police just want to be friends.

As you may have picked up in previous posts, I have a love-hate relationship with the police. I am attracted to the uniform (c'mon, who isn't?), I am attracted to the beautiful blue lights on the cruisers (like a fly to a bug zapper), I get let off of tickets in some of the most outrageous circumstances, and I have a good friend who is a cop. These are the "love" aspects.

Objects in mirror may be less scary than they appear.

Then there is the "hate". The chasing, the mocking, the mass speeding tickets, the refusal to let me win in court, the loss of license 3 separate times, and the recent intensity of the desire to pull me over.

This is where I would like to focus in. On the recent influx of pull-overs I have been experiencing. I don't understand. I've been driving the exact same way for the past 3 years since I lost my license the last time and have successfully avoided being pulled over. ...until now. Recently my life has gotten a little messier, partying has increased 80% or so, and it's like THEY KNOW. It's as if they are sitting there on the side of the road watching cars go by and when they see mine they are all, "Yup, that's the one. That girl could use a reality check." Even though I am driving calmly along (OK fine, sometimes driving calmly along).

Cops also seem to think I am dangerous/sketchy/hott enough to whip their cars around in the middle of the road to chase after me bank robbery style. Do they know how much that makes me think I am in a movie? Or how much that increases the odds of me taking off full speed while Prodigy plays as the soundtrack to my life? If you push me even a little bit, I WILL think I am in Fast and the Furious. You've been warned.

So for the second time in a short time period, this is how I got pulled over. (For the first 5-0 flip around see here.) My friend Elle and I were on our way to see my roommate's band play in the middle of nowhere, and we were making a stop off to have a drink with some friends before going to the bar. We didn't want to be those assholes who never bring anything, so we grabbed a half-drunk bottle of vodka from the fridge and hit the road. This may also be classified as an "open container" in certain legal circles (aka, the law). So when the cop flipped around in the middle of the road, hit those blues, and started coming for us I freaked out like a 19 year old coming home from a house party and yelled, "HIDE THE BOOZE. PUT THE VODKA IN THE GLOVE COMPARTMENT." To be clear, we were not drinking the vodka; we had not had a single drop yet. We were just concerned that the presence of an unsealed bottle of vodka in my cup holder may raise some questions.

Bad Decision: Carrying around open bottles of booze as if they are Starbuck's lattes.
Better Bad Decision: Stashing the open bottles in your glove compartment when you get pulled over.

.....wait, no. That's still a bad decision. That's where you keep the registration, you mess of a human.

When he asked for the registration there was a noticeable pause as the realization of our mistake hit both Elle and I. I casually leaned on the steering wheel and asked Elle to please get my registration for me. Elle earned some major points that night. She was able to find it and remove it from the glove compartment without ever exposing the vodka bottle. The ensuing terror/amusement went like this:
        
         OFFICER: How come you were going so fast?
          ME: Oh you know how us girls are. We were just caught up in a conversation and lost track of speed. How fast was I going?
          OFFICER: 59 in a 40.
          I stared expectantly at him hoping he would quote Anchorman and tell me he wasn't even mad, it was amazing. He didn't. So I covered for him.
          ME: That's impressive!
          ................
          ME:  No?
          OFFICER:  Where are you ladies headed?
          ELLE:  To see our friend's band play.
          OFFICER:  What's the name of the band?
          Awkward glance between Elle and I.
          ME & ELLE: ....Special Ed.

He looked at us like we were slightly insane. Just a couple girls, driving at the speed of light, into the middle of nowhere, chatting like bored housewives, to see "Special Ed." Well, to be fair, we might be.

He came back in less than 2 minutes, and the first words out of his mouth were, "MAN, you have a shitty driving record!" To which I replied that I was going to warn him but didn't get a chance, and Elle appropriately burst into hysterical laughter. We take speeding very seriously. Miraculously he didn't give me a ticket, saying that his daughter had just called to say goodnight and that we were lucky. I'm not sure if his daughter actually did call, or if he was just so amused by us that he needed an excuse to let our 19mph-over asses go.
Regardless, we finally made it to the bar to see the band play and a night that could have gone downhill very quickly ended up like this instead:

I rock the bar, that rocks the townies.

You rock the bar, that rocks the townies!

I also got pulled over on my bike a few days later for cutting cars, and again no ticket. I'm becoming convinced that these police officers are just lonely and looking for a pal. I'll be your friend, Mr. Officer, but do we have to go about it this way?

Life Lesson: Your registration should be kept in the center console. The glove compartment is better used for locking away contraband.

As it should be.

-LSLP, Ash.