How I Got Out of This One, I'll Never Know

As a male in American society, it is a constant fight to achieve equality of opportunity with my female counter parts. Females, on average, live longer, give birth to more babies, have a lower incidence of prostate cancer and color blindness, and get out of more traffic tickets than we underprivileged males. Unfortunately, this just seems to be a fact of life in the America of today. Since I - in no way - would suggest doing away with the idea of separate sexes in humanity, I will accept my lot in life and derive what little satisfaction I can from when the system manages to work for me, as it did on the way to the Billy Joel and Elton John concert at Busch Stadium in 1994 C.E.

Since I have never felt comfortable in a car I can pick up and throw, I volunteered to drive my friend and I to the concert in my sturdy steel construction, survive anything short of dropping into the Grand Canyon, 1984 GMC half-ton truck, equipped with front mounted brush guard/car mangler (but that is a story for another time). An offer she gladly accepted, probably because I would then be driving on the return trip at two in the morning but possibly to keep me down and in my place (one never knows). In either case, we set off on our three hour tour at about three in the afternoon to leave plenty of time for life's little surprises.

Now, approximately halfway between Bloomington/Normal and St. Louis is Springfield. While I have never truly disliked the town of Springfield, I was quite happy to detour around it upon I-55. Unfortunately, years of motorists with feelings similar to my own had taken their toll upon the highway, and the good men and women of the Illinois Department of Transportation were had at work somewhere other than the repair zone they had set up on I-55 near Springfield. Yet, it was my civic duty to slow my vehicle to forty-five miles per hour upon entering the deserted construction zone, in case one of the workers would spontaneously materialize on the side of the road having been returned from the Visitor's latest round of lower intestinal exams or some similar, highly probable circumstance.

Now, years latter as I look back upon the incident, I suppose somewhere within the construction zone was a sign that announced the beginning of a fifty-five miles per hour speed zone upon the highway. The small white sign was probably advantageously placed for the viewing needs of the driving public behind several, barely noticeable, bright yellow back hoes or steam rollers. Perhaps, the sign had been accentuated by having a large, orange sign to notify motorists they were in fact within a construction zone hung over it. Even more likely is the possibility that to avoid damage to the very expensive speed limit sign, the workers removed it from the side of the road and set up a psychic communication system to inform motorists the speed limit was changing. In which ever case, I was a complete fool and missed the sign and, upon exiting the construction zone, proceeded to accelerate to sixty-four miles per hour.

Several minutes later, my friend brought to my attention the odd behavior of the passengers of a car tentatively pulling up on my driver side. The passenger seemed to be waving to get my attention and then pointed behind my car. Once I turned to look at the car beside me, it rapidly decelerated. I glanced up to my rearview mirror to figure out what that car was doing, but my attention was, instead, instantly drawn to the flashing blue and red lights in the grill the unmarked, white Caprice Classic not more than ten feet behind me. The air in the car turned blue as I pulled over.

As the plain clothed officer walked up to my open window, I gave as much of a smile as I could manage. "Good afternoon, officer."

The officer cleared his throat in response and then leaned down to look into the window through his man-with-no-eyes sunglasses. "Do you know how long I was following you?"

Now, I have always figured questions like that are mainly rhetorical, since no one who is even remotely on their chump would tell a police officer, "Yes, officer, you have been following me for the past half hour. In which time I was paying absolutely no attention to the road and could have killed someone. Arrest me, please." And so, I just weakly shook my head.

"For the past two miles...."

The ominous silence following his pronouncement lasted until a long tunnel opened in the air above and in front of me. A friendly voice floating down from a bright light at the end of the tunnel began to welcome me home.

Seemingly oblivious to my emotional trauma, the police officer continued, "I pulled you over for doing sixty-six miles per hour in a fifty-five miles per hour zone."

A gentle warmth enveloped my body as I traveled down the tunnel. In the light at the end, I started to be able to make out shapes of dead relative working on a dance number for my up coming "welcome to death" party. Angels were placing processed pseudo-cranberry sauce upon the buffet table. I love processed psuedo-cranberry sauce.

"But, that means I only have to give you a warning, so drive slower," and with that the police officer walked backed to his car and drove off, leaving my friend and I staring at each other in shock, and the angels with a lot of left over psuedo-cranberry sauce.