Peach-colored blush seeped into the corners of her tan face. “What the heck, you’ve already ruined my meal. I needed a feminine product and I’d run out, okay? Normally it’s Phil—my husband—who does nighttime runs to the pharmacy or the 7-Eleven or whatever, but that kind of thing makes him squeamish so I went. And got pulled over randomly about a half a minute later. And”—she sighed—“failed a stupid Breathalyzer. But like at one-tenth of a percent, the whole thing was ridiculous. I tried to explain to those morons—and yes, you people acted like morons—that I’d just gone out to get some darn tampons, all I’d had were two glasses of Riesling. They looked at me like I was a criminal, said I’d blown .09, which was more than the legal limit of .08. Then they arrested me. I went hysterical. So how did you geniuses handle that? Cuffed me and shoved me in the back of a police car. At that point, I totally lost it, started screaming, begged them to let me call Phil. They ignored me. The stress got me bleeding heavily and my hands were cuffed so I couldn’t do anything about it.”

Her eyes pooled with tears. “Just remembering it is utterly humiliating, but what the heck, you want details, I’ll give you details. I bled all over their stupid car and when they saw it they freaked out, thought I’d cut myself. If they’d taken the time to listen, all they needed to do was hand me a darn tampon, but no, that was too logical. Instead they called in the paramedics, who showed up and checked me out and ended giving me a stupid tampon. By that time, I’d been gone from the house for over an hour and Phil was worried. He got in his car, drove toward the drugstore, saw my car, pulled over. Guess what they did?”

Milo said, “Gave him a Breathalyzer.”

“Bingo,” said Connie Suss. “Random, my butt. There must be some manual you people have about harassing honest, taxpaying citizens. Luckily, Phil passed. Even though he had three glasses of Riesling. He weighs a lot more than I do and I guess the time lapse helped. In the end, Phil convinced them not to take me to jail but I got a ticket and had to do community service. I ended up giving classes in art appreciation to some inner-city kids. You guys promised me my record would be wiped clean. What, you lied? Figures.”

She picked up her fork, plucked a tine, and set off a tiny musical tone. “Now I’ve told you about the most humiliating experience of my life. Now you can leave.”

Milo said, “Sorry you had to go through that.”

“Don’t apologize, just give me some peace and quiet.”

Milo hung his head.

Connie Suss said, “What are you so sullen about?”