Tales From The Past: We're Clean, Officer!

So, my friend Ben (that sorta rhymes...maybe I'll start calling him Bend simply so it does) posted about his trip to a WV club to do some comedy between sessions of a (from the description) a competition that was a mixture of karaoke and American Idol. On the way back, he got pulled over under slightly dubious circumstances, as he described it. It reminded me of a time I was pulled over about 10 years ago. Let me take you back then...

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I was driving down a secondary road in my town. Coming from an acquaintances house, with this guy. He was decked out in similar clothing. He definitely had that large floppy hat on. See, Erik (that's what I call him because that's what his name is) is a blues guitarist, and is a very big fan of Stevie Ray Vaughn. So much that he liked to emulate him in more than only playing. No biggie. Well, I get pulled over. Also, no biggie. Officer comes up to the window, gets my info, tells me that I wasn't speeding that much, but they changed the limit and they're pulling people over to get people used to the new drop in posted speed. I'm like "cool, no prob, I'll look out for that in the future." He then tells me he's gonna run my info per standard procedure, but I'll only get a warning. Cool. He goes back to his squad car.

Five minutes later, he's still in his squad car.

Two minutes after that, another squad car pulls up. Erik and I start to get a bad, yet humorous, feeling.

Another minute later, another squad car. They're all congregating now, chatting and looking at me and Erik.

Another minute, and a freaking K-9 unit pulls up. Erik and I are practically in hysterics, though we're trying not to show it. For good reason: we know what's going on. We got profiled. Only one thing...they profiled us wrong.

They think we're dealers. I'm giving him a raft of shit about it being because he's decked out like a pimp. He's telling me it's because I look like I just emerged from a Walden sabbatical. But either which way, we aren't holding. I'm not gonna lie and say we were innocent guys or anything, but there was nothing on us, or in that car.

First officer comes back to the window, and we act "cool." He asks us that we've been randomly selected for a car search. I act like I didn't know that was coming, and that I believe him that it was "random." I know my rights, and I know I can deny them the request. But at this point I want them to learn a lesson, so I'm like, "sure thing Mr. Officer, sir." We exit the vehicle and go through the whole rigmarole. Popping the trunk. Getting patted down. Having our crotches sniffed by the dog.

Of course, they found nothing. Well, they found a knife, but the blade was short enough to be considered pocket, and while it looked like a switchblade, it was just a spring loaded flip, which is legal (yeah, I know that). Even still, since the car was registered to my dad, I feigned ignorance just to get a rise out of the cop. If he hadn't seemed so damn pleased about finding something, I probably wouldn't have and just pointed out it was legal. He gave me a bunch of crap about it, but in the second most telling part of the tale, put it back where he found it and continued to search.

The single most telling part of the tale? I never got that written warning. After ten minutes of searching my car up and down, they found nothing, like I knew they would. They then muttered half assed apologies and got the hell outta Dodge. And Erik and I proceed to tell all our friends about how Grizzly Adams and the Stevie Ray Pimp beat The Man.