[DeTomaso] Pandora's Perils part IX: "Your sins will find you out." Ain't that the truth...

[Mike Thomas]

Chris, it says right on your registration "Permanent", but I doubt at this
point that it would have made any difference, nor would a radar detector.
What you needed was a idiot detector . . .

Two words: Jeannie Mucklestone.  She and her brother focus on traffic
infractions in Pierce and King counties, but I'm sure they could give you
some assistance with this one.

By the way, from the "enquiring minds want to know" department, what speed
did he write you up for?  That's the real trophy.

Mike Thomas 

-----Original Message-----
From: detomaso-bounces at realbig.com [mailto:detomaso-bounces at realbig.com] On
Behalf Of Christopher Kimball
Sent: Monday, April 30, 2012 11:12 PM
To: Pantera List Serve
Subject: [DeTomaso] Pandora's Perils part IX: "Your sins will find you out."
Ain't that the truth...


In yesterday's entry, I made mention of a quote my mother likes to use,
"Your sins will find you out."  I was chastised by the two most important
women in my life (my wife and my mom) for failing to mention the quote is
actually from the book of Numbers, in the Bible.  Of course, I knew that,
but the last thing I wanted to do was start quoting Bible versus and have
people get the idea I have a "holier-than-thou" attitude.  Well, if anyone
ever had that misconception, I have now done my best to eliminate that
problem:  Today, my sins, indeed, found me out.

For the first time while driving my Pantera, I GOT A TICKET!!!  I can't tell
you all of the details yet, because according to officer Grumpy (not his
real name) the form I signed today was not an admission of guilt.  That's
good, because there is at least one accusation that is patently false.
Granted, I was making very good time on the roads prior to my alleged
transgression, so I can't complain too much, but let me explain a portion of
what happened, since I love to write so many details!

But first, let me start at the beginning.

I awoke this morning in a good mood after a good sleep--no migraines to be
found anywhere.  I enjoyed the complimentary breakfast at the same Las Vegas
Comfort Inn at which I stayed on the way to the Rally, however, this time I
had a waffle that was so enormous, when I had finished consuming it along
with the scrambled egg (actually, it was a kind of flying-saucer scrambled
egg; just one, round disc of egg--aliens probably would really like those),
a yogurt, a glass of apple juice, and three glasses of milk (to go with the
enormous waffle), I was forced to forego the Froot Loops.  I should have
known that was a foreboding sign.

I left the hotel about 11:20 AM and headed toward Ely, Nevada.  I planned to
stop there for lunch, but it was too far to make in one trip so I stopped at
another, rather nondescript spot to fill up the tank.  While there I
received several favorable comments about Pandora, which is always fun,
including one young man's desire to take a couple of pictures.  I asked if
he would like to have me take a picture of him in the car. He happily
agreed, and handed me what looked like a combination game
controller/portable TV/phone/Star Trek communicator.  Oh, I forgot to
mention "camera."  he showed me which button to push, and the pictures
turned out well.  I had a momentary flashback of achieving the high score at
Donkey Kong sometime in the mid-eighties.

When I arrived at Ely (pronounce "eelee," although I didn't see any evidence
of an aquarium), I drove through a couple of the neighborhoods to get a feel
for the place.  It's kind of a quaint little town, and proud of its
heritage.  I took a picture of the big sign posted at the entrance of the
city so I could remember just what, exactly, was that heritage.    

I filled up at a local Shell station while explaining to several people what
a "Pantera" is, and from whence it came.  One lady thought it was a
Lamborghini.  Another kid asked if it cost $200,000.00.  I replied to him
that it depends if you include the cost of moving violations (alleged,
moving violations at this point).  Even the 70-something-year-old attendant
took a break from ringing up pop and potato chips to come outside and
inquire about it.  Everyone seemed so friendly, I thought I'd stay for
lunch.  I drove to the city park and did just what the name suggests, found
a picnic table, and settled down to read the latest issue of Road & Track
while munching on two blueberry muffins, two yogurts (those items I pilfered
from the complimentary breakfast that morning--hey, I didn't get to eat my
Froot Loops, so it's a break-even for the hotel chain), a bottle of some
exotic mix of fruit juices (have you noticed that the big thing now is for
companies to blend multiple juices together and offer the end result as some
new, never-before-considered beverage?  "Hey Martha, look--they took the
apple juice and mixed it with the cranberry juice!  Can you believe it?
Genius!  What do you think they'll call it?"), several chocolate digestive
biscuits (for those of you who may not be English biscuit aficionados,
"Digestive Biscuits" are not some sort of medically-prescribed heartburn
remedy.  They are cookies with chocolate on the top and are delicious), and
of course--wait; I'm going to make you guess.  What do you think I would be
drinking with chocolate-covered biscuits?  If you guessed milk--you're
correct.  Unfortunately, I had no cups with me, so I had no choice but to
drink right from the carton.  Since I was the only person in the park,
though, it really didn't matter. Come to think of it, I believe I was the
only person in about a ten-block radius.

Following lunch I hit the road.  And here's where things went terribly
wrong.

At first, I was enjoying long, straight roads with no traffic.  You can
guess how I was enjoying them.  I was always careful to slow way down when
any other traffic was extant, since if there's one, overriding theme in the
Pantera Owners Club of America, it's safety...  

About 60 miles outside of Twin Falls, Idaho, I called Clarke and Wilma to
see if they had arrived at the hotel yet (they had).  I used the hands-free
speaker phone built into my GPS system, for safety reasons, of course (plus
the fact that the stupid thing connects to my phone automatically, and I
don't know how to override it, even if I wanted to).  The hands-free system
works pretty well, as long as you can decipher "Hey Clrk, Ime llkjhjs efoiu
ertppisw conbpe erlo ejtopj OK?"  Actually, it wasn't that bad, and I told
Clarke I'd be there in 45 minutes, unless (note; here comes the
foreshadowing), "I get pulled over (yuk yuk)"

Five minutes later...well I think you know what happened.

It was a smooth, curvy road (that sounds like that old campfire story, "It
was a dark and stormy night...") and there was this car in front of me that
I thought would appreciate not having me bringing up the rear, so to speak.
Next thing you know, an innocent-looking SUV appears out of nowhere coming
the other way, and I couldn't help but notice that his turn signals weren't
the usual orange, but instead blue and red.  And they were all blinking at
the same time.
As I mentioned, I won't go into detail about the alleged infraction, only to
say the officer claimed to have issues with what he thought I did.  The
whole situation probably could have been less financially painful, but
here's the problem, when he asked for my license and registration, I gave
him the required documents.  He seemed fairly reasonable at that point.
However, after spending a few minutes in his portable pokey (as I tried not
to think about all the gloating going on by the drivers of all the cars I
had passed who were now driving past me as I sat, humiliated by the side of
the road--that's actually worse than getting the ticket, you know), he
approached me full of bluster and indignation.  I think I also detected a
hint of pensiveness.  The reason for his hyperventilation was that according
to his "official" records, "[my] car hasn't been registered since 2007!!!!"
I tried to explain to him that in Washington State, collector car plates are
exempt from annual registration and tags.  He didn't believe me.  In fact,
with a mix of bravado and nervousness (after all, for all he knew, I could
be a convicted criminal!) he asked me to get out of the car and look at my
license plate.  He asked, "Do you see a place on that plate for tags?"  What
I should have said was, "No, officer oblivious, I can't see anything--in
fact, I'm legally blind!"  Instead, I simply said, "Yes, but I never
received tags for this car because it is a collector vehicle..."  He would
have none of it.  He told me that this wasn't Washington (thanks again,
officer--maybe I should have started clicking my heels together and
chanting, "There's no place like home...") and that I'd have to take it up
with the court.

I then remembered all those cops and robber shows I watched as a kid, and it
reminded me that the accused always got to make a phone call.  Realizing
this guy was nowhere near old enough to remember great shows such as "The
Streets of San Fransico," I almost abandoned the idea of asking him if I
could call one of my friends at the Lakewood Police Department, but then it
occurred to me that he probably had watched "Who Wants to be a Millionaire?"
once or twice.  "May I phone a friend?" I asked.  I told him I could get
verification of the tag question from one of my connections with the
Lakewood PD.  He told me I could call anyone I wanted, but it wouldn't make
any difference.

I have a tremendous amount of respect for officers of the law.  Except this
one--he is an idiot.  While he was back in his paddy wagon filling out all
the devilish paperwork, I phoned the same person I always call when I'm in
some sort of self-imposed trouble; my wife.  Since I was trying to use the
ridiculous hands-free device while talking a mile-a-minute (I'm surprised
officer dorky didn't give me a ticket for that, too), Vicki had great
difficulty figuring out what was going on.  I finally was able to convey to
her that I needed the phone number for the LPD, which she found.  I called
the number and had just reached woman who could help me, when officer
bloviate came back and stuck his head in the car.  Before I could say
anything, he informed me I could finish my call later, once he was done with
me.  I told the lady on the phone I needed to go, hung up, and then listened
to officer neverwrong begin to read me all the various infractions.  I said,
"Aren't you going to let me call the LPD back so they can tell you about the
tags?"  Proving that his powers of jerkiness were exceeded only by his
inability to pay attention to anyone except himself, he replied, "What did
they say?"  Rather than bursting out in laughter and saying something I
might regret, I said, "That's who was on the line--you asked me to hang up."

He again said it would make no difference, and pointed to a phone number on
the citation he gave me.  "Call that number if (he actually said, "if") you
can prove you don't need tags for your car.  They'll work it out with you."
He also said although he usually lowers the speed he lists on tickets below
what the driver was actually driving because, "I hate giving out big-dollar
tickets," in my case he was giving me "the full boat" with no reduction
whatsoever.

The moral is, that one is never to argue with a grumpy police officer.  The
problem is, however, when they are completely wrong, what is one supposed to
do?

Just to show him I had no hard feelings, after he handed me the $850.00
ticket, I asked him if he'd like to take the Pantera for a quick drive.
Surprisingly, he declined.  In retrospect, despite that my offer was after
the citation had been issued, he'll probably try to get me for some
trumped-up attempting to bribe an officer charge...

I have a number of attorney clients, and I'll be checking with them on the
best way to proceed.  It sure is annoying, though.

By the way, "Hey, officer bullheaded, check this out--from the Washington
State Licensing website:
License plate requirementsCollector license plates:May be assigned to
currently registered passenger vehicles, motorcycles, or trucks.Are good for
the life of vehicle.Aren't required to display month/year tab.Aren't renewed
annually.

Too bad I didn't have David or Donny (my sons) with me--they could have
pulled that info up on their phone right in front of officer technoboob.

The day had a happy ending, though.  Clarke and Wilma, the wonderful people
they are, waited to go to dinner until 8:00 PM when I arrived at the hotel.
We made a beeline for our favorite corral, that's right, "The Golden Corral"
and gorged ourselves silly.

I was in such a mood that I ate four different desserts first.

Tomorrow, Google maps says my trip to Hermiston, Oregon should last 6 1/2
hours.  Sadly, now it probably will...

Sincerely,
Chris






 		 	   		  
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