An important lesson about cops

I used to drive a 1985 Oldsmobile Cutlass Supreme.  It was the best car I've ever driven. It had plush bench seats, a kick-ass heater, and I could sit up straight in it. 

I got it from a friend of a friend, who had left it sitting in front of our mutual friend's house for three months or something.  It wouldn't start, so she left it there and got another car.  Having some experience with beat up old cars, I immediately recognized that the starter was going crappo.  So I replaced the starter and it ran like a champ.  Around that time, I gave the owner a call. 

"Hello?"
"Marsha?*"
"Yeah?" 
"This is Owen."
"Hey."
"Can I have your car?"
"(sigh) sure."
"Sweet.  Thanks!  Just drop the title by Wagner's* house sometime."
"Okay.  Whatever."

And it was mine. 

Somehow the designers managed to get that four-cylinder engine to hurl that two-ton hunk of steel around at quite a clip.  It took a while to accelerate, but it would just keep doing it till you got too scared to continue.  That coupled with the fact that it was big and heavy and felt safe, meant that I was usually driving 80 MPH in that thing. 
Whenever anybody tried to cut me off , or race me, or otherwise be aggressive with their vehicle, me and that car would placidly allow them to decide whether they were interested in causing a collision with us.  Inevitably, the other guy would realize that I was driving a car that was worth (the value of their car) less than theirs, and they would vehicularly apologize.  Somehow, I just believed I would survive any collision in that car.  I never had the occasion to test this though, which is probably evidenced by the fact that I am alive. 

The major problem I had with the Olds, though, was that it attracted cops the way a hot chick at a bar attracts creeps.  I've never had a car that was so consistently in good working order than that one, because any time a taillight went out, or the smokec coming out of my exhaust pipe looked too rich or my tire pressure got too low, a friendly neighborhood police officer would pull me over to let me know.  Then he'd write me an $80 dollar ticket.

It was during this phase in my life that I learned to discern the specific shapes of cop headlights from some distance away. 

It was also during this time that I learned a valuable lesson about being pulled over.  The event went like this:

"Hi, do you know why I pulled you over?"
"Uh, no actually."
"Really?"
"Yeah, I don't really know. (nervous laughter)"
"Oh, okay, well, have a great night!"
"Thanks!  You too!"

*not their real name