Fending Off the Fuzz

Ok, ok, I know, I'm whining. I'm up and down and impatient and unpredictable. I'm crazy, I know. We can talk about it; it's not the elephant in the room that we can't mention. I love elephants. I have one around my neck and sitting next to me right now in fact. I hear what you are all saying and I hear what I am saying to myself. This is how I process emotions. I weigh all the possibilities and I see how I feel about each one. Then I pass out from exhaustion and start the process over again. This will all be over tomorrow as I am expecting an official offer and a conversation about details.

Now, for being such troopers through all of this, I thought I would liven up the blog with a true story about a trooper. This is from my first trip across the country, June 2001, told in the first person. It is terrible writing but it's a true story.

“My shoes, my shoes!” I screeched as J scrambled to hand me my over sized, over worn, sandals that were resting on the floor of the passenger side. I watched the speedometer eek down slowly from where it had peaked. I knew as soon as I saw the police officer in his SUV headed in the opposite direction that I was in trouble. Sure enough, he did a u-turn across the median, flipped on his siren, and chased me down. Before I knew it, my license and registration were in his hands and I was in the passenger seat of his SUV. After running my plates and my license, he got out of the car to talk to J. He had her step out of the car, turn her back to me, and then he proceeded to interrogate her, complete with the arms crossed, frown on his face, tough-guy sunglasses look. After what seemed like an eternity he came back.

“You looked mad. When I was talking to your friend there and you were sitting in the truck. Why were you looking mad?” the cop asked me. I knew he was using his psychology on me, being tough, pretending to be on one of those detective shows or something. He thought he was on to something big, I could tell.

“I was thinking about how long it took me to pack that car. If I have to unpack it I’m going to be mad,” I replied honestly, nervously thinking about the police dog caged up behind me, the expense of the impending ticket, and the tornado storms just to our south that kept being mentioned on the police radio. My Sunfire was packed with the expertise and precision of a design engineer. There was no way I was going to unload all of my stuff onto the side of the interstate for no good reason. (Now, to be clear, I am pretty sure, but not confident, this was the order in which these events occurred. That is what makes it such a bizarre story. He was immediately suspicious of me simply because I was speeding. Maybe it was the spoiler on my car. You know, that pretty blue spoiler screamed "drug dealer!")

“I’m going to take the dog out and sniff around the car. I’m not going to find anything am I?” he asked. It took a minute before it dawned on me this guy was asking me if I had drugs in my car. If I had drugs would I really be driving that fast? Couldn’t I just be a nice girl from Pittsburgh on a joy ride to Seattle? I hadn’t even seen a drug at that point in my life, well, not the kind of drug that he was talking about. In fact, I probably have still never actually seen what ever drug he was looking for. (I am that innocent. No, for real.)

“No sir,” I said, I’m sure with just a touch of arrogance. Out they went, around the car a few times, the dog briefly stopping. It was an odd experience to watch them circle the car with J inside. I wonder what she was thinking. (J if you read this, tell me what you were thinking!) “All clear?” I asked when they returned.

Silence.

“He smelled something. Behind the passenger door.”

I thought hard for a moment. My sneakers? Well, they had smelled up a room so bad a few years ago my friends and I identified a mattress as the culprit. It was only after we disposed of it that we realized the smell was actually coming from my shoes. It was humbling to say the least. No, in this case it was not my shoes. I was certain it was the vitamins. “J has these vitamins that smell pretty bad. Maybe that was it?” I said/asked. Yuck, the vitamins she had were natural and smelled so bad that I can still smell them to this day. The memory of that smell is embedded in my brain. We had discussed the intensity of the vitamins earlier, probably because I smelled them from across the township before I picked her up.

“Your friend mentioned the vitamins,” he said with a hint of disappointment in his voice. I think he was dismayed that our stories were lining up, but he was clearly still convinced we had drugs. Maybe it was a slow night for him. Maybe he needed something to tell his wife so she would stop nagging him about being a cop. After all, what really happens in South Dakota? Nothing. She is probably tired of his boring stories and wants him to get a more interesting profession. With hopeful skepticism he asked, “What were you doing before you left Pittsburgh? Were you around something the dog could have picked up?”

Trying not to laugh at the irony, I said, “Honestly? I was hanging out with the Youth Leader at my church.” That was the truth. Back in those days I was damn near angelic (ok, that might be a slight exaggeration) and had spent my last night in Pittsburgh with him and probably some of the youth group kids.

I don’t remember how he responded but I do know part of him did not believe me. C’mon, you’ve all seen my face on the “Who is Eme Ashe?" page. I’m trustworthy, usually, and in that moment I was being honest with only a little bit of attitude. (You have to give attitude to a cop in his SUV with a scary dog 6 inches away right?) I don’t know why he didn’t want to see the vitamins but that would have ended his speculation. I guess the cop slowly admitted to himself that we didn’t have drugs, no matter how much he wished we did. Or maybe he just wanted to get home in time for dinner. He handed me my inevitable speeding ticket and J and I were on our way. The guy was kind of a jerk, but to be fair, I deserved the ticket. And no, I am not going to tell you how fast I was going.