So, the other day I had set my alarm for 6 a.m. but when it went off (at 6 a.m. strangely enough) I wasn’t really in the mood, so I reset it for 6:30. After that extra few minutes of rest, I was raring to go, and I spent the rest of the morning with pep in my tail and bushy eyed and the whole bit!
Hmm, I seem to have made a slight grammatical error in that last sentence, here’s what I was trying to say: “After that extra few minutes of rest, I was groggy as hell, and I spent the rest of the morning tripping over my own feet and crashing into invisible walls.”
Anyway, I staggered around for a few minutes and eventually found the front door. Once I got out to my car I was pleasantly surprised to find that I had remembered to put on my pants. On the way to work, I continued my eternal struggle with Mr. Sun. He stabbed me in the eyes with his glorious rays of pain. I shaded my face with one hand and swore flaming revenge.
“One of these days, Sun, one of these days…” I mumbled, whilst trying to shift gears and dodge grannies and wipe the fog off my windshield all with one hand, " … BANG! ZOOM! To tha Moon!" Hehe, that’ll teach him! Stupid sun.
Anyway, I guess driving with only one hand on the wheel and both eyes shut tightly had an adverse affect upon my ability to control a motorized vehicle, because before too long I heard the hot and sour sound of a police siren barking and squawking and wailing. It seems I had offended the local constabulary by driving like an idiot. I swear, some people are so damn sensitive!
So I pulled over to the side of the road, and I sat there, listening to the Sun mock me while he was jabbing my brain with his spears of spite. I sat forever. And Ever. I don’t know what cops do when they are making you wait and wait like that, but I think it is most reasonable to assume that they are sitting in their car, with an illustrated version of George Orwell’s Animal Farm and whacking off to the pictures of Snowball and Napoleon. It makes sense if you think about it. Or, rather, if I think about it.
I busied myself getting all my documentation ready and thinking up all the worst voodoo curses to cast upon the officer behind me. I came up with one whereby his lower intestines would be infested with poisonous snakes that would chew their way out his ass and then drag his guts out and strangle him to death with them, but not until he was sleeping in his parents house so it would look like his parents killed him and they would get the electric chair for murdering their retarded son. I was shaken back to reality by the cop sneaking up on me:
“Good morning,” he said, “Can I see your liscense and registration please?”
“Sure, no problem.” says I, handing it over, trying to sound cheerful and cooperative instead of resentful and indignant.
He clipped the paperwork onto his little board thing, and pretended to read it for a minute or two, then said: “Could you step out of the vehicle for me, please?”
Well, this was a first, and I was starting to get a little scared. Maybe he had a super microphone and had heard the curse I cast on him! I started praying for those snakes to pick up the pace a bit, and got out of the car as requested.
“Mind if I check out your car?” He asked. He didn’t sound too suspicious or anything, so I was hoping it was just like a random check, but I secretly thought that police weren’t allowed to check your car without a reason. But then again, what the hell do I know, I’m just a cake-eating civilian, right?
“Go ahead.” I said, while silently thanking all the various gods that I had recently cleaned the car out and gotten all the pocketknives and chloroform and stuff out of there.
“Do you have any weapons in here?” He asked. “Drugs, dead bodies, missles, stuff like that?”
“No sir,” I assured him “I keep all that crap under my bed.” It didn’t go over too well, I guess they don’t teach these guys about that ‘humor’ thing in pig school. He glared at me for a second behind his mirrored glasses and tightly-trimmed mustache.
After he had satisfied himself that there was no incriminating material in my car, he stood up an stated, “I noticed you weren’t wearing your seatbelt sir.”
“Oh, damn, guess I forgot!”
“Yeah,” he said, as he was filling out a ticket. “It happens. Its a fifty dollar fine now, you know.”
“Fifty bucks!?” I was getting mad now. “Isn’t that a little steep?”
“It’s for your own protection.”
“Well, giving you fifty bucks isn’t going to make me any safer, is it?” I should have tried harder to control myself, but I was starting to get pissed.
“Fine,” he said, “it’s to pay for my new house, if you must know.”
“Oh.” I figured he was just fucking with me, so I played along with it. “Well, you’re going to have to write a lot of tickets then, aren’t you?”
He paused and looked thoughtful for a moment. He handed me the ticket and started writing another. “Good point. Here’s one for driving without a helmet.”
“WHAT??? Now you’re just making shit up!”
“Nope. Your window was down, and you didn’t have a seatbelt on, so if you wrecked, you could be tossed out the window, in which case a helmet could save your life. Its for your own protection.” Now he was really getting on my nerves.
“Whatever, cocklicker.” I muttered
“Excuse me?” He sounded mad.
Shit, he heard me. “I said ‘Whatever, officer.’”
“Hmm.” he hmm’d. Then he handed me the ticket and started writing another.
“What the hell is this one for?”
“No cup.” He stated simply.
“Cup??? What the fuck are you talking about?” I was quite perturbed by this time. Then he kicked me in the balls. I landed forehead-first in the gravel on the side of the road. Tears were literally squirting out of my clenched eyes. I couldn’t move my legs, and breathing required a monumental effort.
“Now see?” He said. “If you’d been wearing a cup, this wouldn’t have happened. It’s for your own protection. That’s why I’m charging you three hundred dollars.”
“God-” I gasped, “-dammmmmnn you! Did they have to teach you to be such a dick, or does it come naturally?” I knew that I was in no position to talk shit, seeing as how I was laying on my face in the dirt, but it just came out.
He quit writing my fourth ticket and slapped handcuffs on me. He dragged me to his car and tossed me in the backseat, making sure to bash my head on the roof a couple of times before tossing me in and slamming the door on my fingers.
The next two hours are a total blur, but I remember seeing a copy of “Animal Farm” in the front seat, then I woke up on the side of the Arkansas River naked and covered with bruises. I consider myself lucky since I never did have to pay any of those damn tickets, but I definitely learned my lesson, and I hope you will too:
Wear your seatbelt, its for your own protection.