Policemen bring out the worst in me sometimes.

 Not all of them, of course, but some of them. 

Keeping a straight face with some of them during a conversation can often be difficult. While I am talking and trying to keep a civil conversation my mind is runnng at about 2750 feet per second giving me ideas.

Of course, it is the smart-ass side of me running in afterburner and dumping raw fuel straight into the mental combustion chamber. 

It is a cross I have had to bear since I was a youngster. Policemen simply bring the smart ass side out in me. I don't dislike policemen, on the contrary. I like most of them.

It takes a lot of discipline on my part to do this because I am a naturally born sarcastic smart-ass.

Of course, there are a lot of other people that bring this out in me but it seems that policemen are the worst. Maybe it has to do with them being in a position of authority because when I was in school teachers brought it out in me.

It was the school teachers that taught me to keep my mouth shut and keep a straight face. A few hours after school taught me that.

Still, even back then as now there were a few times when it became a case of a man just doing what he had to do. One was a case of a pretty good cop with a sense of humor. I could tell during the initial conversation.

I was moving a piece of furniture in the bed of my pickup and it started misting up. I pulled up under a bridge and started to cover the furniture with a tarp when a Trooper pulled up behind me.

He was pleasant and asked me if I was OK. He said, 'Just covering the furniture up, huh?"

"Yes, thanks for stopping," I answered and my smirk gave me away.

"What's so funny?" he asked.

"Oh, Lord," I said. "Where were you ten minutes ago? I was delivering this bridge and I think I threw my back out. I could have used some help."

He chuckled. "Jeff Foxworthy, huh?"

"Yeah, some things a guy can't resist. I've been a smartass all my life. I generally don't mean any harm but I guess that's the way my brain works," I said.

"Do you get in a lot of trouble?" he asked.

"No," I replied. "I can generally tell the goood guys from the jerks. You seemed to be one of the good guys."

He shook his head and smiled. Then he said something that shocked me a bit. "The Three Stooges were my bag," he said. I laughed and went back to work and he left.

I had waded into that one but one time a few years back I dove into one that just plain annoyed me. I'm no different. There is nothing worse than being in the middle of cleaning up a mess and having someone stop you and tell you to clean up the mess you are in the process of cleaning.

I was visiting my sister a few years back and while I was there we got clobbered by a serious snow storm. I think I was kind of a hero because I got the snow blower working. My sister said she hadn't used it in years and I got it going. Maybe my nephew and I did, whatever.

We blew out the driveway and cleaned off the cars.

My pickup was parked in the street and I had just finished digging it out. The next step was to get the snow off of the pickup as it is both illegal and stupid to drive a vehice covered with snow. I had just finished cleaning the hood and windshield off and was getting ready to sweep the snow off of the roof of the cab and tha cap when a cruiser pulled up.

The cop told me to make sure I cleaned the snow off of my pickup before I went anywhere. That did it. I was freezing my ass off, tired, angry and in no mood for crap  like that from some fuzz-nutted rookie. 

An Old Lion of a cop MIGHT have said something tactful like "Don't forget the roof, please. We have to write people up for that. It's a big issue these days."

An Old Lion would have been trying to be helpful and that's a virtue. He was being a policeman to help people out. While if he had caught someone driving snow covered he might have written him up, he was just trying to keep someone out of trouble in the first place.

This was a young stud throwing his weight around.

"Huh?" I replied in my best ignorant hillbilly voice. "I'm takin' the snow on the roof with me to Miami! Them rich people down there pay eight, maybe ten bucks a pound for it!"

An Old Lion of a cop probably would have laughed if I had said that to him. Generally speaking they have a pretty good sense of life. Then again, he wouldn't have thrown his weight around to begin with.

"You better sweep it off," he shot back. "The fine for not cleaning it off is pretty steep!"

"How about if I cover it with a tarp?" I asked. "There's thirty, maybe forty pounds on that roof! I could sell that for enough to pay for my gas and maybe have a case of beer left over! Can I cover it up with a tarp and tie it down good?"

"You some kind of smart ass?" he demanded.

"It does run in the family," I said. "But I have to confess to being annoyed when someone sees me in the middle of doing something and starts telling me to do what I am already doing. Don't worry. It'll be cleaned off before I go anywhere.

Of course, he gave me the usual 'or else' threat. "It better be cleaned off!"

Looking back on it, it was probably a good thing he didn't say, "It had better be cleaned off or else!"

I most likely would have asked, "Or else what?"

Likely he would have said, something like I'd have to pay a $300 fine. I would have simply said that I could afford that. God knows where it would have ended.

Generally if the officer I run into is halfway decent I do bite my tongue. Good cops get enough crap as it is and I don't want to add to it. 

Of course, the downside of my nature has an upside. Because of this I have learned to keep a straight face when I say just about anything. For example, when I tell some nosy fool  that my 90 year old mother won a wet T-shirt contest last week. I can do this with such a straight face that a lot of people believe it.

To find out why the blog is pink just cut and paste this: http://piccoloshash.blogspot.com/2009/12/my-feminine-side-blog-stays-pink.html NO ANIMALS WERE HARMED IN THE WRITING OF TODAY'S ESSAY