speed deamon

around 10:00 pm thursday night, just as i was starting to worry that i would not have enough fodder to support this blog, i received a gift from the palo alto police department. the palo alto police department, you ask? let me elaborate... (as an aside, i predict that the vast majority of my blog posts will be about these types of random and absurd incidents, so let's all hope that 2008 has many such moments in store for me.)

On our way home from dinner, my mom and i were pulled over by a cop. of course, as soon as she saw the flashing lights in her rear view mirror, my mom's immediate reaction was to freak out and demand that i tell her what she did wrong. i had no idea. so we waited, with bated breath, as the cop approached the window. the exchange went roughly as follows:

cop: ma'am, do you know why i pulled you over?
mom: no, i don't
sara's internal thoughts: why do they always ask you that? does it really matter? what a damn waste of time.
cop: did you know that el camino is a state highway?
mom: no, i didn't
sara's internal thoughts: when i think highway, i think 101, 280, 880... el camino? i don't care what it says on the books. let's get real.
cop: you were driving in 11 miles per hour below the speed limit in the fast lane of a state highway. the left lane is the fast lane. on a state highway, if you're going to drive that slow, you have to be in the right lane.
mom: okay
sara's internal thoughts: HAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHHA

in the end, he let us off because he said "we're out here looking for drunk drivers, and you're obviously not drunk," but the whole thing reminded me how being cop in palo alto must be one of the cushiest law enforcement assignments out there.

when i was in high school, i used to read the police blotters in the Palo Alto Daily News because they said absurd things like "8:30pm, Thursday - recieved call that a bundle of blankets had been found in a trash can. caller suspected it was a baby. upon inspection, discoverd that bundle was actually a bundle of blankets," or "10:15 pm, Sunday - mysterious noise reported at XXX waverly street. turned out to be squirrels mating."

friday was a slow day at work, so i tried to dig up some more archived police blotters, but all i could find were these reader comments.

More on the chicken dispute

Dear Editor: For some time now, I have held my breath from week to week as news of the "chicken wars" in Atherton was reported in the Daily News' Police Blotter. There was not a peep from me, however, since I have a good friend who lives there and I was not sure she wasn't the one repeatedly calling the police to complain about the ruckus caused by the poultry next door. Besides, the honor of the town was involved. I didn't want to start a contest over whose town had the most difficult and apparently irresolvable problem. She might in turn start in on my town and then there would be no end to it. She might win. So my thanks to the owner of those chickens who finally admitted defeat and decided to ship them off the premises. Hallelujah!

the chicken wars? what has been happening in this town since i went away to college? also, since when is the honor of the town based on which one has the more "apparently irresolvable problem"?

'Police Beat' complaint

Dear Editor: Another new "low" for the Palo Alto Daily News. Your paper purportedly serves the communities of southern San Mateo County and northern Santa Clara County and yet your "Police Beat" column continues to give us items about Los Gatos, Saratoga and Monte Sereno. Really? Are there not enough items in the daily police logs from Atherton down through Mountain View to cover, that you need to include the south end of Santa Clara County?

would you rather that there were more items on the police logs in your neighborhood? maybe you should re-think this complaint.