I "California roll"ed a stop sign. For about the 78,314th time, just like everyone else who rolls through that intersection. Next weekend I’ll know to take the other route.
So here I am, a less-than-cute late-30s female (wearing awesome shades, though!) with my Red Cross gear in the back seat, and I get a Warning Summons.
I suppose I should be thankful.
“Well, I watched you not really stop at the sign back at Schmitty’s…”
“I’m sorry.”
Long pause, while the officer retreats to his car to find out how bad of a person I really truly am.
Nothing on my license since 1999 (long story involving cows) so I got off with a warning, for which I’m grateful, but I live here and I know this town. Abdi or Chuol, the new immigrants? Shaun, the black Chicago transplant? The 18 year old white kid with the newly, proudly, pimped out pickup?
None of them would have gotten a warning and, frankly, I didn’t deserve it.
If you google the municipality in question, you might get an address for their courthouse. From there, you’re just a check and a stamp away from paying for your crime. I think the $300-$500 range ought to do nicely, but I’ll acquiesce to more learned members of law enforcement.
Are you implying that you didn’t get off scot-free because you’re unattractive? Or that you SHOULD have gotten off scot-free because you have some bags with an emblem on them? Or are you arguing that those should cancel each other out? Or are you arguing that you DID get off scot-free because you didn’t get a ticket? Or are you arguing that a “warning summons” is somehow NOT getting off scot-free? I don’t understand.
Perhaps reading on will allow me to flesh out the story…
So the cop did his job. He pulled you over for a traffic violation, and then listened to you admit that you did it.
So, he went back to the cruiser looking for a reason to let you off easy.
Looks like he found a reason to let you off easy! And he let you off easy! Yay! This is a happy story!
Wait, why is there more to read? Perhaps reading on will allow me to flesh out the story…
Ummmmm… cite?
You’re not the same girl who was too pretty to fly Southwest, are you? Wait, you admitted you weren’t pretty. So why exactly would black people, white people, men, women, emus, homosexuals, bisexuals, asexuals, partridges, pear trees, and the ghost of F. Scott Fitzgerald get off but not you? I’m confused…
why, exactly would none of them have gotten a warning?
No, the moral is “Don’t look a gift horse in the mouth,” which is exactly what you’re doing here.
-You did wrong.
-You managed to escape any real consequences for your actions.
-Yet you are dissatisfied with the goldenness of your parachute.
The secondary moral, of course, is, to be thankful that this is not the Pit, lest my summary be followed by more strongly worded summaries by others.
Seriously, chique, we all California roll. I do. I don’t hesitate to admit it, either. But I take my licks like a man if caught and I certainly don’t whine like kicked dog when I get caught but then let off.
I think the OP is actually trying to say they wouldn’t have gotten a warning but she did because she’s a white chick and that’s why the cop is an asshole despite not being an asshole to her. Or something. It’s a very confused OP.
Let me add, that when I was a cute 19-year old white chick, I got not just one, but two tickets for not stopping completely at a three-way stop light with no oncoming traffic at 11:30 pm on completely deserted streets. And the cop tail-gated me for over a mile, scaring the crap out of me (I couldn’t tell it was a cop, just some asshole right on my bumper), and thank god I decided to just start driving slower and slower and didn’t try to speed up to shake him until he finally put on his lights when I was down to 10 mph. AND it was Valentine’s Day. So the OP needs to just be happy with her warning.
This has been done. My Google-fu is letting me down woefully, but I remember a story from a few years back where the London Underground received a letter with a New Zealand postmark. In it was a cheque for many hundreds of pounds, and a note from a guy who said he was a habitual fare evader when he had lived in London, many, many years before, and he hoped this would make up for it. I think he’d found god or something.
The point you are trying to make in your OP is eluding me.
You indicate you’re not hot enough to just get a warning by being sexually yummy. OK, we’ll take your word for that.
If you’re weren’t white, and didn’t have a vagina you probably would not have gotten off so easily. OK, we’ll take your word for that too.
Because the vagina-less people of color, and those with obnoxious rides would possibly not have gotten off so easily, the police officer deserves no gratitude for sparing a less-than-cute late-30s white vagina possessor with fabulous sunglasses a ticket.
Wow. That was a long road to travel in order to not have to say thanks or feel gratitude for being granted a small dispensation by a police officer. Glad it worked for you though.
it must be quite a burden being you. I mean if a door or some similar chivalry is offered to you because you’re woman, you really have to put some effort into working out why gratitude would not be an apt response.
It sounds to me like she just feels guilty about it. Relieved at not getting a fine, but guilty because she really did deserve one.
If I was in the right mood (read: a cynical one) I’d wonder “Did he let me go because he’s being nice? Is it because I’m a chick? Would he have done the same the same thing for anyone else?” But I admit, I wouldn’t go so far as to call up the court house and ask for a ticket. Who would? Hence a tiny feeling of guilt. Then I’d get a little more from assuming the worst of someone who’d just done me a favor.
Thanks, bean; you hit it exactly. I didn’t think my OP was overly cryptic or confusing. Some of the responses seemed overly hostile; not sure where that came from.
It’s not as interesting as you might think it would be.
I had a car. It hit a cow. I don’t know what the cow was on the fucking road at 11pm, but it was, and I hit it. I was the butt of family jokes for a year before my sister hit the recliner.
I got another car. The following summer I received registration renewals for both cars at about the same time, didn’t pay attention to what I was doing, and renewed the registration for the dead car. Did the same thing the next year. That winter I was pulled over for a random stop thingie and was cited for “wrong registration”, or something like that. I waited til the last possible second to pay the fine and, apparently (and I say “apparently” because I didn’t find out about it until Saturday), had my license suspended for a weekend - revoked on Friday, reinstated on Monday.
Was it a Stearns County sherrif? If so, I’m suprised you didn’t get a ticket and a rubber hose beating (It’s been so long since the riots up there, they’re bored). If it was your local podunk city cop (yes, I said podunk, and I know where you live :D) then I wouldn’t be surprised. The chique smile and the red cross gear would make me let you off with a warning.
Ahhh, but it was the city cops that invaded the only black fraternity on campus and shut 'em down (IIRC, they were making too much noise playing pool) while the white kids were out…uhhh…“rioting”. And I use that term loosely.
The only thing the county cops seem to do is give out DWIs.
I am a guy who is fut buggly. I have gotten off with warnings. I have always attributed it to my silver coated tongue. It sure as hell isn’t my looks.
To the OP, seriously would you be happier if you got a real life cite that cost money? Are you kidding me?
Look here is the deal, cops are people. they hate to be lied to. Just like you do. If someone tells them the truth, they will often bend over backwards to cut them a little slack.
FTR I have observed an officer tell a person of color in custody “Look we don’t have a problem if you drink or party, but do it at home. If you do it in public then we have to arrest you. You don’t want that, and we don’t want that. OK? So no more partying in public?”
I walked on a whopping expired license/expired registration/expired inspection/lack of proof of insurance/failure to yield right-of-way-to-an-emergency vehicle ticket.
I was a cute nineteen year old college chick with big, blinking, genuinely frightened brown eyes. I offered no excuses.
Did he let me walk because of that?
Or because he was on his way to a huge accident up the road and didn’t want to delay his progress any further? Just wanted to give me a warning and be on his way to a much more serious problem?
The huge accident up the road was indeed a stunner, because I came up on it after the cop and I parted ways. The scene was absolutely crawling with cops and EMS.
I don’t flatter myself that it was my appealing exterior that got me off. I’m sure he had a much bigger problem to deal with than filling out all that paperwork, and if anything perhaps my honesty was what swayed him. I don’t honestly care what his reasons were; I was just grateful not to have to deal with all those fines.
(FTR, I did have insurance and I did have a renewed license, but I didn’t have either in my car. The expired tags were indeed real though.)
