So I Embarrassed the Cop Who Pulled Me Over Just as Much as I Embarrassed Myself

Having to rush to the bathroom is as cliché of an excuse for speeding as it comes. And on an early spring afternoon about 2 years ago, that was the exact excuse I gave to the police officer who pulled me over.

My frequent need to use the restroom gave me a legitimate excuse to leave the office early and spend the rest of the day either resting in bed or zonked out on medicinal drugs. Too cheap to hit the drugstore and finding the allure of my comfortable bed too strong, I opted to get home as soon as possible. Even though my fever was rising, I still found myself with a clear head and reflexes capable of weaving through highway traffic at 80mph.

It seemed that some divine force was helping me through the city streets as well. Every traffic light was green and allowed me to keep a decent pace of 50mph as I neared home. This was great, considering that my body was telling me to use the bathroom again as soon as possible. I turned into the residential area that consisted of a few turns and eventually my house, I could feel my internal pressure begin to lessen knowing I would soon be free of the foulness inside me.

As I barreled down the street and prepared to make the left turn into the driveway of my house, I finally heard the distinctive WHOOP of a police siren. I pull over at the house directly across from my own. Just a few more yards and I would have been home using the bathroom and in bed-preferably in that order.

I already had my window rolled down for fresh air so I was already ready to go through the traffic stop motions. "License and registration," the police officer barks with the warmth of ice cube. I comply while the pressure inside me builds up again. The officer condescendingly tells me how close this traffic stop is to my house as if I did not know myself. As the officer returns to his squad car to run my license, my inner voice is yelling at the officer to hurry up and give me my ticket. Traffic school, while not a picnic, is less embarrassing than explaining to the car wash people how these new stains in my car came to be.

After the officer tries to get me to self convict by asking if I knew why he pulled me over, I find myself unable to hold my stuff in any longer. So I decided to make a simple plea. Sweating from my fever and the stress he caused, I lean outside my driver side window and stammer, "Officer, I seriously need to use the bathroom. May I please use the one in my house, which we have ascertained is RIGHT IN FRONT OF US, before finishing this up. Alternatively, I might---" I never did get around to proposing my alternative. My body made the executive decision to go with that second option.

BLARG!!!!

The dark colored trousers of the police officer's uniform are now accented with the orange smoothie and instant ramen I had for breakfast. Somewhere in the back of my mind, I feel that he kind of deserved that.

That day I could not really recall what happened after that. I somewhat remember telling him about the serious case of stomach flu I picked up as he confirmed the fever on my head and absence of alcohol or drugs. I never received a ticket for the incident. Perhaps during my fever and shock over the vomiting he decided to give me only a warning or he understood the extreme circumstances for my hasty driving. Or maybe I had simply vomited on the ticket clipboard before he could complete it and he did not want to reissue it. The last thing I remember from that experience was him driving off as I pulled my car the final few yards into the driveway. Then I went inside my house, found the nearest couch, and slept while thinking I could have been doing this a lot sooner had I not been pulled over.