Pitiful When You Cry

[chicoandtheman]

The Man sez: Infamously slow driver that I am, I somehow got pulled over this morning on my commute to work. And I had just been thinking about how I had been so lucky in not getting a ticket at the speeding camera I pass. I mean, that is how the brain works, building little logic connectors. Anyway, so I got pulled over because I didn't slow down fast enough when heading into this particularly slow patch about two-thirds of the way to school. Do I normally slow down? Not really. But there are a lot of lights that force me to drive slower. The cop was parked in a 40 mph zone, which was lucky since a 30 was, like, fifty feet further up. That is not an exaggerration. He caught me doing 56, which is a bit faster than I usually drive but I had just made it through a yellow light when he nabbed me. I was extremely confused about what he was doing behind me (lights but no sirens, I never know what that means) and then about where I should pull over. The very, very last thing I wanted the cop to think was that I was trying to evade him. No, the very, very last thing would be that I was drunk or had ten kilos in my trunk but evading a police officer was not high on that list. The list of things to want a cop to think about you. Uh... So he walked up to my window and my heart started fucking pounding - not the 'that was soooo much coffee' pounding, the 'a hoarde of flesh-starved zombies is right behind me' kind - and my eyes started to sting and my voice went up about two octaves. I somehow managed not to say "What seems to be the problem, officer?" and that's no small miracle. He asked something like if I was in a hurry, which struck me as weird, like he wanted to convey that he was not really pulling me over to write a speeding ticket. I said I was just driving to work, that I was going to the Special Ed summer school class I teach. In retrospect, nice. He told me how fast I was going and I probably looked like I expected him to punch me in the mouth at any second. I said I didn't know that was a forty zone, that I knew this was a thirty and to slow down here, which is true. I knew that just past the hospital are two orange signs telling motorists that the speed limit is dropping to thirty. Oh, and then how did the crying commence! This wasn't gross snotty air-sucking crying. This was kicking-a-dog crying. I am fairly sure I look awful when I cry. I mean, pathetic to the point where strangers can't help but feel like they need to make it better. I'm not bragging about how ugly a face I get when I cry (and it is ugly). I would much rather look pretty in a mournful way, but we don't get to choose things like this. I've purposefully cried my way out of two minor violations. This was totally unplanned crying. It was that wave of my-mother-is-going-to-kill-me-dead misery that brought on the weepies. So the officer tells me I was speeding and I reply (like a crying robot) "I guess you'll need this stuff" (meaning my license and vehicle registration card. He asked if I'd ever had a ticket before or been arrested or something and I did an involuntary "No~~~~" where my voice goes up like a little kid. Ugh, I hope he didn't think I was just playing pathetic to avoid a ticket. That's genuine pathetic right there. That's all me, baby. So I sit in my car and cry a little more before he comes back with a warning and then there are a few more tears (of relief). But stupid me, I can't find my driver's license in the four seconds between him handing it to me and me picking up the pouch that holds my registration card. I am still so tear-dazed and adrenaline-bathed that I can't figure out how to poke my head out of my car to get the cop's attention. This was such a humiliating experience. The cop came back and was all "Is it in your pocket? How about in the cup holder?" and I just couldn't get the tears to stay down. I even got out of the car and rifle (utterly embarrassed) through the detritus around the driver's seat while the cop stood and watched my shame. I stood up and he was like "Are you okay? Why are you so upset?" FOR REALS. He was sort of cute too, just to make me feel even more pathetic. I was like, "I can't find my license and what if I get pulled over again because then I really will get a ticket and WHO'S GOING TO GET THE KIDS OFF THE BUS!?" A bit of stressed jazz hands and face squishing later, I held in a deep breath in hopes of not hyperventilating. Checked over my wallet for the fourth time and of course it was stuck in the pocket I use for credit cards.

WHAT THE FUCK. Why do I do stupid shit like that?

But all in all, at least the cop left convinced that I really didn't know it was a forty zone. And now I truly value the miserable, wretched face I make when I cry.