A Few Things I've been Meaning to Mention

Very little makes my stomach digest itself like the reflection of cruiser lights in my rear-view. Sometimes a car behind me will flash its lights and I will pull my car into the shoulder, and get my licence ready.

Another notch on the seatbelt.

"Listen, I didn't even clock you, but you flew past me on mainstreet doing like 50."

This may be the first time I have been pulled over in a while without any hard evidence.

"License and registration." Amanda searched the glovebox infront of her for the latter, and pulled out a trifold, leatherbound volvo folder. I did my usual hand him the license and when asked for insurance, I hand him the next card in my wallet.

"This is your proof of health insurance," he says slowly, as if I need to look up what he just said in a phrasebook. "I need to see your car insurance."

Amanda flips opens the trifold on her lap and asks him to repeat what he asked for.

"I need to see your registration," he says as he peeks in. He shines his maglight on the folders, which takes up the majority of lap space. "Well, I see you've got your flightplan ready."

It was only funny because he it came from a cop. No one expects a joke from an officer who pulls you over because he's pretty sure you were breaking the law.

We laugh somewhat nervously and he joins us.

"Man you were flying like a bat out of hell through downtown." For an explaination of "downtown" see post below. This was the kind of downtown where even locals make the "don't blink" joke.

We laugh again, not at downtown, but at this rural Massachusetts cop who has no reason to be nice to us.

"Well, thanks for laughing at my jokes," he smiles as he walks back to the brighly lit cruiser.

This is notch number 19. One more and it will make an average of 5 per year, which doesn't feel so bad, unless you remember that I didn't own a car until I was 17 and I also don't drive for about 9 months out of the last two years.

He came back with an out of state written warning, and a this-hurts-me-more-than-it-hurts-you look on his face. "Listen, I'm sorry that I've got to give you a warning. But thanks for laughing at my jokes. Have a good night."