Someone reminded me of the time I have a crew change in New York somewhere. One of the relief crew had driven up in their own vehicle and I got the job of driving it to company HQs to park it for his tour.
The company van also arrived and an ad hoc decision to toss duffel bags in the car I was driving was made. I'd drop the duffel bags off at the company office so they could recover their stuff. The bags were unceremoniously dumped into the car I was driving and the tug skipper's was in the passenger's seat. It had a broken zipper and was open.
I left early and started down the Jersey Turnpike. When I was well along my shiny new cell phone went off and I was told the van had gotten tied up in traffic so I decided to pull over and wait for them.
I forgot why they asked me to do this but I did what they asked.
Anyway, after a while I was bored to tears and noticed the skipper's duffel bag had a hair dryer in it. The skipper was a woman with fairly long hair so it did make sense for it to be there.
I took the hair dryer out and started pointing at cars and watching them panic and slow down. It really was entertaining at first but after watching a number of people panic and try to go from 90 down to 60 in ten feet I realized I could probably have caused an accident as the traffic was a bit on the heavy side.
I put the hair dryer back in the duffel bag and inside a couple of minutes I saw a cruiser pull in behind me and light up. Quickly I buried the hair dryer under a cooat in the tug skippers duffel bag.
Keys on the dash, window open and hands on the wheel I waited for about half a minute and the state cop approached me and asked for my license and registration. I handed him my license and explained that I was driving someone else's car. I explained I was a seaman making a crew change. Then I handed him my seaman's papers.
I know it wasn't the first person he'd stopped that didn't have the correct paperwwork. He asked me if I had a hair dryer.
"Hell, I don't know what the crew has in their duffel bags," I said. "Who knows?"
"Yeah, well if I had caught you pointing a blow dryer at passing cars I would have to arrest you for impersonating an officer," he said. I was uncomfortable with the tone of his voice. "We got a report that someone was doing just that."
I shrugged. He went back to his car and I waited. He took a lot longer than usual. He returned, handed me my license and Z-card (seaman's papers) back and said I was free to go.
I have to admit that it was pretty funny watching people panic and slow down. If traffic was lighter I probably would have been caught because it was funny but it was dangerous doing it in traffic that heavy.
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