I'm not 21, so i usually just smile at their "funny" water or dr. pepper jokes while they drink, and we all eat. They'll have one or two beers each, and then we'll call it a night and head back to whore island (their house) for some N64 video games and fresh baked cookies.
Tonight was no different.
We found ourselves on the patio,under the perfect stretch of sky, enjoying the cool weather, new stories and old antics. The smell of Guinness, killian's or Dos Equis usually lingers around our table as we all laugh and talk, and I dip my honey bbq wings in ranch.
I've never seen any of these guys get slammed. No pupils dilated. No lampshades. I seriously doubt they've ever inched near the legal limit, but just because it's what we do, I take the keys and drive us home.
Tonight it was Gonzo's truck.
Its a big beast of a thing, compared to my loser cruiser, and I like driving it because it "makes me feel like a man! whatever it is that feels like..."
He's pretty protective of this thing, so the fact that I get to drive it is pretty high honor.
The cops were really swarming, though.
As we drove back I would see them laying in wait behind billboards, or with their lights off lurking in the darkness....
"How great would it be if you get pulled over, Abbey..." Randy said from the back seat.
flashing red and blue.
60 in a 65? My seatbelt? My dangerous good looks?
This fellow in uniform waddles up the passenger side window, "Ma'am do you know why I pulled you over?"
I give him a blank stare, looking concerned, and very remorseful....and then a subtle "no," in almost a whisper. The boys sit silently.
"In the state of Texas it is unlawful to change lanes until you have had your blinker on for at least 100 feet. You turned on your blinker to switch lanes, and you were still stradlin' the line there when you done turned it off."
"Oh, goodness," I tried to say in the most old-lady fashion possible.
"Are you now aware of what you've done?"
"Yes, Sir."
I hand him my license, and the chubby State Trooper disappears into the darkness beyond my rearview sight...
We sat there in limbo talking about how boring it must be to be a cop in a place with a zero crime rate, and how we'd rather die than enforce blinker etiquette for a living, until we saw his hefty shadow making its way to us again.
He sticks his head in the window and is rambling further about blinkers, and safety, and the law or something; all the while, he's scanning the truck with his flashlight looking for illegal goodies, and we're nodding submissively, quietly, politely.
Holding our tongues.
Be it fate, the Lord, or D.D. karma an actual drunk driver shot past us on the highway at that very moment. Officer McBlinkerPolice threw my license in the window and hollered something to the effect of "have a great night" over his shoulder before leaping into his car and peeling out to actually go do his job.
We unfolded the receipt wrapped around my ID to find a mere warning, a stamp of boredom marked 2:11 am.
Thus concludes my only success story when dealing with the fuzz.
Cops will waste your time.
You will deal with it, and be polite.
(and then you will blame Randy, because this is obviously his fault.)
