Guardian Angel
If you can have a home test to find out if your blood's so mad, feels like coagulatin', or who's the
daddy, then surely you should be able to find out if you're, as
the Dead Kennedys might have put it, too drunk to fuck. And thanks to the people at Guardian
Angel, you can do that for a mere $1.39 or so.
Now at quickie marts and gas stations across the nation, the Guardian
Angel Personal Alcohol Test (don't forget that trademark symbol!)
promises an easy way to determine the extent of your inebriation, if
stumbling over yourself or picking up ugly
people for sloppy trysts isn't enough to tell you. According to
the instructions on the matchbook-sized package, what you do is take
out a match-sized stick (hey, if the package is going to be
matchbook-sized, it stands to reason the device located therein would
be match-sized, right?) and stick it in your mouth, taking care to put
the little padded part of the stick onto to your tongue. For best
results, do not eat, smoke or drink anything for 10 minutes. After
two minutes, you compare the color on the padded part to a color scale
on the back of the package. It doesn't measure your blood-alcohol content per se, but it
does offer three categories of drunkenness, four if you count the
color not changing.
Here are the stages:
White: Grab the keys, you're
driving, pal!
Yellow: You can drive, but don't turn the radio up too
loud or put your arm around the person next to you or anything
distracting like that.
Mauve: You're legal, but you'll probably still
kill somebody.
Brown: Jesus Christ, man! How did you manage the
coordination to get the stick in your mouth! Report to a toilet now
and start throwing up.
Guardian Angel, expectedly, has picked up many kudos from anti-drunk
driving groups. The pro-drunk driving groups apparently have not yet
spoken out on this company, founded four years ago by, as the
company's web site puts it, "two Stanford University graduates with a
shared desire to make a positive difference in the lives of millions
of people." They left out "and make a ton of dough."
Plus, these guys have been in business elsewhere for years previously
— it's not like they just bounced out of Palo Alto with their
degrees.
Business realities aside, does this thing really work? I decided
to find out at the most logical place I knew — a family wedding.
A few days beforehand, I picked up two packets (two strips to a
packet) at my local Jewel-Osco. Given this was the only thing I bought
— I could have at least thrown in a bottle of Jack Daniels or
something — I got a strange look from the clerk. "Have a nice
day," she said with an extra chirp in her voice that added, "getting
shitfaced!"
The problem of testing Guardian Angel at a wedding was immediately
apparent. No one was going to stop eating, drinking or smoking for 10
minutes straight. But I was able to corral my brother-in-law, who
was playing harmonica in the band, thus solving the problem of keeping
forbidden things out of your mouth. My approximately 200-pound
brother-in-law had had three 10-ounce Miller Lites over the course of 90
minutes, interspersed with frenetic playing of "Roadhouse
Blues." The result: he was slightly in the yellow category. He
later told me that on nights he plays harmonica, he can pretty much
drink all night because of the energy and spittle expelled. I hope to
God this doesn't translate to bars full of revelers playing "Roadhouse
Blues" to keep from getting drunk.
Not being able to get anyone else for a test, the next night I tried
it on myself. One Goose Island Oktoberfest plus a 165-pound male
equaled no reading at all. I was OK to drive. And, thanks to the
test, I knew I could walk upright and be discriminating about whom I
slept with.
— Bob Cook (bobc@flakmag.com)
