Over the years, I’ve covered crime scenes and political demonstrations and sports events, talked to guitar players and government officials and gadflies. But until this week I have never studied the situation as people got drunk.

So it was a revelation Tuesday to occupy a chair in the Register’s modest conference room and watch local law enforcement officers conduct a lab in which two of my colleagues worked their way under the influence of alcohol.

The plan was to have two coworkers drink; one report; one shoot pictures; and one shoot video. We’d then present the results to readers, as we have today.

Beforehand, we set the ground rules.

Would we reveal our colleagues’ names and exactly what happened? Yes. We do so everyday with non-volunteers who make into the pages of Register because of their encounters with alcohol.

We exacted promises that after the test our designated drinkers, American Canyon Eagle Editor Mike Waterson and Register Copy Desk Chief Michelle Choat, would not pass go but would head straight home for a quiet evening of sobering up.

We arranged for rides.

On the big day, we watched as the drinkers and officers did their thing.

As California Highway Patrol Officer John White tested Choat’s sobriety by waving a finger back in forth in front of her, a colleague whispered an insightful comment in my ear: “Watch him, not her.”

Indeed, it turns out there is only so much to learn from watching people as they drink. After all, I’ve seen that before. But how many times have I seen an officer put someone through the paces?

The same lesson holds true when observing a court trial. It is important to size up witnesses on the stand and to listen closely to what they say.

Yet it can be more telling to see what the jury, or the attorney who is not actively questioning the witness, is doing. If the jurors are fidgeting or looking bored, that could be a sign that the lawyer is losing his or her case. If their heads are pivoting back in forth from the witness to the attorney as the lawyer fires questions, that shows you something else.

The action isn’t only on center stage.

Officer White told Waterson to do a simple exercise by tapping his thumb on his fingers, and to do it three times. Waterson did the test, and not too badly. One, two, three, four; four, three, two, one.

Afterwards, White asked Waterson how many times he had done the test.

Mike didn’t know. But the officer did. It was nine, three times what he had been instructed to do. Busted.