Delusion: Don’t Leave Home Without It

By: David Sherman

Article Category: David Sherman

The following is offered as a work of fiction, and therefore should not be construed by any attorneys as a reason to justify their retainers or pad their billable hours. It is a purely hypothetical musing on the current state of what were once lofty ideals, precepts held on high, and on how easily such fragile fictions may be toppled by the seemingly innocuous acts of petty men. Should any one man find too many similarities herein and think himself maligned, that would be his problem. Should he wear a badge he knows he has disgraced, he could be right… Hypothetically.

It was a beautiful hypothetical morning. Spring had barely gotten a word in edgewise before an early summer took over the conversation well ahead of schedule, but such is often the case in Flowery-in-Spanish, a fictitious state just south of Tongue-in-Cheek and just short of Sarcasm. The balmy, little seaside town of Native-American-Port-Shore was situated on the eastern edge of this fairytale land, between a tropic lagoon and the deep blue sea. All was lovely, and bright, and right with the world… Except for Joe Citizen.

Joe was late for work. Joe wasn’t really even supposed to work that day, but he didn’t know that. The new schedule hadn’t been posted when Joe last worked, and a friend had told him he was due in at 10:30. The friend meant well, so none of what follows is his fault. Irony sucks just fine all on its own. I know this isn’t ironic yet, but Joe thought he was hurrying to make money, when in fact he was doing exactly the opposite. That’s ironic. Of course the man with the badge and the radar gun who stopped Joe on his way to work didn’t really care about irony.

Joe had seen the two fictional patrol cars parked trunk to hood when he had turned off Highway B4B. He had assumed that radar guns were present; Joe was in a hurry, not a coma. As he turned onto the side street that was his usual route to work, he found himself brought up short by a van moving very s-l-o-w-l-y. Joe glanced at his speedometer. 20 f@#%*&g mph! If only Joe had a week to get to work! Surely they were slowing to turn into the shopping center… No! There went the turn and they were still just crawling along.
“You’ve still got four lanes for a block yet,” thought Joe, “Pass them on the right.” It seemed the only way to make it to work on time. “What about the cops?” thought Joe, “CRUISE CONTROL!” This wasn’t a leap; Joe drove this road every day with his cruise control set at 29mph. It was just too easy to creep up over the 30 line, and Joe knew the cops wouldn’t bother with 4 mph over the limit. Hell, state websites even said so, and county tickets didn’t even begin until 6 miles over!

Joe moved to the right and accelerated to 29, hit the cruise control, and watched the point where the four lanes merged into two. Either Joe was a master of vector mathematics or the two old guys in the van saw him and slowed to let him in. Either way, he made it with room to spare. He checked the speedometer again just out of paranoia. 29mph — YEAH! Joe continued down the road rather pleased with himself…until he saw the blue lights in his mirror.

The man with the badge seemed polite enough. He asked if Joe knew the speed limit. Joe said, “25mph.” The cop asked Joe how fast he had been going. Joe said, “You mean when I passed the old guys?” Joe knew he was safe on this one.

“No,” said the cop, “Before you got to the ‘old guys’ as you call them.” His tone left no doubt that he found the term somehow disparaging, which confused Joe for a moment. He hadn’t meant anything negative by it. He had seen them when he passed. The one was at least in his 70s and the one driving looked to be his father! Damn it, that’s old. Joe knew he had been going 20mph once he got to the van. (Remember he had looked.) But before that? Not a clue. He admitted as much. “38mph,” said the cop. Then the paperwork began. A ticket for 38 in a 25, another for a bad tail light, and yet another for no registration in the car. Apparently even hypothetical cops don’t accept hypothetical registration. Somewhere in the middle of it all Joe’s day had ceased to be beautiful.

Joe went on to work, met Irony face to face, cussed quietly to himself in seven languages, and headed back home. Another light came on as he passed by the turn “the two old guys” had not taken. This light was thankfully not blue. It was, however, quite bright, and it shone down on the speed limit sign directly opposite the road not taken. For the first time in his life, Joe Citizen would fight a ticket.

He thought it would be a simple matter. He drew a detailed map of the road. It showed every detail, especially the speed limit sign — the one he had not yet reached when he cop had clocked him. When Joe had been doing 38 (a number he still doubted) he was still in a 45mph zone! Joe was what many would consider “old school” in some things, among them that he still believed that all cops were made of somewhat finer stuff. They chose to “serve and protect.” They were men of honor. Of course, Joe had never tried to fight a ticket before. Hell, he’d only ever had six in over 48 hypothetical years. Surely in the face of Joe’s map the cop would admit his error and that would be the end of it.

Imagine the shock on the face of poor Joe Citizen, when the officer, having just been sworn in, calmly told the judge that he had been shooting radar that day three blocks in from Highway B4B! He recalled nothing of any van, any old guys, and no cruise control had been mentioned. He could “prove” that because there was no mark on the ticket. He always made a mark if cruise control was mentioned. Apparently in this hypothetical court of of purely fictional law, the complete absence of evidence is considered evidence!

Joe stood dumbfounded as his map was rendered useless by the lies. To make matters worse, when he told his account of the day’s events, including the passing of the van, the “Judge” (a term used here with hypothetical truckloads of sarcasm) even went so far as to ask the cop, “Is that even possible?” Joe could hear a lifetime’s worth of lofty ideals crashing to the ground as a “Judge” asked one person in an adversarial setting if the other was telling the truth! Joe began to furtively cast about, fearing to see the waterboards any minute! Would they bend him over the ruinous pile of his shattered reality and have at his wallet all at once, or would they take turns?

Joe Citizen’s once beautiful day: Ticket he never should have gotten: $160. Added Court Costs: $60. Civics lesson in just how fragile the fabric of law truly is, how quickly in a state crying out for more money from tickets, in a town doing the same, a cop who may once have known honor will lie through his teeth under oath: Priceless.

As for myself, I still believe as Joe once did. Hypothetically. But I also know that there are a lot of hypothetical travesties in our system. People who serve no purpose but to add all-too-real stains on our collective, and increasingly fictional honor.