On Wed, 28 Sep 2005 22:30:27 -0700, "Bernard Farquart"
School zone. Unmarked cop in "left lane" of North-South residential street which crosses the main road through town. The North-South street does not match up, so you have to maneuver left to cross the East-West road.
Behind the cop is joe idiot redneck. His pickup is parked in the middle of the road. He has no signal on, so there is no way to tell what he is doing. After waiting for 5 minutes, I maneuver to his right so I can get by, and all of a sudden he decides to turn on his signal and move over to the right.
Knowing joe butthole is going to take all day to go, I decide to wait behind the Explorer (cop) in the hopes that he will wake up. He does, at the exact same time joe butthole turns right. Since I have now been at the intersection for 10 minutes, I VERY QUICKLY check traffic and see that if I hurry I can get across. So I do. My 10-year old Accord has some performance issues, and quick acceleration tends to result in tire squeal. They do.
Unmarked cop is watching me, and VERY QUICKLY (quicker than I darted across the road) moves over to the curb. Uh oh. As I VERY VERY SLOWLY drive around him, I notice the disco lights being lit up in his grill. OK, my fault, I pull over ready to accept whatever he feels is appropriate. However, being early in the morning, my brain fails to engage, and I lie to him. Not a blatant lie, but I was not totally honest. I basically said my car always does that, and tried to make it out that I was not frustrated, and I only accidentally burned rubber crossing a school zone.
I am not sure what happened next. He should have pulled me from the car and beat me senseless. He instead asked a few more questions, designed to engage my brain, and made me realize how f***ING STUPID I WAS.
Then he let me go.
I have no issue with him. He did his job. He probably should have done something to me. But what bothers me is the blatant lie I gave. The cop should not have to listen to my bullpoo. That was real life, not the Internet.
So I am considering apologizing not only for my actions, but for my dishonesty. Why? Because it is the right thing to do. Will it make up for my idiocy? No. But, as I teach my kids, and the other children I work with, when we make a mistake we should be man (or woman) enough to admit it, and apologize.
