The road to apparent respectability

Driving on public roads is a problem for me, since my papers are not in order. A simple traffic stop can be a career move, and I avoid them carefully.

It's been this way for many years, but I did get nailed (special circumstances) a couple of years ago and that has made getting caught driving locally a particular problem. Mostly I solve the problem by simply not driving, but that is not always possible. When I can't avoid it, I depend on stealth and obscurity.

In this particular case, I needed to deliver something to a city far away. Getting out of town could be a real hazard, because my face is known to the local po-po and associated with a certain bright yellow Jeep - not a good combination. I am careful not to allow my well-known face to be associated with another, far less conspicuous vehicle.

In that vehicle, heavily-tinted windows rolled up, I can pass through the town at night with almost no qualms. Because it happens so seldom, I always work myself into a good case of nerves over it and always laugh at myself afterward. I spend hours working up elaborate routes circumventing the main drag, then shrug and cruise through the middle of town at the posted limit and nobody ever looks up. I fully understand the meaning of the proverb, "The wicked flee when there is no pursuer." Once I'm away from the locals, I always settle down. Yesterday my gray sedan cruised sedately though illegally past many HiPo speed traps and my heart never fluttered.

Obscurity involves not looking like a raggedy cedar rat in places where such people are not commonly encountered - like where I was going. Small alterations go a long way in that regard. I normally go months without trimming my beard, and since I'm not terribly hirsute that means it's normally ragged and ugly. It fits with my local persona, but not with Unremarkable Traveling Guy. Ten minutes with a mirror and a pair of barber shears takes care of that. My normal attire is military cast-offs and torn t-shirts, but I do maintain a dust-proof suitcase of clean slacks and shirts that only gets used on these forays. Trimmed, bathed, dressed in townie clothes and bereft of my usual bat-belt filled with lethal objects, I FEEL conspicuous as hell but in fact I'm invisible.

Hey, it's all good.