I’m going to play the lotto I think!
For the first time in the two years that I’ve lived down here I met on of our local law enforcement officers. I was stopped by him around 7:00 Am this morning on my way into work.
This is unusual in and of itself; see a casual observation of mine is that the police down here a way laid back when compared to the police where I’m from. (Michigan) You really have to be doing something out of line just to draw their attention.
He comes walking up and says, “Good morning sir. Do you know why I’ve stopped ya’ll today?”
I replied, “Yes sir! I have expired tags on my wife’s vehicle.”
My Birthday is in December.
He then asked, “Why did you not renew them?”
I replied, “Well sir truthfully; I can’t afford them. They are $310.00 dollars so this vehicle usually just sits in the driveway. My wife needed to go shopping and what not today so I decided to chance it and take her vehicle into work today.”
He then said, “Well yes sir that is expensive; Where do you work? And do you have your drivers license and does this vehicle have insurance?”
Again I replied, “Yes sir” to both questions. And told him that I work for Aflac.
He then told me he’d be right back and went back to his cruiser.
A lot went through my mind while he was running me through L.E.I.N and N.C.I.C.
I thought well I deserve the ticket that’s for sure. How am I going to pay it? I wish I would have stuck to more residential streets; maybe I would not have ran into him today. Crap did I practice the right music for today’s church service last night? Why is their air? Who am I?
Just then I looked in my mirror and saw the officer approach.
He said, “Mr. Sheets I’m just going to issue you a warning today. You don’t have to go to court; or appear or do anything. You can even throw this ticket away for all I care. I just have to show my boss that I’m doing traffic.”
Wow I thought; I can’t believe this.
I thanked him for being so understanding and letting me go with just a warning.
He then told me that he’d spent the night locking thugs up and when he came across me and ran me I had the cleanest record he’d encountered in a long time. He told me that he hated to issue citations to good honest hard working people.
He said that he views the tags as a tax; which is what they are. And if he wanted to enforce tax code he’d have joined the IRS not the Columbus Police Force.
The way license plates are handled down here is different then from Michigan. You go to the county tag office and pay an ad-volurum tax based on your vehicle’s value. My wife’s vehicle is a 2004 Dodge Durango. It only cost $190.00 to register my 2004 Dodge Ram so we only re-registered it back in December due to the lack of income to support renewing both.
In Michigan you pay a flat fee to the state based on the vehicle's weight and class. The fee for my wife's Durango in Michigan was only $130.00 which is a big difference.
He did tell me that what made him notice was that my wife’s Durango is Fire Engine Red. He said there is just something about a Red vehicle that shouts hey look at me! He said that if my vehicle had been any other color he most likely would not have even noticed.
He had me dead to rights; yet let me go. Yup….. I’m playing the lotto today!
