I Am Not Mark Brown
Friday, July 13, 2012
burghbaby

You know that moment when you're keeping pace with a pack of cars and the highway patrolman pulls out? You know someone is about to get a ticket, and really it's up to him to decide who is going to get lucky that day. He has lots of choices.

It was my turn, apparently.

We were eight hours into our ten-hour drive when the Kentucky State Patrol Officer decided I looked like the best driver for the ticket. I was a little baffled as to how it was possible that the little go cart of a car I was driving was going fast enough up the long, steep hill to warrant a ticket, but whatever. There is no cruise control in that car, so anything is possible. Don't even get me started on the placement of the odometer, by the way. It's in the middle of the car's dash, so it's not within the driver's field of vision. I'm That Person who drives 45 in a 65 at times because I simply can't see how fast I'm going unless I purposely look away from the road.

Anyway.

As the officer approached my window, I grabbed my drivers license and mentally prepared myself for a wave of annoyance. It's never fun to pay a speeding ticket. Never.

We went through the wave of formalities and the officer retreated back to his car. As I waited, I volleyed questions from the Peanut Gallery in the back seat as I dug through the glove compartment identifying things that could be thrown away. Might as well get a little cleaning done while I waited, right?

After what seemed like an extraordinary amount of time, all hell broke loose. The officer approached my window with a pile of paperwork in his hands and said, "Ma'am, are you aware that your license is suspended?"

Time froze. My eyes conveyed, "Whatchu talkin' 'bout, Willis?" My mind added a few dozen adjectives and adverbs to that. My mouth, fortunately, didn't do anything. After a long pause, it finally opened slowly to say, "Uhhh ... no."

"We can't see why in the system, but your license has been suspended," the officer told me. He went on to tell me that he wasn't going to take me into custody since Alexis was with me, nor was he going to call CPS to claim her.

I'M NOT MAKING THIS UP, YOU GUYS.

Obviously, I was losing my mind in all sorts of ways.

As we continued through the conversation, the officer said we could go to the next exit and I could check into a hotel, but I wasn't allowed to drive past that. Because, you know, SUSPENDED LICENSE. The whole conversation took probably ten minutes and involved a lot of me answering questions slowly and deliberately so that I wouldn't say anything stupid. There was only one person in that conversation with any power, and it wasn't me. I blinked a lot, I'm sure. That's what I do when I'm beyond the point of anger.

As the officer followed me to the hotel, I called the husband. He was every bit as confused as I was. Which, RIGHT ANSWER. It's always good to know that your spouse instantly will say, "How the hell is that possible?" when confronted with the knowledge that you've allegedly done something that warrants a suspended license.

You guys, I'm the most boring human on this planet. I like it that way. I walk a straight and narrow path that includes relatively few cusses, no law-breaking, and certainly NOTHING THAT WOULD WARRANT HAVING YOUR LICENSE SUSPENDED. Heck, I stood at the grocery store a few weeks ago and told a cashier that she had just undercharged me $5 when she rang up the wrong code for some produce. I'm pretty sure if I had ever done something that could earn me a suspended license, I would remember it.

When we finally reached the hotel, I started to open the car door to see what the highway patrolman suggested I do next. The first words out of his mouth were, "Can I see that paperwork for a second?" I obliged and he disappeared back into his car.

It was the longest three minutes of my life because Alexis had started BAWLING at that point. She didn't understand what was going on, but she had figured out that we weren't going to our destination that night and SHE WAS VERY NOT HAPPY OMG.

The officer finally stepped back out of his car and smiled a wry, guilt-filled grin as he said, "So, you're not Mark Brown, are you?"

INSERT THE WORLD'S LOUDEST RECORD SCRATCH HERE.

You guys, we were a few miles from Mr. Beam's palace and even fewer miles from the land of Maker's Mark. I was absolutely certain the highway patrolman had been driving around getting a contact drunk because WHY THE HELL ARE YOU ASKING ME IF MY NAME IS MARK BROWN, MR. OFFICER WHO I WOULD LIKE TO REFER TO BY ANOTHER NAME BUT WON'T BECAUSE STRAIGHT AND NARROW AND BORING.

APPARENTLY when Mr. Officer called in my driver's license number, two results came up. APPARENTLY he didn't think to double-check that before crashing my entire universe and acting like he was doing me a favor by not arresting me on the spot. APPARENTLY it is Mark Brown who has a suspended license and has a warrant out for his arrest. APPARENTLY I WISH I COULD PUNCH THAT OFFICER IN THE FACE BUT I WON'T BECAUSE STRAIGHT AND NARROW AND BORING OMG.

"You're free to go," he said as he STILL HANDED ME A STUPID FREAKIN' SPEEDING TICKET FOR GOING 10 MPH OVER THE STUPID FREAKIN SPEED LIMIT.

Call me crazy, but I think if you make my kid cry as you wrongly accuse me of committing a crime, YOU OWE ME. BIG. ALL OF THE THINGS. EVERYTHING.

So, long story short, don't speed in Kentucky. They'll screw up as they run your driver's license number and make a giant ordeal out of the fact that you have a suspended license when in all actuality, you don't. At all. Not even close.

BECAUSE I AM NOT MARK FREAKIN BROWN.

Article originally appeared on burgh baby (http://www.theburghbaby.com/).
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