Better Living Through Absurdity

For some reason, HTML is not wanting to cooperate with me -so, should you wish to see the past columns in this series, feel free to scroll down or click on the months on the side and I'm sure you'll find one! Otherwise, feel free to make this your first foray into absurdity!

This Week’s Topic: Chicago’s Finest

So this is a brief anecdote of absurdity, one that happened a couple of days ago and one that I still laugh about, albeit a tad hysterically.

For a couple of years my car wasn’t what’s considered “Chicago legal” –that is, I’d had my out of state plates for way past the required change-over date, and I had no city sticker which is mandatory if you’re going to park in this city. Generally if you have out of state plates, they won’t nail you for it –but there’s always the chance that you’ll get a cop who’s bored or a jerk…or bored. And they’ll ticket you. It’s a great way for the city to make money –the sticker costs $75 for the year and the tickets for not having them are $120 a pop. So, needless to say, I began to develop what I considered to be a healthy paranoia about the boys in blue.

Now, like many people, I make mix cds. Around this time two years ago, I was making a lot of New Wave compilations. New Wave music is guaranteed to make me smile and I threw in a lot of standards as well as some of the lesser known tracks or completely obscure stuff. The Clash almost always made an appearance on these cds and there were two songs that I loved hearing –"Radio Clash" and…"Police on My Back."

Along with developing my healthy paranoia regarding cops, I developed one regarding that song. If it came on while I was driving, I would immediately change it to another song –I was afraid that somehow I’d become a cop magnet.

Now, my car is stickered and plated and paid and legit –and I’ve got nothing to fear from the minions of the local precinct. However, old habits die hard –and I still find myself cringing sometimes when I see a cop coming or if I notice one eyeballing my car. It’s silly but there you have it.

So the other day I found one of these old mix cds from a couple of years ago and I threw it in the player and I’m feeling extra perky and driving down the road –and "Police on My Back" comes on. And for the first time in years, I let it play. So I’m at a stop light, bending down to grab my purse, windows down and singing loudly, and I come back up successful in my hunt for a lighter –and what do I see, but a cop car to my left, a cop car to my right and a cop car behind me. The only reason there wasn’t one in front of me is because I was at the head of the line. And of course, that blasted song is still…well blasting –and I was still singing. Until of course I noticed the heads swiveled in my direction, with the sun and my panicked reflection glinting off of their insect-like cop glasses.

I felt like the villain in a bad science fiction film –so long I had waited, planning carefully, moving cautiously, living in fear –it can’t have been in vain! I can’t have survived all of that only to lose out now!!! Then Edward G. Robinson’s “You’ll never take me alive copper,” runs through my head and the death scene in Little Caesar…this can’t be good.

I turn to the one on my left…at first, I thought he was shaking in rage. Then I realize he’s laughing. He’s POINTING and laughing. I turn to the one on my right –he’s laughing as well. I look in my rearview mirror –that one is grinning and gives me the thumbs up sign.

At this point I’m a bit flustered and I’m wondering why this blasted light hasn’t changed yet. I turn to the closest officer and he leans out the window and says, “Dig your music.” And I force a smile and say, “Well at least you weren’t laughing at my singing.” He gets on the radio and I realize he’s repeating what I say to the car next to me and behind me –I see them start laughing –and then the guy from my right side yells, “You mean your bellowing don’t you?” The light is about to change and I plaster a grin on my face to show that hey, yeah, I can take a joke as well as anyone…and the last thing I hear before I drive off, fighting every impulse to crank it up to 90mph, is the guy on my left saying, “Remember –the police are on your back!”

It took a good 15 minutes before I unclenched my hands from the wheel –and by that time, Depeche Mode was singing “Master and Servant” and I started laughing hysterically.