Why cops should be more obnoxious
Sometimes it is problematic when cops are not as obnoxious as you’d expect them to be. On Sunday night I was coming back from having spent a little over 3 hours at the Independent bar in Somerville. In that period of time I consumed 3 and a half mugs of Guinness. When I was way into Newton (where I live) I noticed a police car behind me. Trying to be a good citizen I stopped, to let the cops go around me. They stopped as well. I should have figured out that they wanted me to stop but: 1. I was probably a bit tired and was not thinking that clearly, 2. I did not see the cop leaving the car (as apparently he did) and 3. They did not put on the siren – which is what always happened in the few times I have been stopped throughout my driving career.
I don’t know whether Newton cops are trying to be sensitive to the fact that people are usually asleep at around 12:50 AM, or what, but the quiet police car certainly confused me. Well, I was confused and the cops were upset that I stopped and then took off. So, I was asked to step outside and they checked out the car for anything that should not have been there.
The only things that should not have been there were copies of the Wall Street Journal I should have thrown out. I still got the lecture that I should not have taken off, even though I explained why I did. The officer was very nice about it – well and soft spoken. There was a sergeant there as well – a drill instructor wannabe. Either upon hearing my slightly foreign accent or looking at my decidedly Slavic face and French head gear, or maybe even my highly aristocratic Russian name, he did inquire where I was from. When I told him “Russia” he did give me the “When cops stop you in Russia do you stop of keep on going?”
I did not feel drunk in the least, but I am curious whether I would have passed the drunk driving test. My urge was to express my gamut of feeling at the moment. For, firs of all, I left Russia when I was 5, and however precocious I was, driving was not part of my skill set, so the scenario the sergeant was describing was rather impossible. Second of all, I felt a mild implication that I was somehow foreign to these lands and slightly oblivious to how things were done here. The implication was that I was a guest, who may have overstayed his welcome and was being a nuisance to the hosts. To that I wanted to tell that beer bellied mofo piece of s---t, that I was not only a citizen but a veteran as well and that his condescending manner did not really fit the occasion. But I stopped myself, since I was quite certain he would have taken the opportunity to rough me up a bit and check me for any traces of alcohol.
The moral of the story is that cops should be a bit more explicit with their orders to stop and not assume that anyone who is decidedly more handsome than they are and who happen to posses a somewhat exotic accent and name did not in some way put their life on the line for the said cop’s beer bellied sorry ass mofo… but I repeat myself.
1:13:09 AM 
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