Many of you know, I am no stranger to the traffic violation. I have frequently been caught speeding and/or rolling through stop signs. (But it's called a "California Roll!" If not in California, when is this acceptable?!) I have tried to cry, tried to deny the violation, tried being extra sweet, and tried being straightforward in attempts to avoid the cop putting pen to carbon copy paper. Alas, none of these tactics have worked. The one and only time I have successfully gotten out of receiving a ticket was when I explained to the officer that I had just gotten a speeding ticket on the other side of town two hours prior to him pulling me over (this second time being pulled over that day was for "speeding" through a school zone. I was going what I thought was the proper speed limit, as it was July. Turns out I was near a year-round school. Blimey).
Needless to say, I have had many a conversation with the fuzz. Some of them are nice, some of them are big a**holes, just like any other profession. However, none that I have talked to have had much of a sense of humor.
Incident #1:
Last month, while I was home for the holidays, a house across the alleyway, behind my mom's house, was broken into. When Dave, my dog, raced outside, barking incessantly, I first assumed that it was because someone was walking their dog down the alley. It is usually that, or that he heard a leaf drop to the ground that would cause his raucous barking. What can I say, the mutt likes to bark. But then Sal's dog, Steve, started going a bit crazy too. I looked out back and noticed a police car parked behind our fence. Curious as to what was going on, I pulled on my bulky grey grandpa sweater over my t-shirt and sweatpants, pulled on my god-awful tan Uggs, and walked out back, clutching my cup of hot coffee as the snow lightly fell onto the dogs and myself.
When I reached the back of the yard, I noticed that there were not one, but two police cars there. The dogs had stopped barking, since they knew that I had the situation covered, and I slipped out the gate, leaving the dogs in the yard, where they could calmly guard the perimeter.
One police officer was busy writing a report, two officers were checking out the house and it's shattered side window, and the fourth was talking to one of the neighbors who had been the witness to the strange car of hoodlums whom she had noticed were suspiciously lurking outside of this house as she was returning home from work. This woman was the one who had called the police to report the situation, so she was talking to the officer about what she had seen. She also explained the situation to me and then had to run inside her house to get her ID for the officer.
As she walked inside, I stood there with the 30-something man in uniform. As most of you know, I am not one who can very easily handle an awkward silence. And how do I handle any given moment of awkward silence? With an even more awkward joke, many times referred to as "word-vomit." I took a slow sip of my steaming coffee, which was quickly cooling from the snowflakes that were falling into it, but still slightly keeping my hands warm. My neighbor was all the way in her house at this point, with the front door propped open about an inch. The cop had briefly stopped writing. I looked up at the fully uniformed man in blue, and with snowflakes falling on my glasses and melting into water spots, and asked, "Sooo...what do you do for a living?"
He looked over from his metal writing tablet and stared at me blankly. He didn't say anything, just looked at me. I couldn't tell whether he was honestly confused by my joke or was simply unimpressed. Whatever it was, I will never know for sure. I looked down at the coffee cup, grasped tightly in my cold hands and slowly mumbled, "Uhh, it was a joke..."
His only reply was a quick nose snort. It was the kind where you blow a short gust of air out of your nose in a huffy way and your head and shoulders huff along with it. And with that, he went back to filling out the police report. Luckily, my neighbor came out of her house right at that moment, and I was off the hook for any more awkward silence filling. I can only imagine the possibilities of where my one-sided conversation would have gone from there, but thank goodness, I don't have to.
Incident #2: Spoiler alert! Lindsay gets pulled over for not fully stopping at a stop sign.
It was a beautiful, sunny day and I had just had a great lunch with a wonderful friend. As usual, my plans went longer than I had anticipated, and I was running late for my next get-together, and was racing to the next location. To make things worse, I really had to pee.
Aaaaaand, there go the flashing lights. Crap. I didn't even know what I had done wrong. Was I speeding? I'm pretty sure I couldn't have been, because I was in a residential area with a stop sign at every corner. Argh.
Pull over, roll down window, hands on wheel. I know the drill. The cop stops his motorcycle (yes, motorcycle, the most cliche kind of cop). Side note: I would gladly accept a ticket if I were ever stopped by a police officer on a horse. That would be far more entertaining. Anyway, he comes to my driver's side window. "Do you know why I pulled you over ma'am?"
"Uuumm, no."
"You didn't stop at the stop sign on _____ Street."
"Uumm, yes I did."
"I do this for a living ma'am, and that was not a complete stop."
Whoa, buddy. No need to get all crazy. I freaking stopped. But there was no time for that. I was late and as I said, I really had to pee. So, as I stared at my steering wheel, I asked him innocently, "Ok, uuh, I'm pretty sure I stopped, but I don't know how I can prove that at all. Is there anything, a-ny-thing, I can do to get out of this ticket?"
In the split second after I said that, I realized the possibility of the horrible connotations that could have been implied with that statement and the awkward way I had said it. I froze. My eyes got huge as I turned to look up at his face, which was stoically watching me begin to freak out.
"Oh, my God. I...I didn't mean....I mean, uhh...oh my god. Uhhh....never mind. Just...oh my gahh...just...just write me the ticket."
With that, he collected my license and registration....and wrote me the ticket.
