On the way home from work last night, I stopped off to get a mini-cassette recorder as planned. After having no luck at Circuit City, I tried Target. Just before I conceded the fact that there too I was to be out of luck and have to head for the ^$#@&! cursed mall, I saw them and picked one out.
Driving home from the stores takes me a different route than I’d normally go, one that crosses a one lane bridge that is almost always backed up with eager traffic. I was lucky this time in that the light was green when I arrived, so I was at the tail end of a moving line. Shopping, in particular the though of having to go to the mall, had made me a little cranky, and I just wanted to get home.
As the traffic was climbing a small hill in front of Bristol Aggie, the next light turned red, so we all began to slow down.
All of us except, of course, the fool in the car behind me.
I hear brakes squeal, and then my car gets thrust into the pickup truck ahead. It was a decent jar from the back, so it took me a second or two to re-center myself. By this time, the kid that hit me was already next to my open window.
“Are you alright, sir?”, he asked, voice more than a little nervous.
“Yeah, I think I’m ok.”
Satisfied, he ran to the pickup he shoved me into and asked the same question. Meanwhile, I was still in my car, looking under my seat for my wallet. Yes, I still have the issue with the goddamn store alarms going off at me, so I’ve been conditioned to bring nothing in anymore except my one car key from my ring, and a credit card. The rest, I hide. Considering a policeman was bound to arrive soon, I wanted to make sure I could find my license.
Mr. Pickup has a cell phone, and he uses it to call ahead to reserve our boy in blue so we get a good one. I walk around back to see what the damage is. Luckily, it’s quite minimal on my car, just dug up the plastic bumper a good bit. The kid’s car is gonna need some new turn signals and headlights, but got off relatively easy too. Mr. Pickup has nary a scratch.
Once the policeman comes, the kid admits to him that he is driving with a suspended license. Knowing this, he puts the lad into the back seat of his cruiser, and then gets back to documenting the accident. The kid’s girlfriend, who was riding in the front with him, stands and waits by the cruiser.
As the cop is finishing up his notes, he looks back to see that the kid has somehow opened up the back seat, and is tearing ass back down the hill on foot. He takes off in pursuit. Mr. Pickup and I start laughing in disbelief.
Now, in the fall, this might not have been as stupid a move (forgetting the fact that the cop has his license, his car and his girlfriend). The corn fields can grow pretty tall over by the agricultural school, perhaps tall enough to lose someone with the headstart he had. However, this is June, and the tallest plants growing out there now won’t even be crossing your knees for another couple of weeks. And then of course, you have the river flowing just beyond that, so he’s pretty much fucked after the first few steps.
Seeing that this is probably more action than these local cops have seen in a year or so, we now have three cruisers from two different towns here to pick up this one dumb kid. Meanwhile, Mr. Pickup and I are just waiting for our license and registration back so we can go home to our wives and maybe eat dinner.
Anyways, fast-forward my regularly scheduled boring life a few hours, and now I’m here at work, looking over all of this goddamn paperwork I have to fill out — in triplicate — before I can start my weekend. I’m also shaking my head after re-reading this, as it makes me look like some kind of backwoods hick. Heh heh heh, I don’t write the stories, I just tell ‘em…
Red Sox finally pulled out a game last night against the friggin’ Rockies. (Have I mentioned that I find interleague play dreadfully boring — it’s like an exhibition season that counts.) They’re really not doing that well at all, the only thing to be thankful for is that the lower half of the AL East is sucking even worse.