The Tale of Old Rusty and the Bag of Peanuts

Here it is folks, the moment you've been waiting for. I realize that others may have some unique / embarrassing / funny stories of their own so I thought I would start opening up things up a bit to let others have the opportunity to share their story to the masses that follow this blog. Today marks the first one of those submitted stories. If you have a story or know of a story that needs to be shared with the world don't hesitate to let me know. We now return you to your full length featured blog story.

The story I have for you today was not initiated as a result of something I said or a specific action I took. Though there are many such stories to be told I’m sure. But no, this story was a result of a decision I had made in my youth. That decision: To drive “ole rusty”, an ’86 Chevy Caprice Classic.

It was a late winter night, and my friend and I were on our way home after an amazing day of snowboarding. We had just pulled out of a gas station where we had gotten all of the essentials needed for the long icy trek home: MntDew, chips, jerky, those personal bag/sleeve things of peanuts, etc. Little did I know when we pulled out, someone had started following us.

So there we were, driving along in ole rusty, rock’n out to some jams, eating our snacks when all of sudden I see those dreadful flashing lights behind me. We were being pulled over. I start to get that panicked-“Oh crap, I’m in trouble”-feeling. So assuming that I had been speeding I shamefully look down at my speed-oh-meter to find that I was only going 54 in a 55 zone. The feeling of panic starts to subside and is replaced with confusion. I pull over.

After waiting for few minutes, the officer comes to my window, shines his flashlight in my face, and asks for the usual license and registration. While gathering my things, I make nervous small talk and ask, “What seems to be problem officer”. He replies, “You boys been drinking?” I think to myself, WHAT? Drinking? Really? At that point in my life I hadn’t even had more than a sip of an alcoholic beverage. So the idea that I was getting pulled over for suspected drunk driving was quite amusing. I chuckle under my breath and reply “No officer, we have not.” Now starts the interrogation.

The officer asks several more times to both me and my friend, “You sure neither of you have been drinking”. Again and again we reply no. He then asks “Then why are your eyes so blood shot and face discolored.” I explain that we had just come from the ski resort down the road, which was not even 5 min behind us, and that I had been snowboarding all day without goggles or a mask. While all of this is happening, another officer gets out of the cop car, comes up on the passenger side of my car, and starts snooping around, shining his light into the backseat and onto my friend. The situation seemed to be escalating, except I wasn’t freaking out. It was actually quite amusing since I knew I hadn’t done anything wrong.

The officer did not believe me, so he asks me to get out of the car. I walk behind my car and one of the officers proceeds to pat me down, checking for weapons I assume. I then get administered a series of drunk tests: walk the line, follow the pen with my eye while a freakishly bright light is shinned in my face, etc. While all of this is going down, the other officer is by my car asking my friend who is still in the car a bunch of questions.

Finally I’m allowed to go back to my car, and they tell us that we are free to go. Somewhat shocked that I hadn’t gotten any kind of apology or explanation as to why they had just pulled me over I was bold enough to ask. The response I got back was simply that I was riding and sometimes crossing the center line. I wanted to tell the officer that of course I was riding the center line. It was a two lane highway and there were large mounds of snow on the side of this poorly plowed road. I highly doubt that was the real reason I got pulled over. But I said no such thing. I just thanked the officer and drove away.

I’m still not sure why all of that went down? I’ll admit we had lots of circumstances working against us that night: My friend and I were young. My eyes being blood shot from snowboarding. The suspiciously messy backseat of my car due to the piles of snowboard gear in the back. The fact I found the whole thing amusing and probably showed it every time the officer asked me a question. Or even the fact that while I was driving, I was eating straight from that sleeve thing of peanuts, which I suspect could maybe be mistaken for a beer bottle when viewed from a car several meters behind us..

But one thing I do know: good ole rusty didn’t help. For you see, this is not the only crazy pulled-over story I have. No, I have many more. And maybe at some point I will share another one. But the common theme among all of them: My ’86 Caprice Classic.

So what can we all pull away from this story? Simply this: If you decide to drive a crappy old rusty car like my old car, you will get pulled over… A LOT! It doesn’t matter what you do or if you’ve actually broken any serious laws. The police will find a reason to pull you over because the car you are driving is considered highly suspicious. So if you would like to avoid getting pulled over on a regular basis, it definitely won’t hurt if you avoid driving said type of car. But if you want to have a lot of fun stories to tell your friends about getting pulled over, then by all means go find yourself your own “ole rusty”, and have fun.

Cheers

The Devil is in the Details

Good news dedicated readers! There's going to be a guest writer for an upcoming post. Unfortunately it's not quite ready, so in the meantime I thought I would share another brief glimpse into my laughable life. This one is especially fresh, having occurred only two weeks ago. But first, a little back ground.

This year I decided to observe Lent and give something up for the weeks leading up to Easter. On a whim I decided that I would take up the challenge of the Daniel Fast. For the Lenten season I would restrict my diet to only fruits, vegetables, grains and water. Nothing with added sugars, nothing made with yeast, and no meat.

After the coffee withdrawal symptoms subsided and my head stopped pounding things were actually going quite well. Then one afternoon, about three weeks into the fast, I was sitting in a meeting at work. Someone there had brought in a bag of Twizzlers and was passing it around the room. What a nice gesture. Little did I know that the devil was in attendance at that meeting. Without thinking about it I grabbed a Twizzler and took a big bite off the end. While chewing it dawned on me that Twizzlers were neither a vegetable, nor a grain and despite their bright colored facade they weren't even a fruit. What to do! The devil tricked me! Not wanting to make a scene during the middle of the meeting by spitting out the Twizzlers into the nearest garbage can I had to go back to the drawing board. Unfortunately I'm not sure my Plan B was any better. I played the fake cough card. **Cough** Then while I was covering my mouth with my hand I did a little slight-of-hand and slipped the red confetti contents of my mouth into my hand and slyly slipped the evidence into my pocket. No one would ever be the wiser.

That should have been the end of it, but nope. Throughout the course of the meeting I had completely forgotten about the bits and pieces in my pocket. It wasn't until I got home that night when I stuck my hand into the red waxy ball of candy that I was reminded of the events of the day. The moral of the story? Don't take candy from strangers, especially ones that have pointy tails and are dressed all in red. Also,despite popular belief the Devil's weapon of choice isn't a pitchfork, it's a licorice whip.