On the way to work the other morning, I saw my evil nemesis, Officer Smug, working radar and it occurred to me that I had never related the story of my second speeding ticket.

Firstly, you should know that after my first ticket and the subsequent $95 it cost me for the privilege of taking defensive driving, I purchased a radar detector. I got a guy at work to recommend one and then I did some research online and settled on a model. So I have this thing with all the bells and whistles that sounds alarms with both voice and bleeps.

�X band�

Bleeep bleep bleep

The voice is the same one that tells you on the phone �if you know your party�s extension, you may enter it at anytime.�

So I�m tooling along down a semi-rural road with some new upscale housing additions near the infamous Southfork Ranch, when the radar detector emits a brief series of bleeps. Before I even have time to react, it�s over and up ahead Officer Smug is standing in the road very dramatically waving me over. He�d been hiding behind a large stone wall with the development�s name emblazoned on it.

Officer Smug comes to my window and shows me where on his radar gun it says I was going 47 miles per hour and reminds me that the speed limit is 35. When asked, I tell him I didn�t know I was speeding. I give him my driver�s license and insurance and he is visibly stunned when he looks at my license. Whatever the reason---alarmingly good picture, stunning disparity between the age I appear to be and my actual age---he doesn�t comment.

�Did your radar detector go off?�

�Yes�

�We�ve had a lot of people complain that their radar detectors didn�t go off�

~What kind of deranged idiot complains to the police that their radar detector didn�t go off?~

�Is it going off now?�

~Sa mentally rolls her eyes wondering what sort of clueless dolts they are hiring in law enforcement these days. Of course it isn�t going off now. You don�t hear anything, do you?~

�No�

Officer Smug points the gun directly at the device affixed to the windshield.

�Is it going off. . . �

Bleep bleep bleep

�now?�

~Sa refrains from comment~

Then he repeats this little act again.

�Is it going off now?�

Silence

�What about . . .�

Bleeeeep bleeeep

�now?�

~Just write the ticket mofo~

Finally he tires of that stupid game. He looks at my license again. I am wearing sunglasses.

�Are you wearing contacts?�

~Sa takes off her glasses and holds them out the window so that Officer Smug can peer through them~

�Nope. Prescription sunglasses.�

He goes over to his motorcycle and gets his ticket writing PDA thing and asks me where I work, the address, the phone number, what I do there and other irrelevant minutia.

~Sa stifles the urge to blurt AB positive~

He prints out my ticket which looks like a cash register receipt from an electronics purchase. Three inches wide and four feet long. And then finally I�m on my way.

I chose to defer adjudication and for $154 if I am good until March 6th, the ticket will not show up on my driving record.

I�ve used the cruise control more in the last few months than I�ve ever used it in the previous five years I�ve owned the truck.

I don�t think I could ever be a real criminal or a spy because having to be hyper-vigilant like that really pisses me off.

Sa-land

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