I was wondering how many times I've been pulled over by the cops. I'm thinking it's much more than a dozen if you include the times I've been a passenger when we've been pulled over.
There's been a few memorable times. Once David and I were pulled over by a cop in an unmarked car who we flipped off as we passed him, frustrated that he was going below the speed limit and we were late for a movie. I thought I recognized him, and as Dave was sitting in the cop car, I walked up beside the passenger window. After the window came down, I said, "Butch?" It turned out to be a guy who had had dinner with us a few nights earlier. Butch said, If you had said something earlier, you could have saved your friend eighty dollars.
Another time I was going about 40 mph in a 30 mph zone in Morgantown, and when I turned into the Taco Bell parking lot, a cop followed me with his lights on. That's when I wondered whether the beers I had had would put me over the legal limit. It would've been close, but I aced the field sobriety test and avoided the Breathalyzer. Standing on one leg in the Taco Bell parking lot while two cops watched was not one of my more glorious moments.
Finally, there was the third speeding ticket in a single calendar year that really screwed me. First, the fine was over two hundred bucks. Second, I had to go to court. The judge reduced and excused fines for a long list of people before I got up--the only misdemeanor among them. Judge White of Belmont County, Ohio, asked me what I had to say for myself. I told him I'd been commuting over an hour each way and that the tickets were the result of zoning out on the highway. What he wanted to hear, it turned out, was that I swear it won't happen again.
After hearing my "argument," he sentenced me to three days in jail. This was two days before Christmas, and my heart stopped for a tick. Then he said that he would suspend the sentence unless I got another traffic violation of any kind in the next sixty days. He suspend the sentence! I went free that very day. And as I walked out of the courtroom, I smiled like a bastard at an incredulous Italian mortician.
Tuesday, June 17, 2008
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5 comments:
Wow, Lou, I didn't realize you had such a rap sheet. You should drive a minivan. They get pulled over less.
What was that about the mortician?
That time you got pulled over and had the sobriety test has been the bane of my existence ever since. I don't remember if this happened to you, but that was around the time that I heard that doing the alphabet backwards is one of the tests and it is something that I cannot do, sober or otherwise. I know the first letter would be Z, then I get lost. They need a catchy backwards alphabet song for me to remember it.
I had forgotten that your defense was "zoning out." I'm no lawyer, but I can't believe that didn't work!
Oh, yeah, Mike. Lou is hardcore badass.
Cops are generally accommodating. The last several times I had run-ins with Johnny Law, he let me go with warnings. The most memorable being 2 years ago when cops woke me up at 6 am. I was groggy, being that I was supremely hung over/drunk, and I could not free my hands. I quickly realized they were buried in the pants of the female driver of a vehicle parked in the Friday's parking lot. I quickly made my way to my car and produced my paper work. That presence of mind, plus the comparative drunkeness of my belle, added to the fact that "at least you had the sense not to drive" allowed me to go free. Free provided I took this tart with me to "somewhere else". When the amused officers saw that she could not find her license, they demanded "what's her name?" I looked straight in that copper's eyes and I says..I says "I don't know."
By the way, Lou that was a great lift from the Godfather.
That judge was a cock. That is just one more notch on the rifle stock that is my theory on judges:
They are all cocks. Every motherfuckin' one of them.
Lee, your last run in beats the piss out of mine. I was pulled over about 2 weeks ago in Juarez, Mexico for performing a "California Stop". I don't recall what he called it because I don't hablo espanol all that well. The remarkable thing about that incident was that he actually wrote me out a ticket rather than asked for a bribe. That was a new one for me.
Anyhow, ticket cost me all of about $5.50 so I can't complain.
Anyhow, I love that you didn't know the girl's name...
-David
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