Saturday, February 23, 2008

Freeway Driving and the Importance of Fraud Protection, or Things are Not Always As They Seem

I'll start this entry with this:

I was driving on the 405.

Right away you should know that something bad, or at the very least unpleasant, is about to happen.

I was driving on the 405, leaving the pitiful depths of what Southern Californians call The Valley - note the capital The, as if the notion that there might be another valley chilling out somewhere in the world is completely preposterous - when I saw a cop car driving up ahead of me.

Or at least I thought it was a cop car.

I was speeding, as per usual. Whether the day has been long or short, good or just okay, when you live in the land of the lost* at no point in time is driving ever in the least bit enjoyable. Being in one's car, like suffering the bitter taste of Thera-flu or giving birth, is without question a Machiavellian means to an end; that end in this case being my sofa. That said, upon seeing said cop car I instinctively brought my speed down to the comfortable 5 mph over the limit, using the faulty logic that it's better to be just a teeny bit in violation because the act of reducing my speed to the actual limit might draw more attention to myself than staying above it and therefore increase my likelihood of being pulled over.**

Luckily it seemed to work. Score: Lisa - 1, Cop - 0.

That's right, fuck the po-lice.

At 75 mph I was steadily approaching the car from behind, when I noticed through his translucent rear window that the officer (or whoever it was) driving the car had on his head what looked to be the outline of a suspicious looking trucker hat.

Hmm. Cops don't wear trucker hats, I thought.

I increased my speed.

Coming up on him a bit quicker now on the alleged cop car, I then saw that the alleged cop was yacking away on a cell phone. This guy was growing more suspect by the second. First a trucker hat, now a cell phone? Is Paris Hilton a cop now? What the eff, man...

Well, apparently not.

As soon as I got parallel with this donkey punch of a police officer, I saw that he wasn't a police officer at all. It was just some dude, driving cholo-style - you know, leaning back in his seat with one hand on the steering wheel, lookin all fly n'shit - in a car that only looked like a cop car. Low and behold, there was no official police insignia painted on the side door. It was merely the shell of what may have at one point been a vehicle of the law, but was now a vehicle of my own frustration.

I resumed my normal I'm-on-my-way-home-get-the-fuck-out-of-my-way cruising speed and observed the poseur in my rear view mirror. After completing what I could only assume was a drug deal on his cell phone, he proceeded to just fuck with people on the freeway! He'd get really close to whoever was in front of him, as if he was going to pull them over, and then zip away. Just like that! I was as much amused as I was annoyed. Who did this guy think he is? A cop, I guess...

Seriously though, what a shithead.

With all the talk these days of identity theft this and fraud protection that, it made me wonder who else out there is lying to me. Does the clerk at the grocery store really want me to have a good day? Are the Baristas at Starbucks really all that concerned about making my drink extra hot? Does the guy who gets your number at the bar ever call? Likely not.

I mean, according to Kinsey everyone is a little bit gay, so under that same theoretical paradigm isn't everyone just a little bit phony?

Probably.

Because I know that as much as I care for my fellow human beings, I don't really care if the grocery store clerk is having a good day. And when I worked at Starbucks I sure as shit didn't worry my mind over the temperature of my customers' precious double-tall-half-caf-extra-hot-non-fat-soy-no-foam lattes. And you know that guy at the bar who thinks he has my number? Yeah, it wasn't really my number.

But the guy on the 405 with the trucker hat driving the faux cop car?

That guy is a douche bag.



*Some like to call it Los Angeles, which is Spanish for "get me the fuck out of here."

**This, of course, doesn't ever happen and I'm almost pretty sure that speed limits are actually in the best interest of drivers, and the public at large.

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