Pulling Over

I was headed from Garden City to Hutchinson, minding my own business at 80 mph on a 65mph highway, when I passed a Highway Patrol dude, who was driving in front of the slow moving truck(65mph). How sneaky! Hiding in front of a moving vehicle.

As I was passing, he put his doughnut on his index finger and motioned for me to pull over. I sped up to get in front and pulled over to the shoulder. After parking behind me for 10 minutes(had to finish his doughnut) he got out and strolled over to my car. "Do you know why I pulled you over?" he asked. "You go first" I answered "you might have a lesser offense!" Then he asked why I was in such a hurry. I told him that I had a new hire prospect to interview and he said that was no reason to put my life at risk. (apparently he never had to clean toilets) So he wrote out a ticket, which would cost me about $140 and I was on my way.

The interviewee never showed, so I ended up cleaning toilets.(yeah, that's right! I would have hired him anyway because he had a pulse) Lucky for me there was a plasma center close by and I was able to land a quality employee that had reached his donation limit.

I thought about fighting the ticket with a trick I pulled at one time, but I thought that I may be pushing my luck. About 10 years ago, I was ticketed for doing 65 in a 40 entering Harper, KS. I decided that I would fight the ticket( not that I was innocent, but maybe the cop would go into a diabetic coma from too many doughnuts and not show up in court.)

I drove to Anthony, where the county courthouse is located, the next day to meet with the judge at 6pm. (no joke. Maybe her day job was at "Dunkin Donuts") I could'nt find the court house, so I stopped at the fire station and was told that it was at the Library. The fireman said I should go on in and wait for the judge to show up(after she cleaned out the deep fat fryer) At about 6:05 pm the Judge arrived, we introduced ourselves and went into her office. She informed me that I would not win my case(It's uncanny how she would know this) if I chose to fight and would be better off to pay $90 to enroll into the Diversion Program. If I received no further tickets(fat chance) the violation would not go on my record. I told her that I would fight it and she set court to be held in 10 days. But, if I changed my mind, I could call the county prosecuter to enter diversion.

Well the 10th day came and I had forgotten all about driving to Anthony and there was no way that I would make it there before the doughnut shop closed. So I called the prosecuters office and told the attorney that I would like to enroll in the diversion program. He said that he would be glad not to have to go to the library on a Friday night and miss happy hour at the Mugs and Jugs Tavern. All I had to do was to mail back the form that he would send to me along with a check for $90(but wait! there's more if I act now) I said that court would be in 1 hour and that I was worried about an arrest warrant being issued for not showing up. "Oh, don't worry your handsome little head on that!" he said "If you don't show up and I don't show up, then the judge will simply tear the ticket up!" (and the cop will be furious that he missed happy hour)

So when the form arrived a few days later I said to myself "He didn't show up. I didn't show up. Cop was left with crime scene folders on his lap and the judge has torn up the ticket." So I tore up the form, pocketed my $90 lived happily ever after. (Though, sometimes I awaken in a cold sweat, from a bad dream, where a janitor is moving the file cabinets in the judges office, sees a yellowish paper that has fallen behind and says "What's this?"





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