Picture This Life

It was a cold, dark morning. At 3:30 a.m. I was headed towards my hunting buddy’s house just up the highway. A few miles from his house I passed a police officer who was cruising along in the middle of three lanes doing 63 in a 70. I passed him at a ginger 70 miles an hour – not wanting to invite any trouble.

A few hundred yards past the cop, I merged into the middle lane as my exit was approaching. In an instant he was on my bumper with lights blaring.

“Dang it.” I muttered to the companion I was taking out hunting that day.

I pulled over, put it in park, turned on the dome light, hit the emergency blinkers and rolled down the window.

“Good morning, officer.”

“License and proof of insurance, please.”

I fished the insurance card from my glove box and license from my wallet and handed the pair of documents over.

“Officer, what seems to be the problem this morning?”

“You failed to signal when you changed lanes.”

Furrowing my brow I said, “Uh, I don’t mean to be disagreeable, but I always signal and I’m pretty sure I signaled just then.”

“Well you did, but it only blinked twice. You need to maintain a continuous signal for 100 feet when changing lanes.”

As he said it, he smirked slightly. We both knew this was a load of bologna. He looked at my license, at my orange hat, and then at Indie in her kennel.

“Have a good hunt.” He said as he returned my documents and headed back to his squad car.

I rolled my window up and turned to my buddy. “Cops…” I said with a shake of my head.

“He just wasn’t used to seeing anyone on the road at this ungodly hour. He looked bored and was probably hoping to catch you drinking and driving.”

“No doubt.”

“Come to think of it, passing him at 70 was probably your problem. You should have flown by at about 77. Only drunk guys drive the speed limit.”

“Ha. Maybe next time.”

I turned my blinker on and merged back onto the highway.

*****

Epilogue.

I was driving 70 miles an hour. I blinked twice. I timed my blinker and it takes a second and a quarter to blink twice. At 70 miles an hour, I traveled 102 feet in a second. In other words, I did maintain a continuos signal for 100 feet while changing lanes.

Boo-yah.