When in Doubt, Overwhelm

Last night I was traveling between Tazewell and Oak Ridge, an hour + drive that takes about forever.

On a long stretch of highway, I press down on the gas pedal, passing the 45MPH sign (you can see where this is going) doing around 60+MPH.

Hey, I thought to myself. Is that a…

Yeah, it was a cop. After I passed him, he slowly turned on his lights and proceeded to follow me. After a mile or so out, the country road hits a main highway.

This is where the cop turned his lights on. I pull over into an empty flower shop parking lot. I begin to worry.

The cop first asks me, as they all do (I swear it must be in a book somewhere that they study in Cop 101) “Do you know how fast you were going?”

Then, of course, the bullshit scale begins to slide: “Well officer, I’m not familiar with the road (lie) and I just wasn’t paying attention to my speed (lie), and it was just such a long stretch of highway (okay, that’s true) that I got carried away (lie).”

“Well, I caught you doing 60 in a 45 (this is, technically, Reckless Driving). Can I see your license and registration,” he says. This is the moment in which bullshit must pour through you. Becuase once that ballpoint hits Official Paperwork, you are fucked and will be paying The Man for the privilege of going 15 MPH over the limit. “I’ve already started writing the ticket” is one of the worst phrases in human existence.

“Officer,” I begin, trying not to sound plead-ish, “I’m really sorry about this (lie), and I assure it will never happen again (lie). I’m so sorry (lie), I’ve been trying to keep my speed under control these past few years (lie).”

So I hand him my license and proof of insurance (hell, I didn’t even know I had that in the car. I’m used to dragging out some old slip of paper from an Insurance Co. I don’t even use any more and bullshitting about how my policy has been updated, blah blah), but there’s a problem: I can’t find my registration.

Ack. I begin to panic a bit and start pulling out everything I have. Carmax gave me a packet of stuff when I bought my car, so I handed that to him. “This is just as good as your Registration until you get it in the mail,” the nice girl told me as we were finishing up the car-buying paperwork. Of course, the Registration has long since been mailed, but who knows where that thing is. Right now I have to find something resembling it.

I hand the cop something else that looks official. I begin to go over everything I pull out. I hand him more stuff. I look at more stuff.

Finally the cop says, “Do me a favor: Slow down.” He then dumps the stuff in his arms into my lap, and walks away.

So today’s lesson is that if a police officer has too much of your shit in his/her hands, then they can’t start filling out a ticket. Phew.