Oh, I still get paid retention fees it's just that most of my duties can be handled in one or two days a week.
Mostly I just go to lunch.
Things are so calm right now that yet another kid seems to think that all I do is go to lunch for a living.
Kids seem to find the majority of their entertainment on their phones.
Youtube has taken the place of television, Instagram and Twitter and (to a lesser degree) Facebook have taken the place of social interaction, apps have taken the place of arcades, and texting has taken the place talking.
On a recent ride around with a kid the topic of police chases came up.
The kid asked if I'd ever run from the police.
I told the kid that I had refused to immediately pull over for a police officer when getting tickets on a few occasions. Usually it's just until I can pull over away from a busy highway or street in order to reduce the risk of accidents or to get to a better lighted and more trafficked area to ensure that there are more witnesses. I showed my hands and motioned for the officers to follow me and then explained my reasoning once approached by the officers. With today's jumpy officers I'm not sure that I'd lead anyone in a scared police force on a short, low speed 'chase'.
But the kid asked if I'd actually try to get away from the police.
' Not anymore', I replied.
Back in the day I was making the drive back from Palm Springs to Riverside. Since I wasn't in much of a hurry to get home I detoured through Redlands instead of going straight home through Moreno Valley.
At the time there wasn't much development in the area and the highways were relatively new, wide and had little traffic.
It was on highways like this that one could just drive fast without having to worry about other drivers getting in the way.
As I flew past a car facing the other direction - blue lights.
The officer still had to cut across a median, get up to speed and then catch me.
I had a good lead and room to run and assumed that I had three minutes before the ghettobirds were called in.
My lead was such that could see the officer at every overpass but he'd disappear at points in between.
'Three minutes', I thought.
Anyway....
I could speed up and run until backup arrived or I could slow down and get caught.
Or I could slow down just enough to keep my lead but just enough to downshift and brake and attempt to exit the freeway to a surface street and make it back on to the freeway going back in the other direction before the pursuing officer realised what happened.
Needless to say, I attempted to escape.
'Did you get away?', the kid asked.
'Of course.', I replied.
By the time I had turned around again to head back home the officers had another similar looking car pulled over giving the driver a ticket.
I just drove by unnoticed and took a deep breath.
After thinking about it, maybe I should have kept this story to myself.
I'd hate to have this kid try any of the things I did at his age.
No comments:
Post a Comment