DC on Election Night

Below I've posted a story by a DC friend, Emily Cohen. My experience of last night was fairly similar, save a few details. Emily has managed to capture some of the most beautiful and meaningful elements of what took place in this city on November 4th, 2008. Thank you, Emily. :

This is what democracy looks like

I wish you all could have been in DC last night.

We all witnessed history yesterday, but I wish you all could have been here, so that you could have seen what I saw. Here's what the Post said about it, to be concise: "From outside the White House to U Street, Obama's victory sparked one big street party that had folks honking horns, racing through the streets and chanting across the city, 'Yes We Can, Yes We Can!'"

I started off the night at Red Derby, a neighborhood bar near my house, where the energy of anticipation was intense. It was packed, with one projection of CNN on a wall. The crowd cheered with each state called for Obama, and when Ohio was called it got even better. When the election was called, we were standing on chairs screaming, jumping, and hugging each other. We went outside and for about an hour we cheered with every passing car on 14th street. Almost all of them honked their horns like crazy (DC voted 93% for Obama, but I'd say our honking ratio was more like 95%) while we jumped and cheered and yelled. Even metrobus drivers were honking their horns, and all the passengers were hanging out the windows cheering.

The thing I found remarkable about that first part of the night, and continuously throughout the rest of the night, is that amid shouts of "Yes we can!", "Yes we did!", "Obama!", etc., that we were also singing America the Beautiful and chanting "USA!". Now, the Left is often criticized for being unpatriotic, and frankly, we haven't had much to be patriotic about in the last decade. So I don't think I've ever heard genuine expressions of patriotism like that in liberal crowds in recent years. But last night, without irony (and you know hipsters do everything ironically), we sang songs praising our country because for the first time (for a lot of us) in our lives, our country accomplished something that made us deeply, undeniably, proud.

So at around 12:30, we thought our night was about over. The beer/tequila/whiskey/champagne mixture in my stomach was telling me it was time to go home. I'd taken pictures until my camera ran out of battery (I'll try to post them later). So Brad, our roommate Emily and I headed back to the house. As soon as we got home, though, we heard through text messages that there were masses gathering at the white house. We had to be part of it. So we raced back to 14th street and jumped on the last bus headed downtown.

As we approached U street, we saw a police barricade up ahead, so the bus driver had to divert his route to 13th. But over there it was the same - U street was shut down by the crowds. The sight was unbelievable. Masses of people packing the streets, people hanging out of their cars, honking, cheering, hugging, dancing... From there to the white house it was the same - huge crowds of people, screaming, running, celebrating the night together. I can't begin to describe the feeling it elicited in all of us, to see our whole city erupt physically with the joy we were all feeling.

Forty years ago, there were race riots on these same streets. Literally. In 1968, after Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. was assassinated, rioting broke out on U street and spread throughout the city. The neighborhood was devastated for decades. And last night, people of every skin color - and I'm talking huge masses of people of every skin color - walked out on these very same streets in the spirit of pure and utter joy. All the way down U street, at the very same intersections where windows were getting smashed and buildings were being burned in 1968. All of us - Black, White, Latino, Indian, and everything else - stood in these exact same places and CELEBRATED together. Perfect strangers, in the middle of the night, hugging each other, lifting each other into the air and screaming "We did it!" Standing on the exact same ground where 40 years ago it was desperate and sad, there were masses of people celebrating how far we've come.

In front of the white house, there were more gathered like a protest rally. People singing the "na na na, goodbye" song to Bush, people chanting "Whose house is this? Obama's house!", people just cheering and hugging and dancing together. I take for granted the fact that I work 2 blocks from the white house and it's lost some of its majesty for me. Standing in that place and expressing anti-Bush spirit is nothing new. But last night I felt something incredibly powerful, that brings me to tears just writing about it, to stand in front of the white house and declare with fellow Americans that we have put a black man in that house.

DC is one of the few (maybe the only) places in the country that has the right mixture of factors to have brought out that kind of fever. First, as I already wrote, in the District of Columbia 93% voted for Obama (That's right, 93%!) so there's not a huge risk of offending McCain supporters by yelling in the streets. Second, obviously, folks tend to be politically aware in this city. Third, DC is a predominantly African-American city (though the black population is declining, the 2007 census showed 55% of DC's population is African-American). DC is small, and although it's been mostly racially segregated by neighborhood, the physical segregation is starting to break down with the gentrification of poor, mostly black neighborhoods. Racial dynamics and gentrification are complicated here, as they are in all redeveloping post-industrial American cities. But the combination of these factors created the perfect storm for this massive eruption of joy to resonate throughout the city.

I live in a historically black, gentrifying, increasingly racially-mixed neighborhood (Columbia Heights/Petworth) in a historically black, gentrifying, increasingly racially-mixed city. Blacks, Whites, Latinos and others occupy the same space in my neighborhood, but we are not yet the same community. With many exceptions, of course, social groups in my neighborhood tend to be fairly homogeneous by race. One quick example: recently, there was a double homicide/robbery at an illegal Latino-run brothel and gambling house around the corner from my house. I didn't even know the place was there, but that's not surprising because I'd be one of the last people to know something like that. A friend of mine, an older black man who grew up in the neighborhood and hangs out at Red Derby, said something about the murder like "damn, I know a lot of Latins in this neighborhood and nobody told me about that place. I would've hung out there." What that said to me is that we're only letting each other into our respective lives so much. We might be friendly in passing on the street (and often times we're not), we might chat at coffee shops and bars (and many times we don't), we might know our neighbors, but when it comes down to who we feel closest to and who we consider "our people", our community is still as segregated as we've always been in this city.

So to see what I saw last night - all of us rallying together to celebrate the victory of a man we all believe in, and to celebrate the fact that we now live in a country that elects itself a black president - elicited a feeling of community I have never felt before in my life.

One of my favorite moments of the night was when we were walking down K street, towards the white house at about 1:30 AM. A black woman was standing on the sidewalk, holding a bunch of ballons and talking on the phone. Just as she was saying into the phone "I've never seen so many white people...", Brad ran up and gave her a huge hug. She laughed, as I ran up too, hugging her and yelling YES WE DID! She pointed the phone towards me and said "Here! Tell my mom!" so I yelled into the phone "We did it!" The woman put the phone back up to her ear and said "And mom, that was a white girl!"

Don't get me wrong. We still have a long way to go before we have true equity in this country. But I believe last night in downtown DC was one of the most beautiful moments in our generation's history and I feel incredibly lucky to have witnessed it.

Videos of the night:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/video/2008/11/05/VI2008110500629.html

Dream

I am with my family at a sporting event. I leave to go to the library where I have tasks to take care of. I am to perform a psychological evaluation, only when I get there I realize that i cannot perform it on the child that i was supposed to, and instead i have to ask my coworker, a PsyD, if i can test him. he reluctantly obliges, but says that we have to do it upstairs. Himmelfarb of my dream has no internal staircase, and so we must go up the fire escape to get upstairs. as we are climbing up the metal grate-stairs, i try to grab these tennis balls that will serve as diversions, rewards, for my subject, my coworker. the balls are small and deflated, and as i try to grab them they fall between the metal grates of the fire escape, out of my reach and to the ground below.
i begin my evaluation. my coworker, the subject, is participating well, though he has an attitude about it. we are moving forward with the testing on the fire escape, outside, since he wants to do it there. i am fine with this at first, and only once we are well into the process do i start to question the location. very quickly i move from content to terrified. i wonder what will happen if the wind picks up and carries my testing supplies, my cards, away. and i wonder what if i happen to reach after the card...then i myself could fall. i am in danger. i could fall. and what if there is an earthquake and this whole fire escape comes crashing down? this is a terrible place to be, a horrible place to do the testing...i am terrified of heights all of a sudden, aware that i am usually not, aware that just seconds ago i was fine, and now i am terrified. i MUST get back into the building IMMEDIATELY.
we go back inside and i return to where my family is watching the sporting event. what previously was a baseball game is now a women's water polo game: Michigan versus Ohio State. it is in the waning moments of this tie game, sudden death, of a water polo game that i decide that i should substitute in, that i should be playing. i sub in and we are on offense. we turn the ball over. as we are swimming back to the defensive end my teammates cannot tell who on the other team has the ball. grey and buckeye red, the ball blends in with their uniforms...the goddamn cheaters! i see who has the ball and i make a move to knock it out of the girl's grasp as she swims. my attack was illegal and they call a penalty on me. play is immediately restarted and i make another aggressive move, this time stealing the ball legally. i try to pass it down the pool, towards our offensive end, but nobody is open. i am being double-, triple-teamed. i see that their goalie is not in the goal and, despite the distance, i decide to go for it. i launch the ball three quarters of the pool, realizing that if i throw it long it will go over the goal and out of bounds, and if i leave it even a few feet short, it will get stuck in the water. i try to throw the ball with a low angle, but very fast and hard. it lands just short of the goal, stuck in the water. only a few inches short of crossing the line and ending the game. i try to make it go in with my mind, for a wave to push it in, or for one my teammates to take it the last few inches. then i decide to swim for it, and as i swim i try to make waves to force it in. i get to the ball just as an OSU girl does, and we fight for it, and i manage to push it just across the line. we win! i turn to the crowd, to a buckeye fan in the first row, and as rudely as i possibly can, as hatefully as possible, yell at her that "the buckeyes fucking suck!!!" and i mean it sooo much.
i celebrate the win with my family, receive the praise and love of the victory. then i head back to the library. the feds are there, investigating a case of a fallen child, a child who has fallen out of an open window to the street below. my PsyD coworker is liable, and he maintains a surly attitude despite the investigation's seriousness. the feds show us a video of how and why small children fall out of windows...of low windows that open like blinds...the video is disturbing and i fear and wonder whether it is the video of my coworker's child-falling-death circumstance. this is all very painful to watch. more clips are shown of children falling. in one the child steps over the edge and falls below, landing on its feet and crying based on the pain and the scary feeling. the child's caretaker has thrown himself over the edge too, only a few stories down, and he lands less easily. it is all very disturbing.

What are the chances that we will win...

DEM Total 289
Solid Dem (Above 80%) 190
Lean Dem (80% to 60%) 99
Toss-up (60% to 40%) 22
Lean Rep (40% to 20%) 70
Solid Rep (Below 20%) 157
REP Total 227

Expected Value of EC (% to win times # of EC) 288.4 (0.5)

Dems to Win: 65.0%

State Electoral Votes % on Intrade as of 11-Jun
DISTRICTOFCOLUMBIA 3 96%
ILLINOIS 21 96%
HAWAII 4 95%
MASSACHUSETTS 12 94%
RHODEISLAND 4 93%
MARYLAND 10 92%
DELAWARE 3 90%
VERMONT 3 90%
WASHINGTON 11 90%
MAINE 4 89%
CONNECTICUT 7 89%
NEWYORK 31 89%
NEWJERSEY 15 87%
CALIFORNIA 55 86%
OREGON 7 85%
IOWA 7 80%
MINNESOTA 10 79%
WISCONSIN 10 75%
PENNSYLVANIA 21 72%
MICHIGAN 17 70%
COLORADO 9 66%
OHIO 20 62%
NEWMEXICO 5 62%
NEWHAMPSHIRE 4 54%
VIRGINIA 13 52%
NEVADA 5 48%
MISSOURI 11 40%
FLORIDA 27 28%
INDIANA 11 23%
NTH.CAROLINA 15 23%
ARKANSAS 6 20%
MONTANA 3 19%
WESTVIRGINIA 5 18%
GEORGIA 15 17%
NEBRASKA 5 15%
STH.DAKOTA 3 15%
KANSAS 6 15%
OKLAHOMA 7 13%
LOUISIANA 9 13%
MISSISSIPPI 6 12%
TEXAS 34 11%
TENNESSEE 11 11%
ALASKA 3 10%
STH.CAROLINA 8 10%
ARIZONA 10 10%
WYOMING 3 10%
KENTUCKY 8 9%
UTAH 5 8%
NTH.DAKOTA 3 7%
IDAHO 4 7%
ALABAMA 9 6%

Courtesy of Dan Mintz

Self-described

Below I've posted my self-description, which I originally wrote for my work with Blue Zones. They asked me to write about myself in terms of childhood and in terms of travelling/exploring the world (and also to list my accomplishments*). Here's what came out:

* Traveled in six of the seven continents
* Was once in the room with four living Presidents
* Won High School Championship in Volleyball
* Lived and worked in Costa Rica
* Worked on Kerry/Edwards 2004 Campaign
* Slept in over 135 beds from May 2004- May 2005
* Founded the philosophy/travel Web site ienjoysneezing.blogspot.com

As a kid I was mostly into playing sports with my friends. I always said that I wanted to be a psychologist when I grew up. I wasn't much of an explorer. The first exploration I remember took place when I was around seven years old. My older brother and his friends were planning on heading into the woods behind my house to find the abandoned (and supposedly haunted) house deep in the forest. I begged them to let me come along. The house had been destroyed in a fire many years before and my brother told me that the ghost of the witch who had lived there still haunted the premises. I was scared out of my mind.

When I was a kid I hated having to change my clothes with the turn of the seasons. In the fall, when the weather turned cold, my mother would force me to wear long pants instead of shorts. I always said that I didn't like the feeling of the pants. In the spring, my mother and I would have the exact opposite fight: I always refused to start wearing shorts again, claiming that shorts didn't feel right.

It wasn't until I went to Spain at age 20 to study the country, the language and the culture that I became interested in travelling abroad. I have spent more than three out of the last six years out of the country and I believe that it has shaped me into who I am today. I have learned that the society that I grew up in is just one of the infinite realities that exist on our planet. I have learned that even though there are six billion people on Earth with six billion different lives, there are certain pieces of life that all people share. I have learned to be patient, to trust the righteous path, to trust myself and my choices. I have learned when to swim with the current and when to swim against it. I have put myself in difficult situations, mild danger and physical discomfort. The more I challenge myself through travelling, the more I appreciate the warm comfort of coming home---the familiar faces, my family and friends, the food I grew up eating, and, perhaps most of all, my bed.

Despite all I've experienced and learned in the past 20 years, despite the physical discomfort I've put myself through on my travels, the 30-hour chicken bus rides through mountainous northern India, the extreme heat of New Delhi in May, and the insatiable hunger that two months of eating noodles left in my meat-deprived stomach during my time in Asia, some things never change. To this day I struggle with pants. Yes...PANTS. I tend to find a pair of pants that I really love and wear them everyday for 6 months, maybe a year, until they fade away and die. I struggle to adjust when I lose a pair of pants to the gods of wear and tear. I mourn the loss. Then, some day not too long after, I find a new pair of pants, which I will undoubtedly wear for the next 6-12 months. Also, I haven't worn jeans since the early 1990's. I tried a pair on at the Gap a few weeks ago. It was repulsive.

My point is this: after all I've experienced, all I've learned, there are certain pieces of our personality that will never change. And that sums me up pretty well. I put myself in tough situations, I challenge myself to adjust, to change, to become a better person. But there are certain parts of me that are simply me.

That's Michael.

Life these days

I just finished my second semester of school. Life is good. The end of the semester came and went without causing too much damage or taking from me too many hours of sleep. There were days that schoolwork pressure tightened the knot behind my left shoulder, but all in all i maintained equanimity, I maintained the perspective that my feelings of stress or nervousness about achievement versus failure were normal, expectable feelings that one in my position might feel. The knot has faded considerably in the last four or five days. I handed in my last final on Thursday night at proceeded directly to a friend's house, kicking off a 10-day period in which the goal is simply to feel as though i am truly "on vacation". Jordan and I went canoeing the following day, after a Parisian lunch on the pedestrian mall in Georgetown---only 8 blocks from school and work, yet a world away. The weekend and days since have been filled with sports and outdoor fun, happy hours and long, drawn-out baths. I even went "on vacation" to my parents' house for a night.
School was good. The Rorschach is some crazy stuff. There were times when i worshiped it and times when i cursed it; in the end i feel: that test sure does show a lot about an individual. It has also shown me a lot about myself. I've learned what aspects of my mental/emotional state are most distressing and what proverbial cliffs i would be most likely to fall off of.
School, and the mode of thought that accompanies the psychodynamic learning environment, in combination with psychotherapy, has been a source of intensity in my life, providing me new depths of self-understanding. Sometimes it is confusing, sometimes it solves all confusion. in general it is enlightening.
i think of my dreams often these days. i write them down a couple of times a week. they become more and more vivid as time passes. i feel as though the introspective forces of the various aspects of my life combine as multipliers or exponents, not as sums. i am becoming deeply engrossed in this world. there is no separating my education from my life, in a sense. psychology, at this point, fills not only my intellectual pursuits but my spiritual ones. psychology fills it, but it does not fulfill it. there is still room for more. i try to meditate, though i find it challenging. i go to church (yes, church) every couple of weeks, and that provides me with a semi-distanced sense of belonging to a community, a sense of belonging that, unlike my Mt. Pleasant community, values me as a human and not as a person. whereas in Mt. Pleasant i am who i am, and i am expected to 'be' or 'do' according to others' perceptions of who i am, at church i am just a human, among other humans. it is refreshing and i feel no expectations on the part of the fellow churchgoers, i feel no sense of responsibility or owing. therapy is the same way. i pay with money and therefore owe nothing else. in other relationships there is a mutual obligation based on trust, love, support, etc. these are the most important things we have, but these are also burdensome and, at times of deep introspection, oppressive.
living with seven people is good and hard. living with seven people who are among your closest friends is better and harder. we all struggle in our own way to adapt, and the house feeling ebbs and flows. we are in a flow right now. the weather is perfect and we smell the freedom of summer approaching. the sun stays out late and i arrive home after work, 8.30pm, to find friends and neighbors in the backyard. road trips and camping trips approach.
i, however, have one more semester between then and now. for seven weeks i will be busier, and more weighed down with schoolwork, than i have been so far. in mid-June i will have patients, a relationship in which the burden of responsibility and obligation fall one-sidedly on me (perhaps the true source of my feelings). i have never been so excited for something yet feared it so much; i have never felt so naturally predisposed to be skilled at a task, yet also so deeply afraid to do it. to quote Dr. Zweig/Lowenstein: "yes, yes, it's all a rich tapestry" (Groening et al., circa 1993).

thursday morning

i was moving my car from our parking spot in back to an unzoned street in our neighborhood when i heard police sirens and saw the cops coming up behind me. i wasnt sure why they had pulled me over, but i knew that a) my seatbelt was unbuckled, b) i had probably not completely stopped at that stop sign and c) i did not have my license on me.
obviously, i was upset. i was upset at myself for being so careless, for the fact that i even had to move the car in the first place...i had a whole day planned ahead of me and it was going to be ruined by a ticket, loss of cash, court date, points on my license, etc. if only i had left the house before i showered instead of afterwards, or turned right out of the alley instead of left, or registered my car weeks ago so i could park it anywhere....or even just stopped at the stop sign. argh.
a mosquito flew in my open window and i moved to strike it. i paused and realized that taking my anger out on the mosquito would do no good, and what i needed right now, in the moments as i waited for what would either be a set of asshole cops trying to bust my balls or some reasonable men willing to let me off with a warning, the last thing i needed right now was more bad karma. my mind thought of all the things i'd done wrong already today, the minor mistakes and personal flaws that put us in these situations, and the internal issues that make these situations so painful. i did not kill the mosquito. instead, i thought of the dalai lama, who i had seen speak the day before at the capitol, who, i had heard, was known to let mosquitos bite him from time to time, for it benefits them much more than it injures him. i decided to do the same.
the mosquito landed on my face and i brushed it away. not there, i said. it landed on my bicep and i watched it poke its nose around, looking for a good spot. i watched him penetrate the skin, his tiny needle burying itself in my muscle. it was nice to watch, to know what he was getting out of it. it did not hurt, i did not feel it, but it was also a freaky watching a needle go into your body. i blew him off after a few seconds, once i knew he had gotten his sustenance, once i could no longer stand to watch him eat me.
i used that situation to find calm, to find peace, to know that this moment, like any other moment, will come to pass. that this feeling of frustration, like any other feeling, will come to pass. i found calmness in my interaction with the mosquito and i chose to apply it to my interaction with the cops.
the cop came to the window and i immediately apologized for not having my ID. and i apologized for rolling through the stop sign. and i played the passive role, and i deferred on all accounts to his greatness and his dominance in the situation. he was nice enough about the situation and took my registration, along with my name, date of birth and social security number. he came back and said that it didnt come through, that my name was not in the system. i realized that they had probably checked with DC's license database, not maryland's, so i told them my license is from Maryland. i said that i had just moved to town. i offered to go to my house to get my ID. they rejected this offer for the first of many, many times.
they went away to try again, and nothing came through. there were three or four cops there, uniformed secret service agents to be precise. one of them was clearly being trained, and i could hear the others explaining to them what was going on and why it was happening. when they came back to me a third or fourth time, this time asking for my middle name and inquiring about past tickets, instances of DUIs, reasons why i wouldnt be in the database, etc., i could tell they were starting to get suspicious. naturally, i told them that i only live two blocks away, hence not having my ID on me, and that i'd be more than willing to go get it for them.
by this time the mosquito had set up camp near my feet and was feasting on my ankles. i was regretting many things at this moment. about 20 minutes had passed since they pulled me over and it didnt look like i was going to make my 11.30 meeting, so i asked if i could call to let them know. they asked me to step out of the vehicle and before i could make a phone call they had me handcuffed and were searching my body. they told me that driving without a license is grounds for being arrested. "isnt this a little absurd?" i asked the cops as they cuffed me. out here, on this quiet neighborhood street, a normal thursday morning, and me getting cuffed for not having my ID on my person. i think he agreed that it was a little absurd.
"you dont have a belt or shoelaces?" he pointed out. "nope" i said. "good, cause they dont let you wear a belt or shoelaces in the slammer." "why?" i asked, " you think i'm gonna hang myself for not having my ID on me?" arlo guthrie.
the agent asked me if there was anyone i could call who could go to my house and get the ID and bring it. by now the other secret service agents were calling for back-up. the sergeant showed up, and all of a sudden there were 6 secret service agents and 3 police cars. i told them that i work with secret service, that i had some buddies who are agents. "like who?" one of the agents asked. "um...in my phone there's a guy named Chip, an agent in San Francisco....let's give him a call..." the agent had lost interest. i didnt know anybody higher up the chain. Chip, rocks, by the way, and i wouldve loved to have given him a call. a really nice guy out of Petaluma. i told the agent that. by this time one of the agents and i had formed a pretty good rapport, and he offered to call my roommate, Abigail, and have her bring the ID to where we were. he even held the phone up to my ears. "umm...Abigail, uh...i'm actually in handcuffs right now....any chance you could swing by 1824 and pick up my ID and bring it over to Monroe Street?"
once i made the call they told me to get in the back seat of the police cruiser. "seriously?" i asked, " come on, you dont need me to get in there...it's such a nice day out here." i think my calmness was starting to have the appearance of insanity. i realized at this point that none of the agents believed that i actually had a valid driver's license. i overheard the one i like saying "you know, i actually kind of believe him." the other ones were more skeptical.
at this point i was scrunched in the back of the cruiser, my knees pinned against the driver's seat, still handcuffed with my arms behind my back. point of interest: did you know that cruisers have a hard plastic casing instead of a normal seat, and the casing is molded such that your arms have a spot to rest in. there is even a spot at the base of the seat for your cuffed hands. it's pretty sweet. except at this point my wrists were starting to hurt from the tightness of the handcuffs. i still have welts on my wrists.
i wondered whether it was possible that i didnt have an ID, in a kafka-esque kinda way. maybe i am not a licensed driver, maybe i do have something on my record, maybe i am exactly who they are looking for. it was a funny thought.
i decided to try the "work with secret service agents" line one more time. the asshole agent was reminding me that the situation was all my fault, when i told him that "i work with service, i get vetted all the time, my record is clean." using their lingo caught his attention for a second. "what do you do?" he asked. "i do presidential campaign work" i said, trying to avoid revealing my political stance. "but for who?" he responded. "i work for Obama" i said, loud enough that i thought the black sergeant might overhear me. if he did hear me, he did not care.
i still knew that i had a valid driver's license and that i was going to get out of this okay. the agents were getting antsy, as we had been there for over 40 minutes by then. "if she doesnt show up in 10 minutes we're gonna have to take you down to the 3rd district station." they said. i overheard one of them say to the trainee "you want to see someone get arrested, dont ya? i was screwed. i offered to walk to my house in the cuffs. while i was still enjoying the absurd nature of the event, i was starting to worry that abigail wouldnt get there in time. the sergeant left to go meet abigail at 1824, to wait for her there. they were really getting anxious now.
once they told me that she had arrived at 1824, i relaxed a bit. i small chatted with the nice agent, asking him about the job of secret service around here. i could once again appreciate them moment, and i wondered how it would transpire once they knew i was clean.
the call came through that i had a valid license and they let me get out of the cruiser. "you're free," they said, and i started to wonder whether they were going to bring up the whole running-a-stop-sign/no-license thing.
they had parked my car for me and they gave me back the keys and my cellphone. they apologized profusely and i really came to realize that they thought i was full of shit, that i had given them a fake name, that i wasnt a legal driver, and that i deserved to be arrested. i realized it must be extremely uncommon for one's name not to come up in the system.
the sergeant had returned from 1824 and had my license in his hand. he told me that i have to take abigail out to a nice dinner. i reached for the license. "i told her to give me a call if you dont take her out to dinner..." he smiled. at this point i had a wide smile, and was realizing that i was off the hook for the stop sign incident, the no license, the unbuckled seat belt.
the sergeant and the nice agent apologized once more. "no problem," i smiled, "this was a good life experience."
they looked at me like i was crazy.