Which brings us to Mothers Against Drunk Drivers, one of this country's most effective advocacy groups. It has become, in fact, sort of the mother of all advocacy groups -- when MADD speaks, people, particularly politicians, listen. That's because MADD's crusade is to make the roads safe by getting drunk drivers off them, and the general thinking is that there could hardly be a nobler, more worthy cause than that.

There is nothing fair about this. First of all, if you weigh only 120-pounds, you don't get five drinks; you might not even get three. But it gets worse. Someone who drinks every day will always have a measurable amount of alcohol in her blood, while someone who only drinks at the temperance union's annual convention will not. The drinker may be legally drunk, but still functional, while the teetotaler may be legally sober, but functionally pissed as a billygoat.

Unfairness, unfortunately, is a fact of life. You can't fight it. In the end you are best off following the advice MADD gives in its most sober moments and simply don't drink and drive at all. But if you do, you can you always blame MADD for giving you bad advice, find yourself a particularly litigious lawyer and sue the pants off those Mothers. You almost certainly won't win, but you'll fit right in with the rest of modern society.