I almost got a ticket today... Fucking walking! I was crossing the crosswalk on a blinking red hand when the cop yelled out loud enough to be heard over glammy Shudder To Think on my headphones. The guy marched me over to his motorcycle with the kind of demeanor I probably march around with when the cat’s have woken me up at 3AM. He asked for my license - and this is sure fire to get you into hot water with a large number of people up here in Washington - I showed him my California ID.
“How long have you been up here?” He sneered.
I told him a few months and he pointed out none-so-politely that I hadn’t changed my license. I pointed out with only a smidge of sarcasm that he might notice that I was walking to work and not driving.
“Have you ever been charged with a pedestrian violation before?” He yelled over traffic. Some middle-aged woman was asking if there had been an accident or something.
I asked him fairly pointedly what I was receiving a violation for, and he then proceeded to tell me that it was not kosher to walk on a flashing red hand as you pesky pedestrians were getting in the way of people trying to make a left turn. I asked him if this was a specialty law of just downtown Seattle, because that was the craziest thing I’d ever heard of. I suggested to him that if the cars were having such an issue turning left with us pedestrians crossing, perhaps they should cut the pedestrian signal short and give the cars a green turn arrow.
He glared. I glanced back the way I was walking, glanced at my invisible watch.
“Am I getting a ticket?” I asked.
He handed me back my license. I am so calling the Washington Department of Transpo. I apologize, but I’m still a little pissed about this.
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2 comments:
That CAN'T be a real conversation you had with an actual policeman. So either...
1) ...you made it up. I forgive you because it is what all of us would have wanted to do anyhow, given the ridiculousness of the situation
2) ...it really happened. You have the biggest balls in the world! ...or conversely, I have the smallest balls in the world because I think you have the largest balls in the world for just standing up to "the man".
Either way, wonderful story.
As a sidenote, I work in an office that has windows facing this nice little office park street. If I squint my eyes and zone out on one particular square inch of the window, I can actually see water. But I digress.
There are two motorcycle cops--Mr. Harley and Mr. BMW (guess which has the moustache)--who sit in our parking lot waiting for pedestrians to illegally cross the street, and then race over to ticket them. Also, they pull people over all the time for doing something on the main street but I haven't been able to figure out quite what they are ticketing for (i.e. I haven't had the balls to go out and ask, while the person is getting a ticket). Now, I understand that the cops are probably helping public interest in both cases as the main street is a seriously busy main road, and crossing over 6 lanes of traffic on foot is seriously dangerous... but it all just smacks of sneaky corruption and power-tripping. Granted, the Belmont cops are notoriously dickish.
I almost got a speeding ticket once from Mr. BMW, but I out-ran him, and hid in a parking lot.
It's a real conversation. Normally I put up with a cops bullshit with a tight and bitter little smile, but he was so fucking wrong that I knew even if he wrote me a ticket, it would have gone nowhere.
Plus that whole Washington vs. California thing just pisses me off - especially being born here.
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