During the endless hours I spent waiting at stoplights today, I thought about the fact that I didn’t really have anything to post about. I had a lot of fun ideas, but they all seemed like they would be fun to work on a few days from now, not, like, now.
“Oh, well,” I thought. “I’ll just have to force out a review of The Blackstone Key whether I want to or not.”
And then I got pulled over.
No, sorry, it’s more like and then I got pulled over.
Wait, I meant AND THEN I FUCKING GOT FUCKING PULLED OVER.
What’s the big deal, right? Happens to everyone occasionally, right?
Guys, I wasn’t driving. I was riding this:
HOW THE FUCKING HELL DOES SOMEONE GET PULLED OVER ON A VEHICLE THAT CAN ONLY GET UP TO 40 MPH WHEN IT’S HEADED DOWNHILL AND JESUS CHRIST HIMSELF WILLS IT TO GO FASTER?
The answer to that is…dunno, really. I went over it with my roommate, an actual licensed driver (the Boyfriend is at Otakon and therefore cannot provide expert vehicular counsel), and he’s stumped, too. I came out of my neighborhood, stopped at the stop sign, signaled right, took a right, and then went through a crosswalk with no one in it. A crosswalk that has stop signs for the pedestrians, but no stop signs for the vehicles on the street.
And then I got pulled over.
First the cop asked me how old I was. Which seems like a relevant question, since I was riding a vehicle that mostly appeals to those under sixteen, but guys. GUYS. I have not looked sixteen since I was twelve, trufax. At the ripe old age of fourteen, people were already asking me if I wanted to sign up for credits cards.
…it’s amazing how much emo glasses and a perpetually sour expression will age a girl.
Anyway, I am not one of those people who look younger than I am, okay? I never have been, and I never will be. So between the fact that everyone automatically assumes I’m 42 and the fact that I WAS FUCKING TALKING TO A COP WHO’D FUCKING PULLED ME OVER, I got a little flustered. “How old am I?” I wondered aloud.
“You have to think about it?” the cop asked incredulously.
“I have a lot on my mind,” I said defensively, and then proceeded to accidentally tell him that I was a year younger than I actually am.
It was at this point that he asked me to produce my ID, and I opened my bookbag and shit exploded everywhere.
I have always been disorganized: I remember being horribly embarrassed as a teenager because no matter how hard I tried to keep my belongings contained, within five minutes of entering any classroom my backpack would have vomited up the contents of my entire bedroom. My books, chapsticks, binders, and lunch bag would end up blocking the aisle, annexing the desks behind and in front of me, and burying the neighbor to my immediate right. Every. Single. Time.
So yes. He asked for my ID, and my bookbag exploded, spewing old grocery lists and change all over the street. And it took me a good three minutes to find my ID, because I’d thrown it deep inside the bag in a fit of pique earlier in the afternoon.
When I finally handed him my ID, he called it in. Yeah. That’s right. HE CALLED IN A LEARNER’S PERMIT.
A learner’s permit.
And then, having humiliated me sufficiently, he let me go with a warning.
…I sped all the way to Target just to spite him.
A warning for what? Having a messy handbag?
…maybe? I don’t know! I just don’t know!
Um… yeah. Sorry bout the ’splosion
Me, too. Although some little kid is going to be REALLY HAPPY when he or she encounters all the loose change I left in the street…
“It was at this point that he asked me to produce my ID, and I opened my bookbag and shit exploded everywhere.”
I laughed so hard at this my dog woke up and started barking. Oh man, I wish I had seen this.
Or the part where I rooted through the entire shitstorm to find my teensy, weensy learner’s permit? Good times, man. Wish I’d had a camera.
Well, I suppose it might not have been a hoot for you while it was happening, but look at it this way, you suffered so that we, you readers, would be amused. Technically, that makes you a bona fide tormented artist. you go girl!
I always wanted to be a tormented artist! Of course, I also always planned on being dead by 25, which means I have to go out in a blaze of glory within the next ten months or so.
…yeah, let’s scrap that particular dream.
Weeeell, it doesn’t ave TO BE scrapped. Because, if you WANT to die young, I mean you just gave us Internet-morlocks an adress to your postbox, and, eh, well…I’ll stop writing now before I get banned and reported to DHS.
Ha! You act as thought I’d never received a poorly-concealed humorous death threat before!
Well, all in good pun.
You’re not alone in your exploding-bookbag tendencies.
The many pockets on my work clothes hold two knives, three sets of keys, a compass, a waterproof cell phone, a notebook, at least two pencils, my wallet (in a ziploc bag, if I decide to be smart that day), a powerbar or two, a camera, clip-on sunglasses, and a tube of sunscreen. And I hang a water bottle from my belt loop.
I also carry a backpack at work. It’s full, too. If you give me bags or pockets, I will put stuff in them.
I suspect cops don’t bother me because they don’t want to wait for me to find my ID.
Ha! See, your stuff is all PRACTICAL, though. I tend to squirrel away things like 2-month-old receipts, and I refuse to go to work without at least two books on my person.
Oh, see the fix for that is loading up on practical stuff, which forces you to leave the 2-month-old receipts piled up on your desk at home…
Although the multiple books… well, yeah, of course! That’s what the backpack’s for.
I eschew practicality! Just because I like having the opportunity to use the word “eschew” in a sentence.
I’m so confused. Don’t they have to tell you why they pulled you over?
Allegedly. But not in this instance, unfortunately.
Look at it this way: I doubt he imagined, in his wildest cop-fantasies, that this particular pullover would be such a fiasco. I guarantee he will NEVER pull a scooter over again. In fact, I ALSO guarantee that around the time your bag exploded, he was probably thinking something along these lines:
“What I *really* wanted was a career in interpretive dance. Now look at me…LOOK AT ME!”
Look at him! Look at him!