This image was lost some time after publication.

One had the feeling that there were only so many times that category-defining celebutard Paris Hilton could emerge from a club, teeter over to that night's luxury automobile with paparazzi documenting every wobbly, stiletto-hindered step, and swerve off into the night before a cop would give her the chance to fail a Breathalyzer. And last night at 12:31 a.m., Hilton finally arrived at the drunkutante ball, blowing a .08 (the minimum for a California DUI, we'll have you know), and earning a very brief stay at a Hollywood police station to be processed for her driving under the influence charge. Luckily, Hilton remembered to pack travel-sized publicist Elliot Mintz in her purse that evening, who immediately got to work explaining how such an unthinkable thing could happen to such a good girl. Reports TMZ:

Mintz told TMZ that Paris had attended a charity event earlier in the evening. He said she had a single drink — a margarita — the entire evening and shortly thereafter she was stopped. She was asked to take a breathalyzer test when she was stopped and cooperated. She took a second test at the station. For the record, TMZ is told Paris is 5'9" and weighs 110 lbs.

TMZ spoke with Paris as she was driving home from jail, stopping for Parliament Lights cigarettes en route. She says she "regrets it occurred," and adds that she has been up for 24 hours, having shot a music video all day. (TMZ had exclusive access to the music video set and our video will be posted in a few hours.) Paris says she had nothing to eat and no rest the entire day.

We're a little surprised that Mintz didn't offer the exact volume of tequila contained in that single, tragic margarita to go along with Hilton's height and weight statistics, allowing us to perform our own amateur alcohol metabolism calculations and realize for ourselves that this ugly incident was nothing more than the unfortunate intersection of hard work, low body weight, and overzealous police work. It's the whole fucking system that's driving drunk, not his high-paying client.