Mostly it was a rhetorical question

I started wearing my seat belt all the time a couple of years ago, after my friend A. got out of a speeding ticket because she was wearing hers. But on Monday I was on my way to work (and what a stupid day to go to have to go to work anyway) and I got pulled over for not stopping at a stop sign.

Truth be told, I was kind of on autopilot and I'm not really sure whether or not I stopped at the stop sign. I think I mostly stopped. Stopped long enough to see there were no other cars in the intersection, anyway. I know for sure that I didn't just blow through the intersection.

There were two cops and they both got out of the cruiser. The one that came to my window ran his hand along the side of my car as he walked up to me. They do that because you might have a hostage in the trunk. Seriously, do I look like the kind of person who might have someone tied up in the trunk of my car?

A dead body, maybe.

"License and registration," the first cop said, while the second cop made a visual inspection of the inside of my car, looking intently for drugs or body parts or illegal fireworks or something. And I had the dog in the back seat. And of course she was barking. Not that I blamed her. I wanted to bark, too.

So the cop took my license and registration back to his cruiser. It seemed like he was gone a very long time. I wasn't too worried, though, because I haven't had a moving violation or even a warning for about 15 years. My record is as clean as a whistle. Plus, I thought smugly, I am wearing my seatbelt.

The cop came back. I noticed he was kind of cute. I gave him by best sheepish smile. He handed me a slip of paper.

"I'm giving you a citation for failure to stop at the intersection back there," he says.

"A warning? Or a ticket?" I asked. I couldn't believe he just gave me a citation without giving me a chance to sweet talk my way out of it.

"A ticket," he said. "But you're wearing your seat belt. That's good."

"THAT'S GOOD?" I yelled. "What the hell good does it do to wear your seatbelt if it doesn't get you out of a goddamned ticket?"
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