October 16, 2003

So I got a ticket yesterday... from Dirty frikin' Harry.

As many of you have already surmised by the oft-seen copy-paste artwork in the strip, I am the single laziest person on Earth. A title I happily and proudly accept. So you can see how it would be that my registration is 10 months overdue. Adding to that laziness was the next tier of laziness: being too lazy to transfer my insurance information from my house to my car. Consequently, when I got pulled over I had neither registration nor proof of insurance.

The ticket didn't bother me at all. I had it coming. For ten months. And the "no proof of insurance" thing can be cleared up by me simply showing that I was insured at the time to the judge.

But what irritated me was the cop's attitude. Now, I like cops. I think they're cool. One of the most popular characters in the strip is a cop. But this guy treated me like I was a pedophile serial-killer just because I failed to meet an arbitrary administrative bullshit task. That got me really irritated.

And no, it wasn't my attitude to the cop that caused the problem. I'm a pretty confrontational person, but when I get pulled over, I'm "dancin' fo' da Man". I get super polite. I called the cop "Sir" all the time, and didn't try to bullshit my way out of the ticket I had coming. So why the attitude from the cop? Hell if I know. Either he was just in a bad mood or he's one of those people who just get off on lording authority over others.

But I kept my cool and didn't call him the asshole he was. So he didn't tow my car. Though he did tell me to "shut up" when I asked him where to sign the ticket.

Asshole.

-ATW