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Show knew he had me dead to right Rationalizations didn't stop ticket From the moment I saw the red, flashing light in my rearview mirror, I knew he had me dead to right Despite this, my mind im- mediately went into "rationalization" mode. ' Maybe he's after somebody who is ahead of mc," I said. I pulled pull-ed to the side of the road with the patrol car on my tail the whole way. "Forty, sir. May I have your license?" Playing dumb wasn't working. I had to start thinking of excuses. He looked like a nice guy. If I gave him a good enough excuse, maybe he'd let me off. I ran through the list of reasonable excuses in my mind. An emergency of some kind? If I could convince him that my wife or one of our kids had been badly injured and needed to get to the hospital, I might get away with it. No good. I'd have to produce proof. Diplomatic immunity? Maybe I from a parallel dimension where we didn't have traffic laws when he came back. He handed me a ticket to sign and explained what I had to do. "You must appear in city court within the next ten days. If you don't wish to contest the ticket, you may mail a check to the county clerk in this envelope." "Uh...thanks,"Isaid. "By the way," he said as he walked away, "you have a burned out taillight." "Do you know why I stopped you?" he asked. "Because I have a burned out taillight?" I suggested. "No. You were speeding. Do you know how fast you were going, sir?" he asked That left me with three possible courses of action. One, I could lie and say that I was within the speed limit. Since he had a radar gun, I didn't think he'd buy it Two, I could tell the truth and look like I didn't really care how fast I was going. Three; I could say I didn't know. That would make it look like I had the intellectual ability abil-ity of a wet newspaper, but it seemed seem-ed like the best idea at the time. "Uh, no. How fast was I going?" I asked. "Fifty-one, sir. Do you know what the speed limit is here?" "Uh..." The beauty of playing dumb is that you don't have to think to do it If I'd tried to come up with an excuse, I'd have been forced to keep coming up with new lies and excuses. I decided to stick with playing dumb. "I don't know the speed limit" r " - Short Cummings by Kevin Cummings could tell him that I was the ambassador ambas-sador from Magnolia or some place. No, that probably wouldn't work. Ambassadors probably carry ID cards or something, and it's a good bet that none of them drive 10-year-old Chevy s. As time went on, my excuses got to be more desperate. Maybe I could persuade him that I was visiting from another state. That wouldn't cut it either, the in-state plates were a dead giveaway. I was just trying to figure out a way to convince him that I was "Maybe I have a taillight out," I told my wife. "It's daylight and you don't have your lights on," she replied. "How would he know if you had a taillight out?" I was thinking up another great rationalization when the patrolman came to my window. |