Living Outside the Law

July 28th Evan played the First Midwest Bank Center in Tinley Park, IL which is just south of Chicago. We started out our day by waking up early afternoon and hitting up Little Mexico in Crawfordsville. Nothing but refried beans and cheese could have propelled us north for the day.

The drive wasn't too bad, pretty straight forward up 65 North and across 80. The amphitheater was right off the exit so minimal fussing. I did, however, get pulled over by an Indiana police officer when we were leaving. That was the first time since I was 16 that I got pulled over. At first I thought there was no way that those red and blue lights were aimed at me. So I drove on for almost another 1/2 mile before pulling over into the shoulder.

I did NOT take this picture

The first thing the officer said to me was, "Thanks for pulling over so quickly". Sarcasm, great. Anyone that knows me, knows that I don't understand the social etiquette of sarcasm. I refer to my disease as 'sarcasm impaired'. I constantly ask myself questions like, "Was that a joke?", "Is he being serious?", "Am I expected to laugh?", "Should I be offended?" So naturally, I just starred blankly into the officers face. He was smiling but was he trying to be funny? I had no idea what was going on, I was sober but I felt drugged by the interaction.

I was going 65 mph in West Lafayette through a speed trap maze. The area quickly changed from 65 mph to 55 mph and then down to 45 mph and again to 30 mph, back up to 45 mph, down to 30 mph again, wait . .  wait . . now it's 55 mph. I was constantly pumping the pedals to readjust. The officer was hiding under a bridge at the top of a hill so when I came up over the crest he caught me cooling down from my 65 mph and turned on his lights before my car cleared the front of his vehicle.

This one reminds me of Chuck

He gave me a verbal warning and explained the speed traps I would yet encounter. It felt like he was doing me a favor by outlining the road to come ahead as if he was the good guy trying to help me out so I didn't get caught by the bad cops hiding out on the road ahead. I thanked him for his 'warning'. He hadn't stopped smiling throughout the entire interaction. Was he making fun of me? Or was that smile genuine, was he a guardian angel or a weirdo? The entire interaction was lost on me but at least I didn't get a ticket.

We arrived to the venue and ate some dinner before Evan performed. I watched from side stage as he opened with "Indiana". Vivian came out and they played their Robert Johnson cover before Evan closed out the show with "Woodpecker". Evan went out to sign CDs and I went to the car to get onto the computer. It was a typical day at work with no surprises! We left at our usually time and drove back to Indiana to get some sleep.