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A black and white issue

In almost all realms of my life, my attention to detail runs the gamut from lax to downright nonexistent. But there’s one area about which I’ve always been scrupulous – driving. I follow traffic code and good driving principles according to both the letter and spirit of the law.

I don’t do this out of blind obedience, but out of self-preservation: I see cars less as means of transportation than as lethal weapons. Plus I assume all drivers are homicidal, suicidal, drunk, stoned, legally blind -?or all the above. This has made me not only a competent driver, but perhaps the world’s most defensive one.

I obey traffic laws to the T. I come to complete stops at stop signs, I don’t pass on solid lines, I yield when I should, and if I go over the speed limit, it’s for one or two mph, at most. In fact, in town I never even drive the speed limit. As far as I’m concerned, driving 30 mph in a neighborhood is begging for trouble, given the odds of some nutty little kid daring out in the street to retrieve a ball … or for no reason at all. And I understand that perfectly, having been a nutty little kid myself for far too long.

People behind me tend to ride my tail, clearly annoyed at my plodding, but let’s get real: The speed limit’s 30 mph, I drive around 20 mph. So if we drive a mile at 20 we’ll arrive maybe a minute slower than at 30. If some fool can’t chill for a minute in town, they need meditation, medication, or better tunes on their CD player.

OK, so now you’ve got the picture of me as The Dreamboat of Drivers Ed, which is vital background for my most recent adventure. It took place last week, about 9:30 at night as I was driving down Lapan Highway.

Confusion, all around

I was approaching the light at Hope Street when suddenly a riot of colors erupted in my rearview mirror. In the distance was a cop car headed my direction at warp speed. I pulled over to let him pass and- lo and behold! – he didn’t. Instead, he pulled behind me and stopped.

I was in shock. He broke the speed limit, if not the sound barrier, to pull over li’l ole me?

Then it hit me: The Petrova School Episode of Epic Rascality, 1958.

On the wall outside the gym I’d written the name of an arrogant swine of a teacher, along with an anatomic impossibility I suggested he do, and that act of perfidy had finally caught up with me.

A moment passed and I reconsidered it. No, it couldn’t be my graffiti. First, I’d written it in chalk. Second, the statute of limitations on schoolboy hooliganism had obviously expired. And third, back then there were no security cameras – thank Gawd.

So why did he stop me?

I was still wrapped in a cocoon of confusion when a state trooper appeared at the window. I thought of the graffiti as I looked at him. In 1958 he hadn’t been born. Nor in 1968, and maybe not even 1978. He interrupted my musings.

“License, registration and insurance cards, please,” he said.

Here’s the thing: Whenever I’m stopped by cops I always go into Prisoner of War mode. Basically, I shut down all consciousness and just do as I’m told. But this time I was totally different. I don’t know why. Maybe because it all happened so fast, or maybe because I knew I hadn’t done anything wrong, or maybe out of pure confusion. Regardless, instead of meekly producing the documents I blurted, “Why’d you pull me over?”

“Where’d you come from?” he said.

“My house.”

“Where’s that?”

“About a mile back,” I said.

“Oh,” he said.

And suddenly he looked as confused as I’d felt.

Then he filled me in on the back story.

The raconteur from hell

He was by the state bridge writing a ticket when some outlaw in a white SUV blew by at what he estimated was 85 mph. He finished with his business with the car at the bridge and then took off after the SUV.

The SUV had a big head start and was so far ahead, the trooper couldn’t see it. But he knew the car that’d been behind the SUV, which he spotted as he rocketed into Lapan Highway. He passed that car, hit his light bar and pulled over the next car – which just happened to be me.

We know where I was … but where was the SUV? Good question. And the answer is, as far as he was concerned, it was nowhere, or everywhere. Obviously the SUV had spotted the trooper and had pulled over at some point and waited till the trooper zoomed by. For all anyone knew, by then that guy was halfway to Tug Hill, gloating all the way.

It was an interesting tale. It was also one I started to repay in kin. I launched into a Dope/Cop story that’d happened 25 years ago, not 50 yards from where we were now parked.

It was an amazing yarn – or at least I’d found it so. As for my new friend in grey? I think he was less than amazed, or even mildly entertained. In fact, I know he wasn’t.

How could I tell? Simple.

After maybe only a minute of me starting my shtick, he had on his face that look.

You know that look – we all do. You see it on peeps who are having some dreary old fart regale them with a story boring enough to put you to sleep, if not in a coma: Expressionless face, eyes appearing to look at you, but actually unfocused. Now he was in POW mode. He was shutting me out – or at least trying to.

Meanwhile, I was merrily chatting like a magpie. I rattled and rambled on, nonstop, never even pausing to take a breath, filling the air with details as thick and extensive as flak over the oil fields of Ploesti.

In a mere minute or two I’d gone from being a simple case of mistaken identity to The Baron of Boredom, The Monarch of Monotony, The Pharaoh of Old Pharthood.

And lest you think I was oblivious about either the oppressiveness of my monologue or the trooper’s discomfort I wasn’t. Uh-uh. I knew exactly what I was doing. It was a perfect example of that old saying, Fair exchange is no robbery.

The exchange?

I got an audience. And although he was neither a willing nor interested one, he was at least a polite one – for a story that was the verbal equivalent of an embalming.

As for him? He got the pleasure of me not asking him how a young man with all his faculties, perfect eyesight, and extensive training could mistake a black Honda Accord for a white SUV.

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