70 Staples – Not broken. Rebuilt.

I went to Virginia over Easter weekend to visit my sister at her place, which is best described as an RV, golf, and fish camp resort where the roads are narrow, the neighbors are fun, and common sense is treated like a decorative item people set out in spring and then put away again. and it’s tucked away in the middle of nowhere, situated at the end of a road that you need locals to describe its location.

My brother (her fraternal twin, by the way) had come in from Charleston to help her deal with a kitchen floor problem. Once he got there, he cut a twelve-foot by three-foot hole right through her subfloor, which is the sort of home improvement project that makes you stop and wonder whether you are fixing a problem or excavating for dinosaur bones.

The two of them were in the middle of a spirited disagreement about what needed to happen next. And by “spirited disagreement,” I mean one of those family discussions where nobody is technically yelling, but everybody is standing just a little too still and talking through clenched teeth like people trying very hard not to end up on Dateline.

Sensing Easter was one sharp comment away from turning into Cops: Flooring Edition, I did what any peace-loving, older sister would do.

I suggested a golf cart ride to separate the siblings.

Now before anybody starts assigning blame too aggressively, I should mention that the night before we had a big bonfire on her property, and there may have been alcohol involved. That is not an admission. It is simply a respectful nod to the possibility.

There was a cooler strapped to the back of the golf cart, which in that resort is about as suspicious as a tackle box. I, for the record, had sparkling water in my Yeti because if I am ever questioned by law enforcement, I prefer to be hydrated and technically innocent.

My sister, however, had a beer in a koozie. Tucked neatly (and conspicuously) into the beverage holder of the golf cart. I can honestly say (in a court of law, if needed) that I had no idea how long that had been there.

And to be clear, she was driving the golf cart. I was merely spectating. An unwitting passenger in what was fast becoming a mobile misdemeanor, or worse.

At that point, I made the suggestion that launched the entire disaster.

I had spotted an old cemetery about half a mile up the road and talked her into leaving the resort so I could take pictures. Seemed safe enough. We were on a dead-end country road that hardly had any traffic at all.

Nothing says “this will end well” like one woman driving an unlicensed golf cart like a bat out of Hell, her unwitting passenger riding shotgun, a cooler in the back, one visible beer, and a spontaneous Easter field trip to a graveyard. 

That sentence has never once ended in peace and happy family photos.

Somewhere in there, I realized I had once again become both the protagonist and the antagonist of my own story, which is a role I seem to play with disturbing consistency.

Sure enough, on the way back, and true to my sister’s luck, a sheriff’s deputy passed us, took one look at our little traveling pageant of poor judgment, and flagged us down into a bus turnout.

That was the exact moment I started mentally drafting how I was going to tell my fiancé that I would be spending Easter weekend in a holding cell, waiting for my first appearance before a judge on Monday morning, all because I wanted cemetery pictures from an illegal golf cart I was not even driving.

The deputy wanted to know what we were doing driving an unlicensed and unregistered golf cart on a public road.

Which, honestly, was a fair question.

I tried to explain and take the blame. “It’s my fault, Officer. I’m visiting from Florida and wanted to see the old cemetery up the road. I asked her to drive me up there.”

To which he replied, “She’s a grown woman and knows she can’t do that in an unlicensed golf cart. If you asked her to drive you off a cliff, would she just do it?”.

Clearly, he does not know my sister. She would do ANYTHING for someone she loves, regardless of consequence (obviously).

Then he looked at my Yeti and asked what was in it. I have never been so delighted to answer anything in my life. I popped the lid open like Vanna White on a good night, and he won the big prize.

“Sparkling water,” I said confidently, and perhaps a little too cheerily.

He looked inside. He seemed almost disappointed.

Then he turned to my sister and asked why her eyes were so glassy.

Now, there could have been several explanations for that. It was spring. The pollen was high. She had hosted a bonfire the night before. She had spent part of Easter weekend arguing over a kitchen hole large enough to lose a card table in. Also, and I say this with love, my sister has the kind of naturally glassy-eyed look that can make her seem either deeply reflective or about one sentence away from being asked to step out of the vehicle at any given moment. I spoke up in her defense, trying to be helpful. “She always looks like that.”

The deputy shot me a hard look and said, “You aren’t helping her right now.” I quickly pursed my lips and lowered my gaze back to my innocent Yeti. 

He was looking at her like those eyes had personally assaulted his mama.

Then he noticed the koozie.

He asked what was in it.

My sister, who apparently believes honesty is always the best policy even when it is very clearly not, said, “A beer from the previous night.”

A beer from the previous night.

That is not the sort of sentence that has ever pacified a police officer.

Then he saw the cooler in the back and asked what was in THAT.

She said, “Melted ice and maybe a couple of beers. I don’t really remember.”

Again, truthful. But not exactly tactical.

He asked to verify that information, which he did, much to our consternation.

At that point, I had fully accepted that this story was no longer headed toward “funny little family outing” and was now drifting steadily into “this will be repeated at every holiday until one of us dies.”

Then the deputy asked if there was a responsible adult at the house who could bring up my sister’s driver’s license.

That phrase landed with all the grace of a folding chair to the forehead.

A responsible adult. Oh boy. That meant a phone call to my brother, who was already aggravated before we even left the house.

So, my brother was summoned, where he had been doing battle with the kitchen floor and was not exactly thrilled at being called away to come rescue his sisters. My sister-in-law, meanwhile, slept peacefully through the entire thing, which made her by far the smartest member of the family.

While we waited for my brother to arrive, the deputy took my sister aside and put her through the paces. He checked her eyes, which by then had become co-stars of the entire event. He tested her balance. He had her blow into a breathalyzer. Then, apparently unconvinced of the results of the one sample, he had her do it again.

Two breathalyzers.

That is when I knew we had officially crossed over from “minor inconvenience” into “this is not going to end well.”

And I am telling you, I had already started preparing for the version of the evening where I called Jim and said, “Well, this got away from us.”

Then I heard the deputy say, “Okay, you passed. Go sit down.”

I was dumbfounded.

Not relieved at first. Just stunned.

Because once you have fully committed yourself to the image of spending Easter in county custody over graveyard tourism, it is surprisingly hard to pivot gracefully back to freedom.

Then the deputy came over to me and asked where in Florida I was from.

I told him Polk County.

He said, “That’s Sheriff Grady Judd’s county, isn’t it? How do you like him?”

Now I do not know whether that was small talk or a character test, but it felt like entrapment. Grady Judd is a polarizing public servant,  and I was not about to fail the oral exam.

So I answered the only way a woman in my position could.

“Oh, we love Grady. He’s great”

Apparently, that was the correct answer, because he smiled and nodded like I had just given the password to Get Out of Jail Free.

A few minutes later, my brother pulled up looking exactly like a man who had been dragged away from a twelve-foot crater in a kitchen floor and was not too thrilled to discover the interruption involved rescuing both of his sisters from a golf cart encounter with the sheriff’s department.

My sister handed over her license, and the deputy went back to his car to make sure she was not, in the unofficial language of the moment, a psycho with outstanding warrants.

As he walked back toward the cruiser, my sister, who had somehow learned absolutely nothing from the previous twenty minutes, looked at my brother and said (loudly), “Hey, he’s looking a little unsteady on his feet. Maybe you should give HIM a breathalyzer. Or two.”

The deputy stopped, looked at my brother, and gave him the kind of look that said, “Dude, you’ve got your hands full, don’t you?”

It was not accusatory.

It was not amused.

It was the weary, knowing look of a man who had just stumbled into a family dynamic he wanted no part of and did not intend to revisit unless absolutely necessary.

In the end, he let us go.

Not with one warning, either. With eight warning tickets.

He told my sister, “You’re getting away with eight warnings today, but you’re not going to jail. Happy Easter.”

And just like that, our cemetery tour ended in resurrection.

The drive back was long and quiet, which is how people travel when they have just narrowly avoided spending Easter weekend becoming the most talked-about story in a rural sheriff’s shift report.

The good news is my brother got the floor done.

The better news is nobody got arrested.

And the best news is my sister-in-law slept through the entire thing, which means at least one person in this family still knows how to celebrate Easter properly.