by the ArchPriest of Chaos
Mess Press, Issue #1, 1991
I should have known better than to think of any day in San Francisco as ordinary. As I launched myself on my bicycle down Golden Gate through the thick fog. I finally realized what had been troubling me, the lack of automobiles on the road. Now, don't get me wrong, cars were moving on the street. It was just that there were too few of them for a Friday morning. I shot down Golden Gate zipping past cars all the way so that I was making about 40 mph when I crossed Fillmore. I decided to ignore the matter of the missing cars and to enjoy the lack of road competition.
Forty minutes later, I was in sunny downtown San Francisco (having been to the office for deliveries where I spent most of the time waiting for a tag) doing what all messengers on bikes do, annoying the hell out of the motorists and irritating the pedestrians. I had just run the light at Sansome and Sacramento when a cop (you know the type, big guy, gut hanging over his belt, macho mustache and gold tinted mirror aviators glasses, straddling a big Harley cop bike) signalled me to stop. Any how I stopped the last thing I wanted to do was run (I mean the Harley's faster and the cops are psychos who love any excuse to do you grievous harm, and nothing pisses them off more than a bike messenger leading them in a chase). I sat on my bike with a foot on the curb waiting while the cop removing his gloves strut ted up to me with that bowlegged macho walk they used. "Son," he said pulling out his citation book and pen, "Are you immune to red lights?"
That's the last thing I expected to hear; I fell off my bike from laughing so hard.
"Boy, what in the hell is your problem? Let me see your damn I.D.," the cop barked.
Untangling myself from the bike I managed to get my wallet out. Handing him my I.D. I said,
"Here you are officer, Sir.
The cop didn't like my I.D. You know how the DMV is so notorious for not retaking pictures. Well, when they snapped my picture for the I.D., I stuck out my tongue. Now anyone who sees my I.D. gets the old impertinent tongue in the eye. Yeah, the cop really loved it. After the I.D. everything went smoothly, he wrote the ticket and glared at me as I signed it. When the cop left I got back on my bike and ran the next five stoplights to make up the lost time on my delivery...
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