Luck runs away

I’m driving along highway 71 listening to the Pixies as loud as the VW stereo will blast, when I look over in time to see a state trooper spot me. My first thought is how boring defensive driving is going to be. Why do people think that bad comedians are going to help me enjoy eight hours of anything?

If you’ve never been pulled over by a Texas state trooper, let me be the first to tell you they look exactly like this. Hat, chewing tobacco, boots and all. I see him driving up behind me with his lights flashing, and immediately pull off to the shoulder of the road. I get out my insurance card and driver’s license and wait for him to come up to my window.

“Howdy, mam. I pulled you over because you were going 78 in a 70. Any emergency?” he says with a horrible southern drawl. “No sir” I squeak out and wait for my ticket. I’ve learned the less you say the better with these boys.

“Mam, could I ask you to step out of the car?” he asks.

Umm...get out of the car? The only times I have been asked to step out of the car is when my car’s been searched for drugs. This has happened on a couple of instances when I was in the wrong place at the wrong time (aka looser boyfriend #4). I step out of car and feel the traffic whizzing by me. My legs are a little shaky and I’m starting to realize that I’m scared of this redneck officer.

“Mam, please step to the back of the car”. Holy shit! Isn’t this what they say during those Cops episodes right before they cuff the strung out dude who’s dressed up like Paris Hilton with burn marks on her hands? I walk to the back of my car as carefully as I can. My legs are still trembling and these stupid tall black pumps aren’t cooperating with the gravel at all. The whole time I’m thinking this guy is going to mistake my nervousness for intoxication, and that makes my heart race.

I watch him from behind my car, poking his huge cowboy hat through my car window. He stops and walks back to me. I’m shivering from the wind and endorphins and hoping my short skirt might pull a few strings. “Mam, what’s that thing with the bird on it?” he asks while his eyebrows point down and mold into one large V. “Oh, that would be a little candle votive holder thingy…” I sputter with my hands flying everywhere.

And then it hits me. Oh, no! D’s Christmas gift is in a crappy brown paper bag on my front seat, and as I remember this a Cheshire cat smile crosses my face. The officer looks at my expression, tilts his head down, spits, and says “I’m gonna give you a warning, Mam. Slow it down”.

Damn! The one time I would have LOVED to be searched and nothing. I’m shaking like a leaf on the side of the road looking as scared as Sid without Nancy, and the man doesn’t even search my damn car. If only he had. That little brown bag contained a rather large pink vibrator designed for a man’s delight. (Imagine a little pink face with a sock behind it and you’re on your way.) Oh, and think of the happiness I would have had telling him what that was as he held it up on the side of the road. “Oh, THAT officer? Oh, you’re holding a man’s pleasure device. See you put the vibrator right here in her chin and off you go. They tell me to use a ton of lube, but you know, I don’t really know”. Big smiles all around. Damn, I have no luck at all. I would go to defensive driving and endure hours of flat jokes just to see one of those bubbas with a pink sex toy in his hand.