My Brother-In-Law (BIL) Story

Here is my BIL story.

My BIL invites my wife and I out on their boat on Labor day weekend at Smith Mountain Lake near Roanoke, VA. On the boat are: Him, his wife, his daughter, me and my wife.

Well, we spend most of the day running around the lake kneeboarding etc with no real issues. But as the day wears on it starts to get dark. Dark enough that he needs to run his running lights. So he turns on the lights and we start heading back up the river to the boat launch we put in at.

My BIL starts to get hungry and grabs a bag of chips and is munching away while driving. Being the nice guy that I am, I offer to drive the boat while he gets something to eat. Note that I had not been at the helm prior to this.

We continue up the lake and not two minutes after I start to drive, I turn around to see a flashing blue light coming up from behind the boat. I'm thinking "this can't be good...".

It turns out to be the Fish and game warden. After I stop and shut the motor off, he, the GW (game warden), says that he stopped me (remember that I was the one actually driving) for not displaying the proper running lights on the boat. Turns out that the bulb was out on the front of the boat, which we could not see from the helm.

So, the GW starts investigating the other equipment on the boat. Everything on the boat is in order except a very small tear in one of the life vests, but we had plenty to go around so that was a spare one anyway, so he tells us to throw it away when we get back home. So far so good, but this is where it gets interesting....

The GW asks me for the boat's registration and I turn to my BIL and he says that its in the glove box. He opens the glove box and out falls a loaded .38 revolver. Holy crap, you should have seen the look on the GW's face. I was petrified and the GW places his hand on his own gun and asks to be handed the gun. Once he has it and unloads it he asked if my BIL has a concelled carry permit for the gun. My BIL's answer "Nope".

Here I start thinking "someone's going to spend the night away from home tonight" if you know what I mean...

Then my BIL continues to search for the registration. He finds it and hands it to the GW. The name on the registration is not my BIL's name. Hmmm, the GW has got to be thinking "stolen boat, and weapons on board". Not good.

My BIL says that he bought the boat about a month ago (it was really about 3 months before) and that he just has not gotten around to getting the registration changed over into his name yet.

So let me recap: Faulty equipment (no running light, bad life vest), weapons, and no valid registration, and I was driving the boat for a mere 2 minutes when this happened.

What do you think the outcome was??

Well, to my utter disbelief, I (remember, I was the one actually driving) only got a ticket for the bad registration. He let us go on all other charges.

I went to Roanoke court and fought the registration charge, and since my Idiot BIL had by then got it registered in his name they dismissed the charge, and my BIL finally got his concelled carry permit.

Talk about "pucker factor" !!!