I got pulled over today.I was driving home after work and a motorcycle cop pulled me over for my suspicious behavior. He didn’t actually tell me this, but I think my “suspicious behavior” was driving exactly the speed limit while looking terrfied near Southwest dorms on a game day.
For the record, driving exactly the speed limit and looking absolutely terrified is my normal method of driving. I prefer this to my previous driving style, which is about 15 MPH while slowing down for squirrels and being honked at constantly. And it’s MUCH better than being dependant on the Eric-taxi or the PVTA.
Anyway, the cop pulled me over, asked for my license + registration, gave me a hard time about having had a license for a year and claiming to be twenty-three, asked me a lot of questions about what I was doing and where I was going. Then he made me touch my nose and walk on the white line. It was a bit early for me to start boozing, but it’s a game day at UMass so I suppose he can’t be blamed for checking. Fortunately I didn’t have to say the alphabet backwards, ’cause I don’t think I can. Once assured that I was, in fact, driving sober at mid-afternoon, he asked to search my car. I have since been told that a driver doesn’t have to allow a cop to search their car, it’s private property and so forth, but I didn’t know that so I said ok. Besides, I’m not really in the habit of carrying contraband.
Anyway, my beloved car, Squeaky, is ancient and not much works the way it’s meant to work. One of the things that doesn’t work so well is the trunk door… I tried to explain that the officer was welcome to climb over the backseat like I do, but that didn’t go so well so I stood there until he forced it open and found my overdue library books. (Incidentally, my bookbag was in the backseat, and he didn’t open it, although he checked the glove compartment and under the seats) I didn’t get a citation or a ticket or anything since it’s not actually illegal to drive soberly past Southwest.
As a police officer, you need to make a judgement call about which cars are risks, and obviously you’re going to make mistakes a certain percentage of the time. I’d actually rather have random innocent people get stopped than let people drive drunk. But even if we assume that Mr. Cop has an amazing record of pulling over 99 underage DUIs with pot in their gloveboxes, per 1 Meg, he still didn’t need to be an asshole to me. And ending it with something like “sorry, miss, we have to be extra careful today” instead of telling me that I “need to watch myself in the future” would go a long way.
