A Gun to Sarah's Head
At the time of this story we owned a car that was unloaded on us by some very odd friends of Sarah, We had a series of bad luck and bad experiences with that car. Here is one of those stories.
I'm not sure when this was, but it was a night without children. We were enjoying a pleasant warm summer evening and we were just wandering about and exploring downtown. Only the west side of Figueroa from Olympic to Venice had been developed.
We were going west on Venice, turned right onto Figueroa, and then red lights came flashing behind us.
I know what to do...
The window was rolled down and hands were on the wheel. Sarah went into action and started rooting through the glove box. I asked her to stop, I begged her to stop. But she dismissed me, saying that she was looking for the registration.
In my side mirror I see one cop was approaching me. He unsnapped his gun and had his hand on it. He came up to the window, I said, Hello. He asked for my registration and license, I told him my license was in my front pocket, and got it out. I turned to Sarah for the registration, but she was still searching.
Then, I wasn’t prepared for the horror that came next. The other policeman outside Sarah's window had his gun pointed at her head. He aimed his flashlight at her hands, and Sarah said, Oh thank, thank you so much. She finally found the registration and handed it to me. I gave it to the cop and he went back to the police car. But the other cop stayed where he was, slightly behind Sarah, with his gun still drawn
My cop came back soon enough, and told me our car had a dim headlight. I said, I’ll fix it, and he said, No, I have to give you a fixit ticket. And then he asked me if I knew where the CHP office was, and I said, Sure, only a couple blocks away. He said I’d have to fix the light, show the fixed headlight to the CHP, and then go to court. Then the two policemen went back to their car.
Both headlights got replaced, took the car to the CHP, they signed off on it, and then on to the court on Washington Blvd.
Lots of good reading time in that long court line. Finally at the window, the ticket was handed over to the clerk. She looked on her computer, and then she went back into the office. She returned and said there was no record of the ticket.
So, what do I do now, I asked, she said, You go home.
So, the cops saw us and were very excited that they had caught a pair of dangerous criminals with a dim headlight, and they might have a chance to shoot someone. But no, all they found were the two of us bunnies. I'd like to think the cop intentionally did not record the ticket out of kindness.
A potentially deadly stop by the police turned into an almost nice story.
And we lived to tell the tale.