But let me explain how last night went down. First of all, let me tell ya this: I am an Academic Gangsta. Oh yeah, that's right... when I say "Who's da man who gots the mad learnin skillz", what you gon' say? Thass right -- strange's house.

Because with this being the sixth week of this particular class, and missing last night making it the fourth of them I've missed, I arrived at the end of last night's segment to have a heart-to-heart with the instructor. Particularly since, according to the syllabus, with 4 absences I've now failed the class ... but I saunter on in (yeah, sometimes you have to saunter) and even as other students are sticking around for further discussion and the board's full of notes and such, she just starts handing me assignment sheets without even saying "hi"... I point out that I've missed about 20% of the class points thus far, and she pretty much asks when I'd like to have that stuff done.

So yeah, I walked out feeling pretty good about myself. Really, that was just too easy -- I didn't even have to make the point that I'm way above the level of what this class is teaching (it's Basic Writing, pretty much), she just got that apparently from the couple of things I've turned in so far. A's, of course. I know you party people can't really tell here, because I write the way I think in these pages, but I actually can write well. I mean, grammatically correct, linear in thought, rational, witty, easily understood, the whole bit -- but really, what's the point of all that when you're just playing? Oddly enough, tho, I actually find it hard not to "play" for school assignments, too -- actually, I have sometimes with great success.

But I've digressed. The point of that was that this event was pretty much all that I'd left the house for yesterday, and as I'd procrastinated the whole day and avoided going to the gym, I'd said before I even left home that I'd go talk to the instructor, then hit the gym. (Btw, the swimming is going horrendously. I mean, fun, but horrendously. Rather deciding that besides when my "teacher" is there, I'll be going back to the weights.) But the gym was closing not really a whole lot of time after the class ended, so I was really kinda zooming it back up to my neighborhood. Not speeding or breaking any laws so much, but definitely in a hurry.

Well, there's this phenomenon of city driving -- happens in pretty much every decent-sized city I've lived in, tho most of them seem to think it's unique to their area. Kinda like there's the rolling/pause stop at stop signs when there's no traffic and no actual reason to fully stop, there's also the speed up when you see you won't make the yellow light, rather than slow down. Clearly, this is not "defensive driving" as we are taught by the DMV. But really, if you live in certain parts of certain cities, it's more like you're defying local traffic law if you don't do these things.

Having said that, I will admit: 1) As I've said, I was in a hurry. 2) I was really quite happy and elated about the class, so paying poor attention to the poorly visible roads I drove on. And 3) All of these previous things can almost certainly be said to have at least been affected by my being absolutely baked at the time.

So what happened was, as I'm passing this kinda-busy intersection like two blocks from where I live, there a light going green-yellow, and it looks like the SUV about a car length ahead and to my right is deciding to slow down rather than go for it. Quickly analyzing that, judging from our speed and our distance from the intersection, we should easily be at least to the beginning of it by the time the light went red. Well, I kinda blew the call on that one. Turns out the intersection was at least like a good 15-20 ahead of where I thought it was. But having committed to actually increasing rather than decreasing speed at this point -- eh, basically I just sped up more and thought, "Fuck it."

But get this -- I mean, this is the cool part. Just as I'm thinking that, I can see that the car that I'm cutting off (who was signaling a left turn) is a police car. And as I'm seeing that, they decide to go, too.

Ooh, ouch, right? And this is the car I just bought new and all, too. But luckily, I'm actually not as bad a driver as all of this would make it sound. Though I was clearly running a red light, clearly speeding pretty well to do so, and clearly assuming right of way when I did not have it -- when the guy who does have the right to go does something as stupid as to just go regardless of the speeding vehicle hurling at them, I pretty much won't be going so fast that I can't stop. At least, I wasn't this time. I stopped, unfortunately right in the middle of the intersection, and clearly cutting off the crossing traffic... at which point, of course, the cop car stops too. So, I just kinda go ahead and drift through the intersection, and wait for the ol turn&lights. Didn't have to wait long, as you might imagine.

"Guess you can imagine why I pulled you over."

"Yeah."

"You in a hurry?"

(quite defeatedly) "Yeah. I was."

"Where you headed?"

"The gym."

"Which one?"

"The "Y" right down the street here."

"Can I see some ID?"

"Sure..." (fishes out card automatically)

"No, not your bank card. Your driver's license."

"Oh ... sorry." (suddenly wondering if I seem as baked as I'm feeling. i do seem oddly calm throughout all this.)

"Insurance?"

I hand that over too, and he heads back to his car. I light a cigarette, and notice the people who are wandering by, actually gawking at me sitting there. What, you people never saw a guy get pulled over before? Geez.

I'm irritated first that I'm getting a ticket for being in a hurry, and would ironically now not make it to where I was hurrying to -- so I was actually getting bugged by the cop taking his time running my records -- then I was irritated at the consideration that on top of the added insurance payments for the newer car, now I would have a driving violation helping the number get just a bit higher...

But I'm thinking this, and he comes back, and just hands me my ID -- strangely, no little notepad from which he had anything to rip, not even a warning.

He says, "Got no tickets on your record, no reason to start now."

And obviously, I'm just staring at him like ... what the fuck?

And he just kinda nods as he starts to head back to his car. "Be careful though, okay?"

And that was it. No, seriously. Can you beat that? I mean, yes you do have fourteen years of driving over the span of 5/6 states (can they actually access national records from a squad car? I dunno?) without so much as a smidge besides quickly-paid off parking violations. And yes, the fact of the matter was that -- oh, I left out something else he said, right after, " ... why I pulled you over."

He says, "If I hadn't stopped there, you probably would have t-boned me."

To which I had also responded with a resigned, "yeah." Of course, this bit actually wasn't true -- though the entire near-event took scant seconds, anyone witnessing it, including the drivers of both cars, could clearly see that I had come to almost a complete near stop -- the rest of traffic hadn't moved, and once the cop stopped as well, I paused only a moment to realize, unfortunately, that they (he) would not actually continue and turn down that street. So I slowly went around his bumper as I waited for him to nab me.

But saying all that, who really thinks their claim versus an officer of da law is going to count for much? I mean, particularly when you really shouldn't push the issue anyway, as you were surely way wasted to be driving in the first place? So yeah, in a purely technical sense, you had not been caught nearly "killing" anyone, or even damaging property -- had the left-turning car really not seen me or just continued to turn anyway, I would not have hit them. But, I couldn't really argue that I hadn't broken the law. Ran a red light, at least.

But hey -- "Alright, we both know you shouldn't have done that -- but then again, all evidence suggests that you take legal but not safety risks in driving. And I can't condone that, so I will advise that you are careful in the future. But I don't see any reason to mess up your record or your insurance."

Is it just me, or is that hella cool? When those in authority actually seem capable of simple human judgement rather than fascist protocol -- sweet.

So if I only ever say it this once in my life, let me go on record here: Let's hear it for our men and women in blue. Those who really do serve and protect.

Yep. There's a few out there.