Running, Part 2

“Do you have any idea how dangerous that was? Going round those curves…chasing you…I could’ve popped a tire, I could’ve hit a car, some kid could’ve ran out into the road. Do you hear what I’m saying to you?”

The State Trooper looked at me with hard, unflinching blue eyes. I tried my best to act innocent. Pretty sure he knew I was full of shit, but even in those situations you have to turn in your best performance for the Academy.

The problem began when I was going 70MPH+ down that backroad to work. The situation I wrote about in part 1 was the reverse: Then I was going home. The morning of this incident, I was going to work.

“Officer, I’m so sorry, I’ve never done anything like this before in my life…”

It’s a miracle my pants didn’t just burst into flames right there.

The chase occurred a few miles back, passing the trooper going way too fast, and then turning off another random road and barreling down it. Unfortunately, the side-road barreled parallel to the main road, so the cop just turned down off the drive and took off after me. I didn’t notice that at the time, because the horrible, old, nasty tint in that Nissan Sentra had long since bubbled and deteriorated to dark bits of nastiness.

This fact was brought into question when the cop said:

“Why didn’t you pull over until I turned my lights on?”

Because I couldn’t see you through the tint, my honest self replied. But what I actually said was: “I don’t know, I don’t know, I’m so sorry I’ve never done this before…”

The cop huffs, and says, “Let me see your license.”

I reach into my back pocket…and find nothing. I had left my wallet at home. Oh shit. I was going to jail.

“Um, oh my God, oh my God…” I said, trying to keep it together and putting my head on the steering wheel. “I left my wallet at home.”

The cop immediately gets suspicious. “I’m only going to ask you this once,” he says, “is this your car?”

“YES! Yes of course it’s my car,” I say as defiantly and headstrong as possible. I wanted absolutely no doubt that the little Nissan piece of shit was my own.

Over the course of the next five minutes, I hurridly give him my driver’s license number (if you haven’t memorized yours, you should) and dig out an old insurance card that had expired. “I need to put the new one in here,” I lied.

After another lecture on safety and a never-run-from-cops-you-idiot mantra, he hands me the clipboard for the ticket…

…then takes it back.

“This tint,” he says with an eyebrow raised. “Looks kinda dark. You got a certificate for that?”

What the hell? A certificate for window tint? Does that even make sense?

“Um, no?”

“Fine. I’m going to write you up for your tint being too dark. If you can get it removed before the court date, the charge will be dismissed.”

Oh, great. Now I get to pay for that. And who knows what it will cost to strip that horrid stuff off. I shake my head, ashamed of pretty much everything related to driving at that point.

The State Trooper looks at me one last time. He knows I did a hugely stupid thing, I know I did a hugely stupid thing, and he’s fully lectured me on the hows and whys. I was also, at that point, about 20 minutes late for work. Which just added to the sickening feeling in my stomach.

Finally he grunts “Drive safe.”

“Thank you, Officer.” I say this after every ticket I’ve ever received, just to throw em off. This guy was unphased.

And at that moment I promised myself (again) that I would never speed again. I was a new man with a new mission—leave early, get there early, and allow plenty of time to get where I want to go. Yup, nothing would be the same this time. This time was the last time I would ever do that.

Two weeks later I was caught again.

On the same road.

By the same State Trooper.

More on this Thursday.

Update: Read Part 3.

Golden rod and the 4–H Stone
The things I bought you when I found out you had cancer of the bone