Happy Thanksgiving, Coppers...

So Kristen and I needed a ride to Michigan for Thanksgiving.

We have no car, anymore,
since the hit and run,
did I tell you about that?

Kristen's car got hit,
while parked,
no one was hurt,
but the car was totaled.

So we needed to get to Michigan,
and we had to get creative.

We tried the bus,
but the Megabus doesn't
run to that part of Michigan, (Grand Haven)
and Greyhound is for suckers.

So we tried the train,
and found a perfect train,
that ran at the right time,
to the right place,
and back again,
and was perfectly sold out.

Damn.

So we had to get really creative.

There's only one place to turn
when you need an unusual
and very specific request
in a hurry.

Craigslist.

Kristen had the balls and brains to do it,
put an ad looking for a ride.

She did,
and it worked.

We hitched a ride
with a couple from Minneapolis.

Coming through Chicago on their
way to Grand Haven.

Who'd have thought it was possible.

You might be thinking,
how can you trust some strange couple?

Well, there were a couple different variables.

The first was Minneapolis,
they make cool people there,
trustworthy people.

Like Garrison Keillor,
you'd take a ride from Garrison Keiller,
wouldn't you?

He'd tell such nice soothing stories...

The second factor of trust was
their two wiener dog puppies.

No crazy killers carry around
two wiener dog puppies,
that's just ridiculous.

Dachshunds are not for the violent,
that is an opinion I try to stand behind.

So here we are,
Kristen and me,
couple from Minneapolis,
and another couple from Chicago
that they picked up,
with another dog.

It was a minivan with
six strangers, two wiener pups,
and a golden retriever of some sort.

Adorable, no?

The ride was smooth,
we played word games
and chatted like strangers do.

We were ten minutes from getting dropped off.

The owner of the car,
let's call him Tom,
said to the driver,
let's call her Sally,
"be careful on this road,
there's a lot of cops."

I looked at Kristen, knowingly,
there were a lot of fucking cops on this road.

Twas the night before thanksgiving,
when cops were all over the place.

Sure enough,
the lights came a'flashing.

We got pulled over,
doing 72 in a 55.

Ouchers.

Tom, the owner of the car,
handed his insurance and
registration, while his girlfriend,
Sally, handed her license.

No big deal,
pain in the ass,
but no big deal.

The kindly Sheriff,
whom I believe had chew in his mouth,
said he'd be back in a few minutes.

My favorite moment so far,
was when he shined the flashlight
into the car, to see 3 boys, 3 girls,
one golden retriever, and two squirmy
little wieners.

Adorable.

A few minutes passed.

And a few more.

And a few more...

Finally,
the Sheriff comes to the other side,
Tom's side, and says,

"Tom, I'm going to need you to step out of the vehicle."

Oh my god!

He's a fucking convicted felon!

He's a murderer,
he's wanted in ten states,
him and his crazy girlfriend
are like Woody Harrelson
and that other crazy bitch.

They were just waiting to take
us to some special part of Grand Haven
to boil us alive and let their wieners eat
our flesh.

No.

He had a parking ticket from Muskegon, Michigan,
from Nineteen Ninety fucking Eight,
and they had issued a warrant for his arrest.

A PArking Ticket?

From 1998?

And you need to arrest him?

What the hell is the matter with you?

It's the night before thanksgiving,
we are young, and cute,
and we have puppies, and we're
sober, and we're white...
we obviously aren't doing anything wrong...

Don't you have anything better to do,
than track down that damn parking violation
from the last century?

Isn't there some real crime going on,
maybe some drunk driver going 80
through a red light?

Didn't you see how cute these fucking dogs are?

He didn't get arrested,
he was allowed to pay $86,
in cash only, in a very shady
business deal with the Sheriff.

I was nervous, so I called my Dad,
he's a lawyer in New York.

"Hey, Dad? Yeah... it's me, Peter.
Look, I'm sorry to wake you... but I'm in a car
with two strangers, actually, four strangers,
and we just got pulled over, and the guy's
about to get arrested.... and... what? oh no,
I don't know him at all... Craigslist... yeah,
Craigslist... Really? Oh, it's awesome,
you can get all kinds of stuff... real cheap!"

Tom paid the Sheriff $86 in cash.
That was a bond to get him to show up
in court in Muskegon, on December 5,
from Minneapolis, to settle a ticket
from 1998.

It took about an hour and a half to get the mess sorted out.

Fucking cops.

-p