, no closer to deciding where to go, when without saying a single word, two
rozzers appear from behind the corner, grab an arm each and lift and carry me backwards towards the van which had re-appeared from the other direction. They chucked me in the back despite my protestations of innocence, saying "we don't like being called wankers" by way of an explanation. My mates were meanwhile, in roughly equal numbers, getting close to being carted off themselves arguing my case or running away. Off we drove, back to the nick.

When we got there, there was a long delay while the desk sergeant fannied about freeing up space or somesuch, during which time I managed to remain sober enough to whingingly convince them that it wasn't in fact me that had been insulting them. I also managed to avoid the booking in routine, pocket search etc., which came in handy during the following... (I had plenty of cash left)

Them: Ok, you're free to go
Me: Great, now, how I am supposed to get home?
Them: Eh?
Me: I have two quid left, which would have been perfectly adequate to use for a cab split with my mates... if you hadn't have hauled me away.
Them: Pay when you get home?
Me: Two quid left for the month, not the night.
Them: Oh. Wait there a minute.

One of them buggers off in the direction of the sergeant, they leave for another room. There's then a lot of muffled shouting and he comes back looking very sheepish, as the sergeant goes back to the desk with red cheeks and a face like thunder. The copper says they are going to give me a lift home, and they do.

The back of the car was piled up with jackets, boots, hats, etc., and I had to squash the pile up to make room. Feeling quite peeved, and apparently not quite as sober as I'd thought, I decided that a nice policeman's hat would need to be added to the rollicking he got from the sarge and the lift home he wasn't obliged to give me, to make it up to a reasonable compensation for the slight of character and loss of an evening. And so, over the course of christ-knows-how-long, I managed to surrupticiously move one from the pile to my footwell, then up the inside of my shirt and get my coat done up without the zip maiing any noise. Yay. Got home, grudgingly thanked them for the lift, and went walked around the back of a house a few doors down from mine in case they were watching. As soon as they disappeared, one of my mates who had been there at the start appeared, seemingly from nowhere - he'd been waiting for me to get back, bless 'im, and had hidden when he saw the rozzers turn up.

Him: Did they charge you for it?
Me: For what? I didn't bloody do anything!
Him: Errr, yes you did.
Me: Eh?
Him: You screamed "Oi! Waaaannnkkeeerrrsssshhhh!" at them as they passed, accompanied with the appropriate gestures and gurning...
Me: Oh.

I felt suitably sheepish until the next day, when it suddenly dawned on me (I ain't always the sharpest tool in the shed) that to be legitimately arrested for being drunk and disorderly, you have to be warned first and ignore the warning. That, and of course be informed you're being arrested, read your rights etc. Two muppets jumping out from behind a corner and carting you off without a word doesn't cut it.

Wankersh.
(misanthrope is so adjective he's verbing nouns!, Wed 26 Sep 2007, 14:14, Reply)