How I Got Out of a Ticket

It was about 6 on a Saturday night, and I was leaving my apartment for the first time all day. I had been sitting in front of the computer writing, attempting to be struck by that thunderbolt of inspiration - for how many hours I can't recall - when I decided that the reason my writing was beginning to taper off from my hopes of high quality and wit was I hadn't had a single thing to drink that day, and my mind was just too sober to be clever.

So I headed out for the closest liquor store to purchase a bit of wit and inspiration in liquid form. I hadn't made it much past the first intersection when I noticed those buzzing lights in my rear view mirror indicating that obviously someone had made a mistake, either myself, or the officer behind me.

Not believing that I could have done anything wrong in such a short drive, I of coarse figured that the fault lay with the officer, and he only wanted to speak with me to apologize for the interruption and perhaps to offer me some candy or something, I don't know I was suffering from a bit of brain rot from a full day at the computer screen.

Anyway, when the officer got to my window I politely rolled down the window, only because I don't know how to impolitely roll down and window, and asked what this was all about. He informed me that I had just driven straight through a stop sign and didn't stop at all. At first I was taken aback because I think that I would have noticed if I had actually driven straight through a stop sign, I mean shouldn't I have a rather large sign sticking out of my windshield or something.

When I realized what he meant, I immediately began rolling off all of the excuses I could think of, I mean I must have gone through about 15 of them in the next 30 to 45 seconds. "I'll stop twice next time" "Well I know I slowed down" "Nobody was coming" "There shouldn't even be a stop sign there anyway, if you're not smart enough to stop for oncoming traffic the you shouldn't be driving" "I'm in a hurry I have to get to the bar so I can walk home" and so on.

When I had sufficiently barraged him with every excuse that I had, I finished up with this little pearl, "Did you buy any of that or should we just take care of this ticket right here?"