Cop Magnet Attracts Cop

Hi All!

My dark cloud followed me to LaCrosse.

After an evening of sightseeing, blogging and photojournalisting I headed North out of town on what is techinically highway 35 with speed limits of of 25, 30 and 35. Two lanes, wide open no other traffic. 46 in a 35. Wog, meet Yang. Officer Yang.

I calmly asessed the situation and ran through all the tips and tricks I have learned always after the fact.

I was not worried about a DWI, athough I had spent couple of hours at Howie's Hofbrau playing buzztime trivia and amazing the local color with my vast intellect, followed by a nightcap at Kellogg's Keg down on Lacrosse and 5th.

Taps were 50 cents, cranberry/7-up was $1.50 and bottomless. So I was drinking and pissing and playing and chatted folks up and vice versa (hit on by a cute drunken coed who had a drunk, violent boyfriend who I kept beating at trivia).

Long story short, the wiry little skink of a regular got into it with the three guys and their gals, who were already fighting amongst themselves over darts.

A very nice brawl broke out and the skink was tossed and the door was locked, but afraid his pounding fists of iron might break the glass, the big fat crabby lady bartender let him back in with a promise to be good and an apology to the nice young boys who were keeping the place afloat with booze sales. Lots of Jaeg Bombs were dropped.

Well, you can predict what happened after than that.

I accidentally left my digital voice recorder on and caught alot of the drunken bluster which led to the next altercation and te extas the cycle kept repeating.

When I'd had enough fun I sat in the car with my camera at the ready. The skink was waiting outside the door and it was pushing closing time, but nothing happened after 5 minutes or so and he noticed me so I moved on to Kellogg's Keg. No trivia but great chat with tatooed, buff characters that weren't used to decent folk in their private club.

I shared a printout of my blog. The bunny poem got a guy all riled up for the animal cruelty and such, and politics got ito the mix when "Spot" put on the spot asking my political outlook as we approach the fall elections and 2008. I told the truth and got a hearty handshake (ouch!) and slap on the back (double ouch).

He is gung ho and like me, dissapointed in the wishy washy GW. He predicted McCain v. Clinton and thought I was daft to handicap Gingrich v. Gore.

I took a few photos (the blog pages helped cooperation). I really think they were so shocked that they humored me. Spot had a stack of bottles on his table and it would have made a great shot to get him in the picture I took, but he begged off for "legal" reasons. Very understandable.

Took my leave and headed out meet my fate.

What is the first rule of avoiding a DWI? Crack window just far enough to converse and slide out your license. Never did that before but it was instinctive. That got the $64,000 "Have you been drinking, sir?" question. Instinctive but actually true was my negative reply, "NO!"

Sat for 10 minutes of eternity and the strobes blasting through the window started to make me feel ill.

I had gathered all my gear, together and awaited my fate.

For the 5th out of 6 times I have been pulled over for the slightest infractions, he let me go.