A party host was using a breathalyzer in what they thought was “a fun game” — until they had to call the cops on one of their guests.
The host made the anonymous confession in the weekly syndicated column Miss Manners, which addresses questions about etiquette and social behavior during both formal events and everyday interactions. Columnists Judith Martin, Nicholas Ivor Martin, and Jacobina Martin usually answer letters from fans.
In one letter to Miss Manners, a person shared their casual way to prevent “party guests from driving impaired.”
“I came up with a fun game using a $21 breathalyzer I bought online,” they wrote. “I call it, ‘Have I Had Too Many?’”
Guests “who are at, or even close to,” the legal blood alcohol content (BAC) when driving, which is 0.08 percent, win a free ride home.
While “everything was going great” during the game, things changed when one guest “tested at well over twice the legal” BAC limit. However, he “refused the free ride” home and used “some pretty strong language” with the party host. He then “shoved [them] aside” and was “almost out the door with his equally impaired plus-one,” until the host spoke up.
“I said, ‘Don’t drive or I will be forced to call the cops!’” the person continued in their letter. “Well, he did, I did, and he was arrested. Needless to say, it ruined the evening. A couple of guests left saying that I overreacted, as he is an adult and appeared fine.”
They asked Miss Manners if they should have handled the situation differently. The party host also explained that their friends know they take this topic seriously, since they “were the victim of a head-on crash by an impaired driver,” leading to numerous surgeries.
“I know many people must face this challenge — guests who insist on driving when they really shouldn’t,” the post concluded.
In response, Miss Manners called the host’s approach “interesting,” claiming that with the breathalyzer game, drunk driving was framed “as a joke.” The columnist noted that if the host had an explanation for why that game isn’t a joke, that has to be “better understood by people” at the party who are drinking.
Miss Manners urged the fan to “exercise better judgment in the future” by limiting how much alcohol is served at the party. And if there’s one guest that the host is concerned about, they can ask another guest who lives nearby to step in and “help get the impaired one home safely.”
Miss Manners also said that if this is “a truly unmanageable problem” among these friends, alcohol shouldn’t be served at the party at all.
According to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), drunk driving kills about one person every 42 minutes, which adds up to more than 11,000 lives needlessly lost every year across the country.
Last year, LendingTree, an online lending marketplace site, analyzed tens of millions of insurance quotes from the largest 50 cities to calculate those with the highest DUI rates.
Raleigh, North Carolina, took the top spot as the city with the most drunk driving, at 1.46 DUIs per 1,000 drivers, while Sacramento came in second at 1.31, and Los Angeles came in third at 1.12. San Jose and Bakersfield, in fourth and fifth place, were the only other cities with a DUI rate above 1. California took up a whopping eight spaces in the top 10. Charlotte, in ninth place, was the only other North Carolina city in the top 10.
