My city is a police state.

There, I said it. I won’t tell you where I live. I’m not THAT stupid. But I will tell you this.

The police are everywhere. And it sometimes makes me nervous.

Is that an awful thing to say? After all, these hard working men and women are doing one of the toughest jobs in the world. One that I respect, but do not envy. How many of US could do their jobs?

I blogged awhile back about getting pulled over for a California stop…rolling through a stop sign. Not RUNNING it, but ROLLING through it. More of a One-Thousand-One-And-A-Half than a full two seconds.

I also got pulled over recently for a burned out headlight (or PART of the headlight…the main light remained lit). The funny part of that was that I got pulled over in broad daylight after I turned my lights on to be a safe, responsible driver.

DOH!

Both times I got a warning from the officers.

But honest to goodness, my heart skips a beat every time I turn the corner and there is a squad car there or a motorcycle officer with radar gun in hand.

Ever have the air sucked out of your lungs when you look in the rear view mirror and see a policeman? Even when you are doing NOTHING wrong? You try to correct your driving, maybe even OVER correct your driving, even though there is nothing that you are doing that NEEDS correcting!

My city has very little crime and I really should be thanking the police for that. It may make me nervous to always see them at the intersections or in my mirror but it probably makes the REALLY bad dudes out there even MORE nervous, right?

No, I won’t be making any more California stops any time soon.

Thanks to the men and women in blue. Even if they DO make me panic sometimes.