Fun while driving

We all have our share of close shaves with the law enforcers when we are on the road. A few days ago, at a potluck party, we were sharing some very interesting stories of desis being stopped for "reckless" driving. I thought i will share some of these stories that had us in splits.

A friend of another friend was fresh off the boat and was driving around some college town. He found stopping at stop signs annoying and used to stop only if he deemed life threatening. One fine deserted afternoon he zipped through eight or nine stop signs and caught the attention of a cop. The cop happened to be in civilian clothing and was off-duty and he still followed him. According to the cop, he HAD to see the guy who could just discard stop signs with such remarkable disdain :).

Another friend of a friend was driving around on a Texas highway and was pushing close to 100. He saw an emergency vehicle pull up behind him with its lights flashing. He pushed the speed higher to allow the emergency vehicle to go faster and eventually go to Austin. At this point, he was at an intersection and was suddenly surrounded by half a dozen cop cars. He decided to take matters into his own hand, so he got down to explain his situation to the cops. You can imagine how those guys responded but you have to give this guy points for being proactive :D

I have a few others which we will talk about later.

New York Slice

We had come visiting the fiance's brother for a day at his place in NY. It was about 9 in the night when we took the sub to his place. We met a middle-aged couple with a cute kid in his buggy. They probably noticed the tension in my face and started their comforting small talk. A bangladeshi couple. It was remarkable how similar we look but for the small nuanced differences, still. At our stop, we bid adieu and walked out.

Early next morning offered a crisp, cool breeze as we made towards port authority. As we hopped onto the 46 bus, i plugged in the metro card to cover charges. The machine spat the card back at me. I had a few dollar bills but the bus driver informed me it wouldn't work. Seinfeld rates public speaking as the most dreaded thing to do. I had to resort to beg for some metro card on a New York bus. I passed several stony glances and head swivels before one of them handed me his metro card. I thanked profusely and paid him in the now-useful bills.

Half an hour later, we were nearing our destination. They say life comes full circle, when it does it makes you look like an idiot sometimes. Sometimes, it gets you glow with two beaming buttons of eyes and an easy elastic smile. We were at the sub station, bright and busy, refilling the empty metro card. On my left, i saw a huge NY lady trying to purchase a ticket. For some reason, the machine was being reluctant and she was bordering panic. She slammed her huge palms right and left, as if the machine was a stubborn child hanging on to dear ticket. I whisked out a couple of dollar bills and handed them to her.

"Oh thank you. Believe me, i am a good person". To this day, i don't know why she said that. I am not acting all smug for helping her out, but i did feel happy.