He had always believed that words could save him. Sarcasm had smoothed over late arrivals, excuses had softened angry voices, and cleverness had turned judgment into laughter. But on that shoulder of cracked asphalt, under the hum of distant traffic, his charm finally met a boundary it could not cross. The officer didn’t raise his voice, didn’t gloat, didn’t argue. He simply listened as the man’s slurred “proof” unraveled the image he’d built of himself as harmless, in control, different from “those other” drunk drivers.

The cuffs were cold, but not cruel. They were the quiet line drawn between a bad decision and irreversible damage. As he sat in the back of the cruiser, the punchline he’d been chasing replayed in his mind, no longer funny, only fragile. For the first time, he understood: the real joke had been thinking he was the exception.