Just Blow

So this is for Americans....who live in Germany....and kinda had this wicked idea of venturing out into France.  The French got this swell idea of doing something about drinking and driving....so they've mandated that everyone.....not just French drivers in France, but German drivers in France, and even American drivers in France.....have to carry this simplified breathalyzer kit in your car.

Now, you'd naturally ask about this "kit" and what the heck it does.  Well....you blow into it when you think you might have had too much to drink, and there's this chemical reaction if you are drunk.  It probably has a little color scale and just says you are safe or you are drunk.  You can buy this plastic baggy at a drug store, super-market, or gas station.  It's like like those condoms you see at the counter....except in this case, it's mandatory that you have it.

So you ponder over this.  An American had to get used to the three key items in every car which had the German registration.....the first aid kit, the fancy-but-cheap reflective vest, and the warning triangle.  Now, there's the fourth item....if you think you might venture over into France.  The cost of the single "kit"?  Roughly $1.80.  If you get caught without one in your car, by the French cops?  Roughly $14.

To put this in the right prospective.....most Germans are laughing over this baggy requirement.  First, you will likely shove this into the first aid kit which is deep in the guts of the trunk.....and the odds of you even remembering you have the stupid baggy and maybe using it when you had three or four glasses of wine while visiting France....is virtually zero.  And if you were completely wasted.....would you even comprehend the color on the warning scale?  And what if you were color-blind?

The problem I see here....having been off into the French countryside...is that most French folks drink a glass of wine with lunch, and dinner.  In fact, they might guzzle two or three glasses just at lunch, and they might find a hearty moment at dinner to guzzle down five glasses of wine.  The odds of a French guy having fifty of these breathalyzer kits in their car and continually use them?  Virtually zero.

Somewhere down the line....some French plastic company came up with this idea and I suspect they bribed enough folks to make this a requirement for people to buy them.  You can figure at least five hundred million of these stupid breathalyzer baggys being sold per year as a minimum.  Along the way, some idiots will make fake baggys and sell them for half the price.....getting cops all upset as they argue with a drunk that the fake baggy just doesn't register anything....even if you guzzle six bottles of wine.

At some point, a drunk German guy is going to get stopped by the French cops.  They will ask about his plastic breathalyzer kit, and he'll drag out this forty-liter garbage bag and make up some story about he'll huff and puff the bag full to show them he's ok, then about half-way to filling the forty-liter bag....he'll pass out.  The French cops will just shake their head....call an ambulance, and forget about the entire mess. The German guy will wake up in some French hospital and wonder what happened, and ask if they have any decent beer to drink.