My (almost!) Run-In with The Law

I'm terrified of police officers. Most authorities in my life I can develop a relationship with. I respect and fear them, but I also understand and (in many cases) love them. This sort of affinity cannot be developed for the police. As a result there is total authority and fear. No love. And I get freaked out.

For instance: Thursday (yesterday) I had an almost run-in with the law. Wednesday I had been cleaning (and consequently yowling at the top of my lungs to whatever happened to be in my CD player). I opened the door to take out some trash. Halfway out the door I realized that my music could probably be heard (due to the paper-thin nature of my apartment walls) for a three-block radius. Horrified, I dropped my trashbags, whirled around inside, and turned my music WAAAAY down. But coming back from the dumpster I saw a woman peeking her head around the door,

"Yes, yes, well, it's coming from apartment number -----." (No, I'm not putting my apartment number on the web....)

I started shaking. I was pretty sure she was talking to the police (or the landlords) regarding my illegal noise level. Every step on my porch startled me (I share it with my neighbors...). Every car that drove by I'd rush to the window to see the police officer who was coming to haul me off to the clinker.

Thursday I pulled into my apartment complex and there, parked right outside my apartment, was.... A POLICE CAR. My heart palpitating, I slowly climbed the steps to my apartment. I opened the door, calling, "Hello? Anyone here?" (I mean, they're the police, surely they have keys to every building in town.) For the next hour I waited in trembling anxiety- very sure that the officer would soon pound on my door.

I am a total idiot. Mr. Policeman must have had friends in the complex. He left wthout any door-banging or clincker-hauling, and I started breathing again. (Then I slapped myself upside the head for rampant, unfounded paranoia.)

This would be why I'm dating a guy who is almost antagonistic in his reaction to police enforcement. Markus was pulled over for rolling through a stop sign. (In his defense, trains don't even use that track any more...) But at the next stop sign (with the police officer still behind him), my dear boyfriend stopped. And stayed stopped. For many, many seconds.

Case-and-point: opposites attract.

And the police still haven't shown up to rebuke my overly enthusiastic Christian Contemporary music.