Run-In With the Law

A few months back, I was riding with two friends when we got pulled over. My guy friend was driving, and he knew he was not speeding, so we could not figure out why we had gotten pulled over. The officer took his license and registration and said he would be right back. About five minutes passed before the officer walked back to the window. He asked my guy friend to step out of the car and come to the back with him. My guy friend got out, and before my girlfriend and I could even comprehend what was going on, our friend was patted down, handcuffed, and escorted back to the police car.

It's a rather long, involved story, so this is the VERY short version. Come to find out, my guy friend had gotten pulled over a year prior for expired tags on his new car. He was told to renew his tags and show up for court. He renewed the tags but forgot about the "show up for court" bit. When he didn't show up to court, a warrant for his arrest was issued. Now, a year later, he happened to get pulled over for expired tags on the car we were driving. The officer saw he had a warrant for his arrest and did just that: arrested him. The car was also towed, so my girlfriend and I had to hop in the car with Shan and Jeff, drive all the way back to Denver (this happened in Fort Morgan), get in my car, drive back to Fort Morgan, and bail our friend out of jail.

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Keep that story in mind as I share this new story. This past weekend, I rented a car and made the trek across Colorado and Nebraska. My final destination for the weekend was Lincoln to attend my friend's wedding. I arrived within Lincoln city limits during rush hour on Friday afternoon. I WAS NOT speeding. It was impossible to speed with all the traffic, and there had been a lot of cops in the area, so I knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that I was not speeding. I had my cruise control set for 65 mph. Imagine my surprise when the police car that had been following me for a mile turned on his lights behind me. I turned on my blinker to pull over, and he followed me to the median. Shoot, he really was pulling me over. The only thing I could think of was there was something wrong with the rental car. That HAD to be the problem.

He came up to my passenger window and asked me to step out of the car and follow him back to his car. Immediately, I go into panic mode. These had been the same words spoken to my guy friend in December, so my first thought was I get arrested for something. My hands started visibly shaking. I grabbed my wallet, along with my rental contract and followed him back to his car. He cleared the front seat for me, which made me feel a little bit better. He wouldn't have me sit in the front seat if he was arresting me, right? I had never been in a police car before, so I quickly scanned my surroundings.

The reason he asked me to sit in his car was because it was safer than him standing outside my window with rush hour traffic whizzing by. I began to calm down after knowing this information. He told me he pulled me over for following the car in front of me too closely. I must admit, it's been 13 years since I had to take a driving test, so I didn't even know that 1). this was a law, and 2). you could get pulled over for it. I apologized to him and said I hadn't realized I was even following the car too closely. He said he clocked me at 1.8 seconds three different times, and the minimum is 2 seconds. He said he would give me a warning.

Phew! I got out of a ticket. The officer was a young guy, and he was super friendly. In fact, I dare even venture to say that he was flirting with me. I used this to my advantage and flashed my smile and made good eye contact. I can be quite charming when I put my mind to it. ;)

He proceeded to ask me about my hair. On my license, and naturally, I'm blonde. I recently dyed my hair brown, so I do look pretty different from my picture. I explained this to him, and he took a minute to take in my face. He wasn't quite sure what to put on the warning, but he eventually chose brown.

His next question caught me off guard. He asked me it was a carrying anything illegal. I couldn't even figure out what he would be talking about, but of course, my answer was no. He again took a moment to scan my face, and he must have believed my answer because he didn't press it any further. He told me the reason he asked was because:
1). I was in a rental car,
2). I had CO plates,
3). I was from Denver,
4). Denver has the highest amount of marijuana being transported out of it than any other city in the U.S.,
5). I-80 is the busiest interstate for drug transportation than any other major highway,
6). Most of the Mary Jane is transported in rental cars,
7). The majority of the drug transporters are ladies around my age.

I fit into EVERY single one of those criteria for being a drug dealer.

He must have believed my eyes. Or perhaps it was the, "I swear to you, I am anything but a drug dealer. You can search my car if you want," that made him believe me.

He chuckled and said, "No worries. I believe you. No need to search your car."

He finally swiped my license into his system. He looked at the computer screen, looked at me, looked back at the screen. He looked me straight in the eyes and said, "Ma'am, did you know you have a warrant for your arrest?"

Sheer, absolute terror rose into my face. I could feel my stomach start to get sick. My eyes began to water. I started to stutter. "I I I don't know what you're talking about. I I I have only ever been pulled over once for speeding. I I I think you have the wrong person. It's impossible. There is no way in . . ."

He cut me off with a laugh. "Calm down. I'm only kidding. Not all cops are bad, you know. Some of us like to have fun. Some of us are funny."

"That was NOT funny, sir."

"I thought it was. You should have seen the look on your face. That was priceless." He continued to laugh as he finished my warning.

By this point, my hands are shaking so badly that I can hardly keep hold of my registration. My stomach is churning and all I could think was, "If only this officer knew about my story from a few months back. He would understand why I didn't find this so funny."

As he wrote the warning, he wanted to know what I was doing in Lincoln and why I was dressed up. I told him I was headed to a rehearsal dinner for my friend's wedding. He said laughing, "Well, now you have a story to share with all your friends."

He handed me back my information and told me to have a great afternoon at the rehearsal. I walked back to my car, got in, put on my seat belt and got ready to merge back onto the interstate. I had to sit for a minute, though, to get myself under control.

He certainly was right. It did give me a story to tell all my friends.