I don’t know about you but I am one of those people that seems to have a cop around when I do the dumbest thing. I traditionally get a speeding ticket on an annual basis, it’s a real bitch but somehow they tag me. My last one was coming into work, I was right at the driveway for the plant and a deputy sheriff pulled the lights on me for going 45 in a 35. What sucked about that was I was in the plant driveway and he was a deputy sheriff, they aren’t the ones that traditionally give out tickets. The former cop in my plant even chuckled at me getting a ticket from this guy. Aaaaanyways, I mentioned that to give you some insight into my police appreciation or rather the continual depreciation. You see I work in what is portrayed on TV as a good ole boys town, where the police are notoriously the good ole boys netowork. A town where if I had my Jersey plates on my truck still, they would harass me daily on the way into work (you know, the tailgating and following through every turn because, hell, the taxpayers are paying for their gas).
Today I was driving into work and came to the main intersection in town. I pulled into the left turn lane to wait out the light. I am not sure which side had the green light but my side of the intersection was red. That didn’t seem to phase the busted up camper top pickup in front of me though, they pulled right through the intersection, through the red light and made a left turn. This immediately turned the irony sensor in my head on and I shook my head and chuckled to myself as there is never a cop around to see this. I turned to look around and see who else was witnessing this illegal procedure when to my surprise, three cars back and in a lane that would be going straight there was a cop. I stared at the officer for a minute, shocked that they weren’t going after the driver and part that there was actually a cop around this time. I turned back around and then did a double take and stared at the cop. They obviously saw my interest in their absence of reaction to the events and lifted their fingers off their steering wheel as if to motion that they saw me staring at them. I turned back around and laughed at the belligerence of the police force of the town. When the light finally turned green I made the left turn, properly, and the cop pulled into the left lane and followed me around. With my bitter luck I was sure that they were going to start their little tailgate game and even possibly pull me over for a lecture of how they know how to do their job and in some déjà vu incident tell me that the other townships cops were a bunch of poontangs (that really happened in Pendleton!). Instead they followed me until the pickup that made the illegal procedure was in view at an oil change place. The cop pulled in to the shop and flashed their lights. I don’t know what happened after that but,

The whole point of this story is:
1. When you wish there was a cop to see the idiots doing things that are obviously illegal compared to what the cops pull you over for, don’t always think that the cops will do anything.
2. I think that cop would have let the whole event pass if it wasn’t for me staring them down and forcing them to realize that, yes, a illegal traffic procedure did occur.
3. I really hate the Napoleonic I rule your world shut up boy Mark Hammond good ole boy local police forces that I have to deal with.
4. If it was me, that cop would have been burning rubber, lights and siren blazing, making a huge theatrical event to give me the biggest freakin ticket they could.
5. The Columbia and Irmo police forces, or non-backwoods forces in general, are actually very adept and I appreciate what they do, it’s just the forces that obviously make their own rules that piss me off.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, October 4th, 2005 at 2:25 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.