license and registration, ma'am

The other night I didn't drive ten feet down the alley from my parking spot behind Conors when a cop pulled me over.

The conversation went something like this:

"Something wrong, officer?"
"You come from in there?" He jerks a thumb over his shoulder at the pub and shines the flashlight in the back seat at my two abruptly cherubic, silent children.
I nod. "Dinner with the family."
"Have anything to drink?"
A beat. "No?"
Tiny, condescending smile. "Really? Not just one?"
Shake my head. "Nope."
"Really? Because I smell something."
Something. Could be the bombs my kids are laying in the back seat. But humiliating a ten-year-old is just going to bite me in the ass later. Shrug. "I'm chewing gum."
"We-ell," he said, "The reason I pulled you over is cuz your tag is expired."
Brow draws down. "What? Really? We just got the sticker, I think."
"Sometimes people cut it off with a razor blade."
And you couldn't have just told me this when I was just getting in the car, numbnuts? "Really. I've never heard of that."
"License and registration, please."
"I'm not even sure what to give you. I've never been pulled over before. This?"
Eyebrows skyrocket. "No. It's a little white card."
"This?"
"Yeah. I'll be right back."
We wait. It feels weird. I call the husband. He thinks it's weird, too and decides to come over.
The cop comes back. I notice he's not bad looking, actually.
"All right. You want to come out and take a look at this with me?"
I get out of the car. We walk around to the back. Sure enough, our sticker says 05. O-fucking-5. "Wow. Huh."
I go get back in the car.
"Here ya go. I do smell something on you, but you're clearly not drunk, so I don't care about that. You're free to go."

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