stranger than fiction

So I'm casually re-reading Big Trouble, which was humor columnist Dave Barry's first novel, from 1999. I find this scene at the start of chapter 9. A drunk, overzealous and incompetent wanna-be vigilante has been taken in by the police, who are trying to soothe him.

"I got rights," said Crime Fighter Jack Pendick, for perhaps the fourtieth time since he had been taken into police custody.
"Indeed you do, Mr. Pendick," said Detective Harvey Baker. "You have rights up the wazoo. And I'm sure you're going to exercise every single one. But first you're going to go with these officers, who are going to take you to a nice room where you can lie down and see if you can get your blood alcohol content down below that 300 percent mark, OK?"
"Do I get my gun back?" asked Pendick.
"Of course you do!" said Baker. "Just as soon as we run a couple of tests and a giant, talking marshmallow is elected president."

Well, that happened. He can have his gun back now.