SLIPPERY ROCK — It was probably the last thing a borough police officer expected to hear from a suspected drunken driver he pulled over earlier this month: “thank you.”

But that's what Caleb D. Trombatt, 27, of Butler Township told Patrolman Jake Ingram, police said.

Not only did Trombatt express his gratitude, according to court documents, but he admitted making a dumb mistake — drinking and driving.

Trombatt faces a preliminary hearing next month on charges stemming from the Sept. 2 arrest. Police allege he was more than three times the state's legal limit for alcohol when he was pulled over on Kiester Road.

Ingram said he first noticed the suspect's pickup truck about 1:25 a.m. travel over the double yellow line on South Main Street. The truck was “weaving back and forth,” documents, said, when the officer stopped Trombatt near the Slippery Rock Middle School.

“A very strong odor” was coming from the defendant's breath, Ingram said, and he showed other signs of being intoxicated.

“Sir, thank you for pulling me over,” Trombatt told Ingram, according to a police affidavit. “I'm way too (expletive) to be driving.”

But the appreciative driver wasn't finished talking. He said he had a designated driver lined up that night but instead decided to leave a bar and drive home.

“Why would I do that?” he asked the officer. “I'm an idiot,” he answered himself, documents said.

He also knew he wasn't doing so well while performing field sobriety tests.

“You see how bad I am?” the affidavit said. “Take me and do what you gotta do with me.”

He was subsequently arrested and taken for a breath test, which showed his blood-alcohol level was 0.244 percent. In Pennsylvania, a level of 0.08 percent is considered intoxicated.

Trombatt later recounted for police that he had been drinking all night at a borough bar. He could not remember how much he had to drink, police said, but he knew he was drunk.

After police were done processing him, he called for a ride and was driven home.

He is charged with driving under the influence and disregarding traffic lanes. His preliminary hearing is set for Oct. 11 at District Judge Bill O'Donnell's office in Slippery Rock.