I took off on Friday for some badly needed me-time and headed up to Dayton, OH to see Enter the Haggis. Why yes, I did make two 20-hour round trips in six days to see these guys. They are that good. People often don’t understand the lengths I will go to to hear good music. At some point, I’ll post about the total lack of a music scene where I live.

Anyway, took off around 6:00am and headed up I-44.

So, I’m driving up I-44 south of St. Louis. I’m doing just over the limit, listening to Arcturus by ETH and feeling happy. I see a cop in the left median, so I pull into the right lane, cause that’s what you’re supposed to do. He pulls out, gets behind me, then pulls around and ahead of me, then alongside. Then he drops back and puts on the flashers.

I’m utterly confused at this point and running through the mental checklist. No lights out. Registration up to date. Not speeding. I got bupkis. He comes over to the passenger side and motions me to open the door. So I do and he says, “Did you know that your front license plate is missing?” WTF??

I said, yes, it’s in the trunk. I don’t have a front mount and it’s not the law in MO that you have to have a front tag, just a recommendation. He taps my cooler, which I have sitting in the passenger seat so I can get at it, and says, “Whatcha got in here?”

You have no idea how tempted I was to say, “Illegally harvested internal organs. There’s a Russian crime boss who’s gonna be pissed if this heart goes bad before his transplant.” But I didn’t. I said, “soda, mostly.” He kept questioning me about where I was going what I was doing, etc. Finally I just clammed up and handed him my license. He was flat-out hassling me and I was sick of it.

Of course I didn’t have my insurance card. He gave me a warning for that and told me to have my husband take care of that for me when I got home. Sexist bastard.

To make matters worse, he interrupted Arcturus. Even my *husband* doesn’t interrupt me when I’m listening to Arcturus.

So that was my cop adventure on this trip. It felt like old times. On the road to hear music, getting hassled by the cops! I still haven’t the foggiest idea why he pulled me over…