I
had a friend named Shawn who I had nicknamed 'Ray' because his middle
initial was just 'R' and I once joked that it should stand for 'Ray'.
It is actually not that funny or catchy but I repeated it often
enough that other people started calling him that and it caught on.
He was a lot crazy and whenever you thought you knew what he was
going to do next, you were wrong. So very wrong. He was fond of doing
and saying goofy things, many times with a reckless disregard for the
repercussions. Sometimes it was just weird funny stuff like every
time he would get a drink from drinking fountain he would go up on
tippy toes and then wrap his legs tightly around the machine squat
low enough to drink and then start thrusting his hips in a manner
suggestive of a young pup on with the 'hump everything' biological
compulsion. It was funny every time even if it had the tendency to
put one off the desire to be the next one to use the machine. One
night we were heading out to do something or something else I cannot
remember exactly but either way we were in my Ford Fairmont with two
other guys when I was pulled over by the local law and asked what we
were up to. I got my papers and license and gave it to the officer
who went back to do whatever those dudes do when they sit in their
car and my friend Ray started getting restless and messing around
while we waited. I was trying to get him to just relax and not cause
us anymore trouble as the officer re-approached the car. As he was
talking to me about why he pulled me over, lights off at dusk, my
idiot friend staged whispered to me, “Don't tell him about the beer
in the trunk.” Awesome, thanks idiot. Deputy Do-Good's ears perked
and he was on the case of what, to anyone who was not an idiot, was
clearly a joke. He asked me in all seriousness if there was beer in
my trunk, I answered truthfully, no. He was not convinced and asked
us all to step out from the vehicle and sit on the side of the road.
He asked my permission to search the trunk and I told him sure. He
asked me to unlock it and I told him there was no need because the
latch was broken. He had at some point called in back up because
another cop rolled up to help throw my stuff on the ground. My trunk,
very much the reflection of my sick mind, was a terrible jumble of
camping and climbing gear poised and ready in case there was ever a
sudden need to climb or camp my way out of a sticky situation. My
stuff was being pulled out and piled on the ground all William
Nilliam, Sorry for using the formal term, but you know how pedantic I
get when I reminisce about my friend causing me a hour of humiliation
on the side of a road because he thought it would be funny to joke
about underage drinking to a cop. Underage drinking is no joke. We
sat and fidgeted and talked among ourselves while the local officials
finished their fruitless search. The cop that pulled me over came
and gave me one of the obligatory cop lectures about how we shouldn't
do what we didn't do and he said we were free to put my stuff back in
the trunk and go on our way. It took about10 minutes to re-stuff the
crap back in the trunk and get on our way and during that time we
spared no effort in expressing our displeasure at our idiot friend's
choice of joke and choice of timing. In retrospect it is actually
funnier than at the time but it is still not that funny.
