A Singer, A Song

Yesterday we were driving from home to spend the day at Ghost Town in the Sky in Maggie Valley, NC. (Had a pretty good time, by the way… a great park to take little kids. Don’t go if you’re a true amusement park geek, though. Oh, and buy your tickets online for a discount.)

So we hit the road a little later than we intended but were happily on our way before 9:30. Shortly after 10:00 we drove through Asheville on I-40, heading west, when came upon a NC State Trooper traveling along the same stretch of road, driving in the passing lane. Behind the officer was a tan sedan traveling at the same rate of speed. (Which, incidentally, makes me ask: why do you people not understand the functions of the traveling and passing lanes? Learn to freaking drive!)

I was in no particular hurry — and I certainly wasn’t about to pass a state trooper! — so I dutifully moved into the right lane. The speed limit was either 60 or 65 MPH there, and I was going something like 62 or 63… just over 60, but certainly less than 65. We continued  down the road listening to music. The sun was shining, the kids were happy… not a care in the world.

Then I heard this odd electronic “beep” coming from somewhere. It wasn’t a siren and it wasn’t exactly a horn. At first I thought something weird was going on with the MP3 player or the car’s sound system. I glanced into my rear-view mirror… nothing. Then I glanced to the left and saw that the NC trooper was making some kind of wild, angry gesture, waving her hands and, it seemed, shouting at me. It really startled me, and so I instinctively took my foot off the gas pedal. She sped off, the tan sedan following her. Flabbergasted, I wondered if I had been speeding (I hadn’t), if something was wrong with my car (there wasn’t), or if I had been committing some other infraction like inadvertently boxing her in (no to that as well).

The longer I thought about it, the more likely it seemed that she thought I was trying to keep up with her or that I was traveling in her blind spot (the one on her right side, mind you… the one that she wouldn’t have had to worry about had she been traveling in the proper lane). I was doing neither. If I were traveling in her blind spot, it would only have been because she was maintaining a constant speed in the passing lane. If I were speeding, it would only have been by 2 or 3 MPH… and in that case, the tan sedan directly behind her would have been speeding as well.

When reached our exit, I pulled into a parking lot and called the Asheville NC Highway Patrol. I gave the officer’s license plate number and cruiser number to the supervisor, and explained to him what had happened. I told him that I had no idea whatsoever of what the officer was trying to communicate to me, that her actions were startling and distracting to safe driving, and that if she really had something to say, she should have pulled me over to the side of the road where it was safe rather than wildly waving her arms and yelling at me from inside her car while we were both flying down the highway at better than a mile a minute. He assured me that he’d take care of the problem.

So to all of you power-hungry individuals (and organizations) out there: don’t mess with us ISTJs. We’re good people who play by the rules, who revere justice, and who will not tolerate false accusation. We especially despise bullies. You may startle us, get us to break stride, or momentarily make us take our foot off the accelerator, but we tend to be very determined people who will, at the first opportunity, help justice regain her footing.

We play by the rules, and we expect those around us to do the same. Even the big kids.

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