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I was arrested tonight. Did you know that when I walk down the middle of the road at night with my hair in a bun held back by a purple happy flower, I look "uncannily like a car thief"?
Neither did I.
So I'm walking home from a wonderful RHPS dress rehearsal. (It's been a year, and I had reason to feel I'd gotten rusty) I decide, in the interest of slightly increased safety, that I would prefer to walk in the middle of the road rather than along the sidewalk. (The roadway is better lit, and a theoretical assailant would have to cover more ground to reach me.) The road narrows or turns at an intersection or something, because I drift back to the sidewalk, then notice and move back out onto the road. I'm thinking about what I'm going to wear tomorrow night.
Suddenly a car turns right in front of me like it's turning into a driveway, but it stops and someone starts to get out of the car. Being the paranoid person who's been choosing the middle of the road as a safe place to walk, I step closer to more clearly see the person who seems to be trying to get my attention. (Doh, not clever, Marc. Be nervous, don't assume it's a friend. Even if you do have friends who would do just that.) Some gus gets out of the car and says, "You seem to be mighty interested in that car," and points over my shoulder. I give him an extremely puzzled look.
He says he's a police officer, and asks me to take my hands out of my pockets. After I do so, he shows me his badge. (IIRC, it's what you get when you concatenate a 2 and a 3, multiply that by 3, then add what you get when you add 2 to 3.) He asks me for identification, I ask if I have to provide it, he says yes, I do so. He asks me if I still live at <my parents' house>, I say I don't, I live at <my address>. He asks where I'm going and where I'm coming from. I tell him I'm coming from a rehearsal at Vassar, and I'm going home. He asks if I'm a student there, I tell him I'm an alum. I offer to show him my alum ID, he accepts and looks at it.
Somewhere in all this, he tells me there's been trouble with someone stealing cars, and I look uncannily like the posters they have of the thief. Then he says I'm clearly not a criminal, and lets me go. He mentions which code entitles him to ask for identification...something about the something Civil something, and probable cause. I'm afraid I wasn't retaining details too well at that point.
So now I've learned one of the things all those police officers I mentioned last week do. They sit around in plainclothes in unmarked cars looking for someone who looks like they might be a car thief to do something which looks like they might be checking out a car. Which really isn't bad, even if I'm a little sarcastic, in that they're making a good faith effort to stop an actual crime that's been going on, and not a petty one.
Neither did I.
So I'm walking home from a wonderful RHPS dress rehearsal. (It's been a year, and I had reason to feel I'd gotten rusty) I decide, in the interest of slightly increased safety, that I would prefer to walk in the middle of the road rather than along the sidewalk. (The roadway is better lit, and a theoretical assailant would have to cover more ground to reach me.) The road narrows or turns at an intersection or something, because I drift back to the sidewalk, then notice and move back out onto the road. I'm thinking about what I'm going to wear tomorrow night.
Suddenly a car turns right in front of me like it's turning into a driveway, but it stops and someone starts to get out of the car. Being the paranoid person who's been choosing the middle of the road as a safe place to walk, I step closer to more clearly see the person who seems to be trying to get my attention. (Doh, not clever, Marc. Be nervous, don't assume it's a friend. Even if you do have friends who would do just that.) Some gus gets out of the car and says, "You seem to be mighty interested in that car," and points over my shoulder. I give him an extremely puzzled look.
He says he's a police officer, and asks me to take my hands out of my pockets. After I do so, he shows me his badge. (IIRC, it's what you get when you concatenate a 2 and a 3, multiply that by 3, then add what you get when you add 2 to 3.) He asks me for identification, I ask if I have to provide it, he says yes, I do so. He asks me if I still live at <my parents' house>, I say I don't, I live at <my address>. He asks where I'm going and where I'm coming from. I tell him I'm coming from a rehearsal at Vassar, and I'm going home. He asks if I'm a student there, I tell him I'm an alum. I offer to show him my alum ID, he accepts and looks at it.
Somewhere in all this, he tells me there's been trouble with someone stealing cars, and I look uncannily like the posters they have of the thief. Then he says I'm clearly not a criminal, and lets me go. He mentions which code entitles him to ask for identification...something about the something Civil something, and probable cause. I'm afraid I wasn't retaining details too well at that point.
So now I've learned one of the things all those police officers I mentioned last week do. They sit around in plainclothes in unmarked cars looking for someone who looks like they might be a car thief to do something which looks like they might be checking out a car. Which really isn't bad, even if I'm a little sarcastic, in that they're making a good faith effort to stop an actual crime that's been going on, and not a petty one.
