Voluntary What?

So I'm sitting around this morning waiting for a plumber to show (Samuel Beckett got a modernist theatre of the absurd classic out of the same situation; I, and therefore you, get this measly blog post) and before I know it I'm reading the police blotter in the morning paper (yes, Cleveland has only one daily paper, but having been a paperboy for the late [roughly thirty years of late status] Cleveland Press afternoon paper, I curmudgeonly cling to nostalgia)--call it involuntary boredom. Anyway, amidst all the usual CVS and Target shoplifter items I found this story:

Voluntary intoxication, Coventry Road: A 20-year-old man from Illinois was arrested for voluntary intoxication following a call at 3:35 a.m. Sept. 2. The man reportedly attempted to enter a limousine without consent, leading to police being called.

Sounds like a Raymond Carver story written by Ernest Hemingway. Now the obvious first question, of anyone with any local knowledge, is just what in the hell is a limousine doing on Coventry? It's like a hackey-sacker wearing a football helmet (do people still hackey sack, by the way?). And you know what? If you've parked your limousine on Coventry at 3:35 a.m., I'm afraid you've lost any claims to actually granting consent to anybody who wants to attempt to enter it. It's 3:35 in the morning--anybody walking/staggering around then is going to be involuntarily wowed by the sight of an idling limo; the fact that they're going to want to check it out goes with the territory. Motor out to Pepper Pike if you're all hung up on the consent thing.

Needless to say, though, the bigger absurdity of this story is that "voluntary intoxication" nonsense. Is this what legalese has come to? Come back, George Carlin, all's forgiven. Unless you're under the age of let's say ten and/or a captive of somebody, intoxication is hardly involuntary. I mean, come on, "involuntary intoxication"? "Honest officer, I was going to stay home tonight and read me some Willa Cather, but my buddy called and his girlfriend just broke up with him. I didn't want those nine beers. I was just trying to be a friend who's 'always there.'" Or, "Your honor, I was just following good golf etiquette. How freaky is it that an entire fivesome makes holes in one and is obligated to buy everyone a drink? I was perfectly content with my Arnold Palmer."

And don't the laws of physics or something similar apply here? In order for something to exist, its opposite must exist, right? So if there's such a thing as voluntary intoxication there must be something called involuntary sobriety, right? Well, I guess being forced to watch a Republican Presidential Primary debate qualifies. At least that's a new one for the inevitable hundred-times-a-day "how are you doing" question: "Involuntarily sober, you?"

I don't know but I just don't like this intentional obfuscation of language we continue to involuntarily have to live with. Bring back the Mayberry World. At least back then Otis was what he was, the town drunk, not the regional municipality's reportedly voluntarily intoxicated person of interest.