The Profile

I think I remember hearing that the US Supreme Court will be hearing a case this term about the legality of police randomly checking for drunk drivers, seatbelt violations, etc. I could be wrong.

I was thinking about it last night, though, as I was driving east on Lawrence Ave to get to Lake Shore Drive to pick Dave up from work. The trip on Lawrence can be tricky – sometimes easy, sometimes not so easy. The section between Broadway and the lake can be interesting in terms of the view. As I approached the el stop and the Aragon Theatre, things got a little congested. This is normal. There are stop signs for a couple of blocks and often people just standing around – sometimes in the middle of the street. Welcome to Uptown.

As I waited at a stop light, a man in a large SUV parked on my right started honking his horn. I looked over at him. He pointed at me and pulled on his seatbelt. Right. Is he congratulating me for wearing my seatbelt? Is he asking me to applaud him for the same? Whatever.

Then I approached the stop sign at the next block. An orange diamond-shaped sign like one sees at construction zones was placed in the middle of the 4-way intersection. It read "Seatbelt Enforcement Zone." Police officers stood at each entrance to the intersection stopping every car so that they could shine a flashlight into the vehicle to check for seatbelts. The westbound traffic was backed up for blocks.

I noticed that the parking lot on the southeast corner of the intersection was full of cops – and poor saps who had were identified as lacking seatbelts. Every kind of car and utility company van was represented. I wondered how one could be caught at this slow intersection. Even if one did not know what was happening ahead, one would have the time to at least recognize that there were cops ahead and that people were being asked to pull over. Even if one thought that the cops were looking for a suspect, wouldn't one check that they were legal – headlights on, seatbelts on, beer and other contraband under the seat?

The guy two cars in front of me obviously didn't get it. The cop placed his hand on the hood of the car, shined the flashlight into his car, and then asked him to pull into the lot. The officer had to practically walk the car over. Once he returned to his post at my end of the intersection, he continued stopping cars to shine the light into them, and then direct them to a ticket or back on their way.

I was legal. I was wearing a black sweater and seated against the black interior of the car that has black seatbelts. The car in front of me was stopped for inspection as was everyone else in this "Enforcement Zone." I rolled up to the officer. He didn't move to put his hand on the hood of the car as he had for everyone else. He didn't even has his flashlight on. There is no way he saw inside the car. He smiled at me and waved me on.

How is it that a police officer can look at me at an intersection where they are stopping every single car and just decide that I am not what they are looking for, I am not possibly doing anything wrong? In a weird way I was kind of disappointed that I hadn't been checked. I was left out. Do I really look so law-abiding? And if I do, when will the airport security types who check the metal content in my bra figure that out?

Loaves, Fishes, and David's Undershirts

I had to do the laundry again yesterday. It wasn't a big deal this time. We've recovered from the long road trip and the tons of laundry produced by it.

I like to do laundry on Monday mornings. I am usually the only one in the laundromat. Occasionally, a man living at the nearby YMCA might come in with a small load, or a woman might drop by to pick up her AVON order from the lady who works there.

I entered the laundromat with a full laundry hamper and a full mkuh bag (the name David uses for a canvas bag with my initials stitched on it). This is a typical load for us. I sorted the laundry into the front loaders: two loads of color, one load of white. Our white loads, now that David's office has gone casual year-round, are typically underwear, tube socks, towels, and David's undershirts. Back when we had dress shirts to deal with and in the summer when I wear a lot of white t-shirts, we could do two white loads.

These are important points to make due to my recent complaints about David's undershirts. I hate folding his undershirts. David and I have different ways of folding our clothes. At about the nine year mark of our relationship, we decided to stop trying to get the other to fold according to our individual patterns. So, if David does laundry, he folds my laundry my way, and I grant him the same courtesy.

The thing is, there are always so many undershirts to fold! And to top it off, David's method for folding makes the undershirts lopsided squares – thus creating leaning towers of undershirts on the folding table. Once, when I tried to counter the effect by alternating the way I stacked the undershirts so that the bulky sides balanced each other (my Dad is an engineer), David requested that I cease and desist as it affected his morning procedure for removing the undershirt from the drawer, snapping the undershirt to its unfolded state, and slipping his arms and head through in one motion.

I have started to count the number of undershirts. If I do laundry approximately once a week, there should be no more than, say, nine undershirts per trip, right? Yesterday, I folded 12 undershirts.

Typically, I would complain, David would claim innocence, and we would move on.

However, yesterday was a different story.

Yesterday, when I had folded the last undershirt, matched and folded all of my socks, matched and balled up all of David's socks, and started to reload the hamper and mkuh bag with clean laundry – the laundry did not all fit!

This is an anomaly. Usually, the clean, folded laundry takes up much less space than the dirty, balled up laundry. Logical, right? I walked into the laundromat with two containers of dirty laundry, and left the laundromat with three containers (my backpack was enlisted to help) of clean laundry – just as Christ's apostles started with one basket of loaves and fishes and ended up with multiple baskets of leftovers.

I know that the hamper and mkuh bag did not get smaller as I could not fit all of David's undershirts into his drawers when I returned home.

I can't explain it.

Saturday

Dave and I were at Sam's again on Saturday. This trip was more of a strategic strike than a shopping trip. We had our list and fought our way through the crush of humanity to grab our items. The mass of people always shocks me. Most people's inability to drive their cart and be aware of the people around them scares me. If we were a herd of humans out on the savannah, most of these people would have been dragged off for lion food long ago.

When we maneuvered ourselves into a checkout lane that would take less than a year to get through, I knew I had enough time to hit the bathroom. I left Dave to fend for himself and went to the ladies room -- which is oversized like everything else at Sam's. Once inside my stall, I became distracted by the shiny silver lock mechanism on the door. The manufacturer's name is stamped into the lock: "Hiny Hider."

I can't really add anything to that.

Once home, Dave and I decided to enjoy the digital cable we have purchased. We haven't really yet had a chance to surf all the channels. Dave did the driving with the remote while I set up the ironing board to iron some chair covers I bought for some old chairs of ours. When I finally got everything set up and all the chairs arranged, I asked Dave what he had found for our television viewing pleasure. He said, "I love cable tv." He told me he had two channels set up on the jump.
The first was AMC which was showing Airport '77. We had missed the crash, but the American Airlines plane was now completely submerged in the ocean. The cast of thousands was amazing. We recognized everyone but only knew a few names. The other channel was ESPN2. The program was ESPN Speedworld. They were showing rider lawnmower racing. I'm not kidding. Dave was beside himself watching grown men and women race lawnmowers. Lawnmowers.

I can't really add anything to that either.