When you're zipping along the highway and see the flashing lights in the rearview mirror, you have one of two reactions:
1. What did I do? I am a guiltless lamb who suffers constant persecution.
2. I am so, so very guilty, and now I am going to car jail.
There is a rarely experienced third option: "Perhaps the officer heard a really good joke on the radio and can't wait to tell someone." But probably not.
I had the occasion to drive the breadth of our great state this past week and did not get pulled over. Didn't see a single state trooper the entire trip, as they were off servicing other customers, as they say when you're on hold.
When you pass a squad car squatting on the median, you feel that sudden squirt of dismay. It's like the appearance of the Grim Reaper, coiled like a puma. You think: "I'll just tap the brakes to show my willingness to comply with the speed limit." Which is like the cops seeing you stab someone and then wipe the blade on your pants. No one that fastidious could be guilty.
You check the rearview mirror to see if the squad car has nudged out of its blind, and when it doesn't, relief floods your body. Then gas floods your engine, because you have learned absolutely nothing. It's as if you're inoculated now.
The reason I didn't get yanked off and cited and possibly put in the back of the car because for some reason my insurance card is printed on a fake $50 bill? (I wish they would rethink that.) I didn't speed. I strictly observed the limit, which is 69 miles per hour.