Hey Officer Krupke...

We left Spokane at about 10 am on the 27th to head back to Seattle and a few hours of work. I was tres triste about the holiday being over and no longer being able to, without any kind of remorse, consume a half a bag of potato chips and pie for dinner, and was in no mood to have a flippant state trooper pull us over for speeding. Ironically, Christian was driving, which meant that the trooper caught him in the five minutes where he wasn't going exactly 72 miles per hour on cruise control.

The trooper knocked on my window, I handed him our paperwork and our conversation went like this:

State trooper: Were you folks looking for a speeding ticket today?
Me (very annoyed at the rhetorical question to which I was supposed to reply no, while hanging my head in shame and beating my breast): Does anyone answer yes to that question?
ST: Well, you must have been, because you were speeding.

(We were going 81. Christian asked)

Me: It's pretty straight through here. It's hard to not speed.
ST: Not according to the law. The law says you drive the speed limit at all times.

Now, all of this was said in a very flip tone as if he was our moral superior and had the obligation to belittle us for committing the unforgivable crime of driving 11 miles per hour over the speed limit, when we had just been outstripped by at least three SUVs going half again as fast at the time he pulled us over. I absolutely despise being talked down to, especially by someone who willingly lives in Moses Lake. As he walked away, I did mutter "dill hole", and he might have heard me. Ahem. I'm almost certain he did, as when he returned from his car, he handed back our paperwork (sans ticket) and asked:

ST: Where are you coming from?
Me: Spokane
ST (putting his hand to his ear and leaning in): What?
Me: Spokane
ST: Are you having a bad day? (Said in that tone most people use when repeating a line that someone they hate just said, that singsongy tone that implies mockery.)
Me: Yes, Christmas is over, we left my parents' house and now I have to go to work.
ST: Is that any reason to treat me badly?
Me (surprised and REALLY annoyed, now): I wasn't treating you badly.
ST: Yes, you are. You just did. Be thankful you weren't the one driving. You would have gotten a big ticket. You shouldn't treat people badly.
Me (indignant): I wasn't!

It was too late, though, as he was walking away in a huff, like I had crushed his tiny little soul and he had to go cry in his car.

It was a damn good thing he walked away when he did. I probably would have gotten arrested for what I was going to say next.