Grab a Piece of the Curb, Clown
By Joe Acton
A couple of days ago I was cleaning my daughter's junk out of the back of my car — it's amazing what winds up in your car after a few weeks of chauffeuring your kid and her buddies around the countryside.
At the bottom of the heap in my trunk, right under the sleeping bag she used for a slumber party, were my roller-blades — which I have been looking for since just after the slumber party.
Now, roller-blades, in case you haven't kept up on the latest in yuppie exercise fades, are the hot items to return your body to its former self — assuming you want to look like you did when you were 19 or so. Most of the women I know want to look like that, most of the men I know don't.
Anyhow, these roller-blades gizmos look like a ski boot with in-line rollers on the bottom — actually they look like hockey skates for someone whose afraid of ice.
I bought these things with the rationalization that, "No, I'm not a yuppie, I'm just a guy whose knees are shot from years of athletic abuse. So I'll use these puppies for low-impact aerobic exercise — it'll be just like ice-skating again." Funny the lies you'll believe when it's you talking.
Roger Miller once observed in one of his songs that "you can't roller-skate in a buffalo herd" — clearly a concept ahead of its time. The Bellevue equivalent is that "you can't roller-blade without wearing neon spandex."
So it's 80 degrees plus and I'm out for my daily spin around the neighborhood chasing the rainbow of eternal youth. I got my gloves on in case I crash, my water bottle for the thirsties, sunglasses for the glare, a headband to keep the sweat out of my eyes, and my wind-resistant neon spandex is so tight the neighbors are asking the burning question, "Is he on the inside trying to get out or on the outside trying to get back in?"
About five miles into my run I'm really cooking. It's hot outside, I'm sweating like a wool sweater in August — I mean I can see the calories jumping off my body. Up ahead I can also see a stop sign coming up fast.
I was on the sidewalk so I started slowing down and coasted up to the sign and crossed the street in the crosswalk at about the pace of a brisk walk. There were no cars in sight.
On the other side I picked up the pace and was cruising around a long sweeping turn when a dog ran out from his yard and chased me off the sidewalk, across the left-hand traffic lane and into the middle of the right-hand traffic lane of the road.
Momentum was on my side so I sprinted ahead of the dog until I thought he gave up the chase. Actually, he was just getting out of the way of the cop car that was pulling up behind me with its emergency lights on.
Hooray! I thought. Finally, somebody's going to catch it for letting their pooch chase joggers, bikers and now roller-bladers.
I pulled over, stopped and slowly skated back to congratulate the local constabulary she barked over the loudspeaker, "Step away from the car, sir, I'll make contact with you in front of the vehicle."
Uh-oh. This wasn't starting out right. I mean, I'd spent 7 years as a police officer on a large department before I moved to Bellevue, and I figure I know a traffic stop when I see one. And I was seeing one.
"May I see your driver's license?" she asked.
Okay — I shouldn't have laughed. At least not out loud. And not that hard. And I should have said something benign, yet clever, like, "No officer, I don't." But her badge was clearly too heavy and she was trying to be so tough — it was like I was like she'd caught me red-handed dealing illicit spandex.
So, instead I said, "Are you kidding me? This spandex is so tight I can't carry a key to the house without my thigh looking like a jello mold when I get back. Besides, where do you think I'm hiding the engine that I'd have to have to be required to carry a driver license to operate these skates?"
Well, what can I say. It was 80 some degrees outside, I was a wash of sweat, out of breath, had just been chased by a dog for two blocks right in front of the local constabulary and she's jackin' me up for I.D.
"Do you know why I stopped you?" she demanded.
"No, I was hopping you'd know." I'd been waiting to use that one since it was used on me back in 1972 when I stopped a good-looking blonde driving a convertible who was way out of my league.
"I stopped you because you went through that stop sign back there without stopping, and because you're in the middle of the road, impeding traffic."
Rule: in a situation like this, DO NOT start laughing hysterically. Like I did. And between gasps don't get cute and say stupid things like, "Oh, that's a good one!" or "I can't wait to tell the guys at the Club about this!" or "Oh, I get it, Del put you up to this, this is a Strip-O-Gram, right?" Don't do any of that.
"No sir, I am not kidding," she tersed on, "all vehicles must come to a complete stop at a stop sign before proceeding on." I realized she was as serious as a heart attack about all this and had a terminal case of The Southern Sheriff Syndrome — you know the one — where the big fat sheriff with mirrored sunglasses rocks back and forth on his heels and proclaims, "Yu in a heap ah truble boy. Yessiree, a heap ah truble."
So, I straightened up and tried my best to get serious about my one-man crime wave .
My defense was that I was basically a pedestrian, like a kid on roller skates, or a cross-country skier when it snowed, or even a sledder. I try to use the sidewalks when they are available and I cross at the cross-walks.
"If it's got wheels on it and you can make it move as fast as a bicycle, its a vehicle and you have to stop for the stop signs."
"Okay," I said, "if I'm a vehicle why am I being stopped for impeding traffic, of which there isn't any, except you?
"Because you're in the middle of the road, where you don't belong. You just admitted you were a pedestrian and since you're a pedestrian you don't belong in the middle of the road — you belong on the sidewalk or, if there isn't a sidewalk, at the edge of the roadway." The prosecution rested.
"Well if I'm a pedestrian and don't belong in the middle of the road, then I certainly couldn't have run that stop sign back there since pedestrians don't have to stop for stop signs. On the other hand, if I did run the stop sign then I must be a vehicle, in which case I can be in the middle of this road, because that's where vehicles are supposed to be." The defense rested.
Uh-oh. Logic. Now there's a concept. Time to re-think this situation.
So she ran my name through the computers, discovered I was nobody famous or infamous and cut me loose.
"What about the dog? You saw him chase me." I whined.
"I'm sorry sir," she said, obviously enjoying this part, "that's a job for animal control. We don't chase dogs, just cars."
I wonder if she bites at the tires, too?
Sometimes it goes on like this for days and days. And then you get a new toy. And the next thing you know you've turned into a hardened criminal. Then dogs and cops start chasing you. And then it gets worse.
By Joe Acton
A couple of days ago I was cleaning my daughter's junk out of the back of my car — it's amazing what winds up in your car after a few weeks of chauffeuring your kid and her buddies around the countryside.
At the bottom of the heap in my trunk, right under the sleeping bag she used for a slumber party, were my roller-blades — which I have been looking for since just after the slumber party.
Now, roller-blades, in case you haven't kept up on the latest in yuppie exercise fades, are the hot items to return your body to its former self — assuming you want to look like you did when you were 19 or so. Most of the women I know want to look like that, most of the men I know don't.
Anyhow, these roller-blades gizmos look like a ski boot with in-line rollers on the bottom — actually they look like hockey skates for someone whose afraid of ice.
I bought these things with the rationalization that, "No, I'm not a yuppie, I'm just a guy whose knees are shot from years of athletic abuse. So I'll use these puppies for low-impact aerobic exercise — it'll be just like ice-skating again." Funny the lies you'll believe when it's you talking.
Roger Miller once observed in one of his songs that "you can't roller-skate in a buffalo herd" — clearly a concept ahead of its time. The Bellevue equivalent is that "you can't roller-blade without wearing neon spandex."
So it's 80 degrees plus and I'm out for my daily spin around the neighborhood chasing the rainbow of eternal youth. I got my gloves on in case I crash, my water bottle for the thirsties, sunglasses for the glare, a headband to keep the sweat out of my eyes, and my wind-resistant neon spandex is so tight the neighbors are asking the burning question, "Is he on the inside trying to get out or on the outside trying to get back in?"
About five miles into my run I'm really cooking. It's hot outside, I'm sweating like a wool sweater in August — I mean I can see the calories jumping off my body. Up ahead I can also see a stop sign coming up fast.
I was on the sidewalk so I started slowing down and coasted up to the sign and crossed the street in the crosswalk at about the pace of a brisk walk. There were no cars in sight.
On the other side I picked up the pace and was cruising around a long sweeping turn when a dog ran out from his yard and chased me off the sidewalk, across the left-hand traffic lane and into the middle of the right-hand traffic lane of the road.
Momentum was on my side so I sprinted ahead of the dog until I thought he gave up the chase. Actually, he was just getting out of the way of the cop car that was pulling up behind me with its emergency lights on.
Hooray! I thought. Finally, somebody's going to catch it for letting their pooch chase joggers, bikers and now roller-bladers.
I pulled over, stopped and slowly skated back to congratulate the local constabulary she barked over the loudspeaker, "Step away from the car, sir, I'll make contact with you in front of the vehicle."
Uh-oh. This wasn't starting out right. I mean, I'd spent 7 years as a police officer on a large department before I moved to Bellevue, and I figure I know a traffic stop when I see one. And I was seeing one.
"May I see your driver's license?" she asked.
Okay — I shouldn't have laughed. At least not out loud. And not that hard. And I should have said something benign, yet clever, like, "No officer, I don't." But her badge was clearly too heavy and she was trying to be so tough — it was like I was like she'd caught me red-handed dealing illicit spandex.
So, instead I said, "Are you kidding me? This spandex is so tight I can't carry a key to the house without my thigh looking like a jello mold when I get back. Besides, where do you think I'm hiding the engine that I'd have to have to be required to carry a driver license to operate these skates?"
Well, what can I say. It was 80 some degrees outside, I was a wash of sweat, out of breath, had just been chased by a dog for two blocks right in front of the local constabulary and she's jackin' me up for I.D.
"Do you know why I stopped you?" she demanded.
"No, I was hopping you'd know." I'd been waiting to use that one since it was used on me back in 1972 when I stopped a good-looking blonde driving a convertible who was way out of my league.
"I stopped you because you went through that stop sign back there without stopping, and because you're in the middle of the road, impeding traffic."
Rule: in a situation like this, DO NOT start laughing hysterically. Like I did. And between gasps don't get cute and say stupid things like, "Oh, that's a good one!" or "I can't wait to tell the guys at the Club about this!" or "Oh, I get it, Del put you up to this, this is a Strip-O-Gram, right?" Don't do any of that.
"No sir, I am not kidding," she tersed on, "all vehicles must come to a complete stop at a stop sign before proceeding on." I realized she was as serious as a heart attack about all this and had a terminal case of The Southern Sheriff Syndrome — you know the one — where the big fat sheriff with mirrored sunglasses rocks back and forth on his heels and proclaims, "Yu in a heap ah truble boy. Yessiree, a heap ah truble."
So, I straightened up and tried my best to get serious about my one-man crime wave .
My defense was that I was basically a pedestrian, like a kid on roller skates, or a cross-country skier when it snowed, or even a sledder. I try to use the sidewalks when they are available and I cross at the cross-walks.
"If it's got wheels on it and you can make it move as fast as a bicycle, its a vehicle and you have to stop for the stop signs."
"Okay," I said, "if I'm a vehicle why am I being stopped for impeding traffic, of which there isn't any, except you?
"Because you're in the middle of the road, where you don't belong. You just admitted you were a pedestrian and since you're a pedestrian you don't belong in the middle of the road — you belong on the sidewalk or, if there isn't a sidewalk, at the edge of the roadway." The prosecution rested.
"Well if I'm a pedestrian and don't belong in the middle of the road, then I certainly couldn't have run that stop sign back there since pedestrians don't have to stop for stop signs. On the other hand, if I did run the stop sign then I must be a vehicle, in which case I can be in the middle of this road, because that's where vehicles are supposed to be." The defense rested.
Uh-oh. Logic. Now there's a concept. Time to re-think this situation.
So she ran my name through the computers, discovered I was nobody famous or infamous and cut me loose.
"What about the dog? You saw him chase me." I whined.
"I'm sorry sir," she said, obviously enjoying this part, "that's a job for animal control. We don't chase dogs, just cars."
I wonder if she bites at the tires, too?
Sometimes it goes on like this for days and days. And then you get a new toy. And the next thing you know you've turned into a hardened criminal. Then dogs and cops start chasing you. And then it gets worse.
