Cops and Criminals

Thursday morning came bright and twinkling with the smell of cherry blossoms and magic newness! Awakened early by my alarm clock, I was ready and out the door by 8:00. My drive to the shop I own was just delightful! Tangerine and coral clouds clustered in small flocks in the sky, just enough to catch the first glorious rays of sun cascading over the mountains. Ahhhh...what a fine day to live in Seattle!
-----whew! WHEW! WHEW!----blaring, beeping sirens jolt me from my happy reverie. A cop car flips a bitch(U-turn in the middle of the street) and pulls up behind me. Lights blaring, an unnatural neon blue and strident red. I pull over as the sweating po-po gets out of his vehicle. Why are they always sweating? His car is a 2010, I'm sure it comes with A/C, plus it's 8am on a March morning, roll down the window it's sunny but freeeeezing out!
Up saunters the cop-one arm at his right hip, directly above his hand gun. Let's not forget to let this little lady in her friend's 1998 Subaru know where she stands, right lawman! My window rolled down, he asks for the requisite documents. I abide. He saunters back to the car, I flip around in my seat ready to yell "what did you stop me for mutha fucka!?", but he is already sweating and computering in his car.
When he returns, he tells me that the reason he pulled me over is because I had my dog on my lap while I was driving. And here is a $124.00 ticket.

My 4.6lb dog was curled up on my lap while I was driving on a sunny Thursday morning with no traffic, not on my cell phone, and wearing my seat belt going 25 mi. an hour.

Your right. What a hazard!!! Here is where I slooooowly take off my sunglasses take the green carbon copy from him and slooooooowly look back up at him and say "you will NEVER see a cent of this money". Here ensues a conversation which proceeds with him calling me "mam" at every opportunity like I am his 83 year old aunt, and me telling him: there is, to be sure, a judge at the King County Courthouse that would no doubt agree with me that there are FAR better ways for him to be spending his time. I spare him the long list of petty and not so petty crimes perpetrated against myself and/or my friends that perhaps had he been patrolling for actual evil doers as opposed to say, stopping a girl in a Subaru on a sunny morning for her dog sitting on her lap- her less-than-a bag of sugar-weighing dog, would never have happened.

I flick the ticket across to the passenger seat and then with a wave of my hand and a quick replacement of my sun glasses I tell him, "carry on!". As he looks at me in shock, I drive off thinking two things: will he follow me and beat me down with his baton for not showing his "authority" proper respect? And, while he makes an illegal u-turn while talking into his radio and flipping on his lights and sirens, isn't he far more distracted than I am?

Dear Seattle P.D., yet again you have astounded me with your acute sense of right and wrong and your can-do attitude when it comes to thwarting every last effort on the part of us criminals and lawbreakers. Well done! I think I can say with confidence, thank you for making Seattle such a safe place to live!