A Day In The Life
so i'm driving to the office, taking the shorter route as usual through the mountains -- a winding, narrow, two lane road. in fact earlier this winter a section of the road was wiped out, meaning it essentially dropped off a cliff, so the county has temporarily put in a stop sign so cars will share a single lane to get through that small section. now i've driven this route hundreds of times, so despite the low speed limit, i can make pretty good time -- if ya know what i mean.
so as i approach this road outage, i see a highway patrol office sitting off on a side road that is just before the stop sign. i'm thinking "shit, i hope he doesn't think i'm speeding", so i instinctively pay extra attention to this stop sign. the road is not heavily travelled, so many people will do a rolling stop and motor on through the single lane section. this time, i stop. a dead stop. for a couple of seconds. i then hit my turn signal, move into the other lane and continue on. as i slip back into the proper lane, my eyes keep darting up to the rear-view mirror to see if the office is going to make his move. seems i'm safe as i take the first bend in the road.
less than a quarter mile later, mr. trooper is behind me. no lights, just behind me. "damn it", now i have to pay special attention to the speed limit too. this will be tough as i'm on the downhill side of the mountain and you gain speed unless you ride your brakes. as i approached a turnout, the lights flashed. "fuck, fuck, fuck!", i exclaimed to myself as i pulled to the side. he approached the car and asked....
quick interlude here
i made this joke years ago that when officers stop you and approach the car they nearly always say "Do you know why I pulled you over". perhaps i'm dating myself here, but i've always said i should respond with... "Why yes. These are Bugleboy jeans I'm wearing".
... "do you realize your registration tabs have expired?". now the totally stupid thing here is that i have the fucking things with me, just everytime i think to do it, i can't or it's impractical. i tell him yes, but that i have them here and proceed to pull them out of my bag. he of course wants my license and proof of insurance. "wow, this picture is from 1999 -- it doesn't look like you". for starters, the picture is from like 1992 which much better explains why it doesn't look like me, but who am i to argue. he also then notices the rather large crack in my windshield which i haven't gotten repaired yet. it's a single crack and simply hasn't been a problem. in this case laziness has far less to do with it than me being a cheap bastard.
"i'm going to have to write you up a fix-it ticket.". what does that mean i ask -- i've only had speeding tickets. he gives me the scoop and after what seemed like an eternity, let me get back on my way. did i put the new sticker on yet? of course not. we were parked in the mud. did i do it when i arrived? no, as now i was running a touch behind schedule. did i do it when i got home? no, it was very dark. have i done it this morning? no, because i'm blogging about it and it's raining. somewhere out there is the proper sized foot for my ass methinks.
the story doesn't end there. i get to the office and as i slip in the backdoor i run into bs (initials, not bullshit -- though sometimes that does apply as well):
bs: how was your drive?
ac: it fucking sucked! i got a ticket on the way in
bs: yeah? for what?
ac: a "fix-it" ticket. expired registration tab on my plate
bs: [laughs] jk got one of this this morning too, for the same thing.
ac: he also got me for my cracked windshield
bs: [laughs again], jk too!
ac: your kidding?!?
bs: no, and you wanna know what's funny? i was driving right behind him and have the same problem, but the officer pulled him over instead of me.
so two of us in the office got pulled over at the same place for the same thing. and another one had the same problem (sans the windshield), but escaped. clearly his karma bank had a little more in it than ours.
Posted by ac at February 24, 2004 11:11 PM