VIRGINIA HIGHLANDS 911:

A policeman pulls a man over for speeding and asks him to get out of the car. After looking the man over he says, "Sir, I couldn't help but notice your eyes are bloodshot. Have you been drinking?" The man gets really indignant and says, "Officer, I couldn't help but notice your eyes are glazed. Have you been eating doughnuts?!?"

I loathe the police. I can not recall a single time they have ever been of help to me in my life. The only times I have come in contact with them I have not been doing anything wrong, but am still subjugated to their power tripping. Here are just a couple incidents that come to mind immediately:

1) I was 17 and playing dodge ball at the local park with my friends. A cop pulls up and shines a flashlight into the backseats of every car in the parking lot. He then stops our game and tells us all to line up against the fence. Confused and not getting any answers from him we give our names/ licences and he retreats into his squad car threatening us not to move or else. After I assume looking us up on his computer or waiting the right amount of time, according to his Cop Guidebook, to emit extreme intimidation tactics he comes out and tells us that whoever's car a white Honda was that had alcohol in the back seat was going to jail. After an hour of us not saying anything, because we had no idea whose car it was, a man comes over to pick up the extra beer in the car. It turned out he was in charge of the adult pool party going on adjacent to the park. The cop leaves without saying a word of apology.

2) This should really be it's own separate post, but here is a quick lowdown of the infamous Flaming Coconut incident. A large party is going on in the Highland Square apartments. Some of our friends from the Crazy Beaver are over and we are eating ice cream sandwiches on whole wheat. I jokingly kid that the party is booming and that we should kick it up a notch and lite something on fire! My roommate proceeds to go outside and light a coconut on fire using a large amount of lighter fluid. Funny? Yes, and then severely no. Being upstairs in the party I can only account for what I saw next. Yelling from outside gets me to the balcony where I see my roommate running around the parking lot with the flaming coconut in his hands. He then proceeds to try and play catch with J-Roll and by catch I mean he threw and J-Roll said, "What the fuck are you thinking?" The coconut rolls underneath my car still aflame. On the balcony and waiting to see my car burst into flames, I begin cursing at my roommate to put out the coconut. He gets the coconut and I go inside. I hear the cops are being called on the party. I then usher everyone out and go to bed. An hour or so later a cop is banging loudly on my door. I answer because it is all dark in my apartment and I can't sleep with this crazy banging. He walks right past me as I open the door demanding every one's ids that live there. He literally pulls my roommates out of their beds. In our boxers and shorts we are then paraded down in the middle of the night to stand in front of his cop car in the cold with his searchlight on us as he curses at us from his megaphone and calls us up one at a time to receive our disorderly conduct tickets. Needless to say the situation by this cop was incredibly illegal and as a result of him and a bitch of an ex-girlfriend I ended up breaking my knuckle that night in two places from punching a wall out of frustration. Dumb response ... but sometimes testosterone just gets the better of you.

3) I was once almost accused of raping a girl in a car when the officer came to the foggy window. I was told to get the fuck out of the car and put my hands on the hood. The cop then left when he found out A) I still had my clothes on B) It was the girl's car C) The girl was on top of me in the passenger seat. At least apologize for ruining the moment, geez.

4) The reason for this post is that this past Monday I was driving with Ffej to meet Drama for his weekly sushi fix at Thaicoon. Not even a block from my house a cop pulls me over and issues me 3 tickets. One for not having my seat belt on and two for having a Maryland licence and tag. I WAS ONLY A BLOCK FROM HOME! FML I should have lied to him and told him I was an Emory student or just visiting the area. Drama, that was the most expensive man-date ever. I now have to go to court July 30 and after my past two experiences there from the Infamous Flaming Coconut Incident I would rather get circumcised again or have a quick and sloppy enema.

So my question is why do police officers have such power trips? As Drama said to me, "The whole thing is a racket." I totally agree with him. I feel police will do anything to intimidate you into giving their department more money. In fact, Dunwoody, GA is infamous for putting signs behind bushes so that people will blow through stop signs, etc. in order for the officers to give tickets. It is all absurd.

But, I do think people want to do something to fight back, but don't know how. We want to contact our congressman and argue that these meaningless tickets such as rolling through a stop sign when nobody is around are misuse of our taxpaying money when there are crackheads around the corner that scare the crap out of us when we leave Kroger at night (for real someone has got to do something about that crazy guy). But after a night of resting on it we don't contact anyone and instead dream what it would be like to somehow fight fire with fire. It is for this reason that we love icons such as Bonnie and Clyde and John Dillinger. Deep down everyone wants to break the chains of the law that are holding them down to their mediocre non-gun toting lives. Basically I am saying I really want to see Public Enemies this weekend after getting three tickets ... that or as Ffej suggested play some Grand Theft Auto and just blow some squad cars up. Either option and I think I will feel better.