Suspicious

I happen to be a Chris Rock fan. Most of the time, his stuff is funny and has a little social commentary thrown in. The goofy looking faces don't hurt, either. Anyhow, he did this one bit where cops gave him a hard time because he was black. The punchline is something along the lines of, "he scared me so bad, I thought I'd stolen my own car." I've always thought it was funny, if nothing else because it's a ridiculous response to a bad situation.

As of this week, I know how he feels.

I got up on Tuesday morning and went about my business as usual. I had ironed a shirt & picked out a pair of gray slacks the night before, so I got dressed fairly quickly. It's not like it's hard or anything: slacks, shirt, jacket, shoes, beanie. It's also the same routine every morning, so I don't even think about it any more. I can, and do, do it while half asleep. Really, the only detail that's changed over the years is that I'll wear a black leather jacket instead of a blue Eddie Bauer jacket. The blue one started to get a little ragged, so it was time for a change. As for the beanie, it's just flippin' cold at that hour.

Anyhow, I walked to my car, got in, and started the engine. I realized that there was a good amount of water on my windows, so I grabbed a squeegee from the trunk and got to work. I figured it wouldn't take that long, so I just left the car running.

About half-way through my task, I noticed the light of a passing car in the corner of my eye. I took a brief glance backward, but nothing caught my attention so I turned back to my task. The light didn't go away, though. I did a double-take, and I realized that the light was actually one of those mini-spotlight things that police cars have near the front. And it was shining right at me. Weird.

Suddenly, the officer spoke to me, "good morning, is that your car?" I thought he was going to give me a hard time for idling the car, so I braced myself for the tongue lashing. However, he had asked me a question, so I responded that this was indeed my car.

The next part surprised me, to be honest. The officer very calmly said, "okay, what's your last name?" He wanted to make sure I wasn't stealing the car? Seriously? It's an older car, and I was in the process of wiping down the windows so that I could safely drive the thing. I'm no thief, but I can't imagine many car thieves spend the time to clean up the car they're about to steal. Also, I may have been wearing dark clothing (gray & black mostly), but I was wearing slacks and loafers, fercryinoutloud. Those items can't possibly be near the top of any lists for preferred clothing when committing a crime, can they? Movies always show criminals wearing comfortable gear that they can move in, like tennis shoes and sweatshirts. Hollywood just wouldn't lie to me like that, it wouldn't.

Well, I gave the guy my last name, and he told me, "okay, hold on a sec while I check." By this point, the surprise had worn off. I figured I wasn't done with the windows, either, so I turned back to the squeegee. He'd figure out his mistake soon enough anyway. Mid-wipe, it occurred to me that the officer was probably commending himself for being so observant. Me being me, my inner smart ass provided a haughty, "ha! Dick Tracy over there missed a few key details, though."

A few seconds later, his computer confirmed that I was, in fact, innocent of any perceived crime. He thanked me for my time, wished me a good day, and drove off. Now, I could've gotten mad; I think I had a reason to be upset. I could also have spent some time wondering whether unzipping my jacket a tiny bit to reveal the non-black dress shirt underneath would have made a difference. 

Ultimately, I decided to go Chris Rock on the whole situation. Chuckling to myself, I drove to work. I'm a suspicious character when I wear business casual clothing, don't ya know.