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	Wisdumb
	The Felony Wagon (8-31-04) I got my driver's license when I was 21. Don't ask. To accompany my new driver's license was my first car, a 1974 lime-green, 2-door, Oldsmobile Cutlass. 350 cubic f**king inches of Detroit pig-iron engine that said "YES" when I punched the gas, turning those tires into smoke and glory whenever I saw fit. Mothers pulled their crying children close to their flowery summer dresses when I roared down the avenue. The vast hood was the kind that you could relax on while sippin' a 40oz straight to the head outside of the band practice studio on a Tuesday afternoon, like it was nothing. That baby had the biggest, heaviest doors known to driving man. One time I took off the inside panel to see why I had to struggle to close it on a hill and saw all the steel bars inside, protecting my silly arse. I replaced the stock radio with a more modern version one day. It took all day to remove that steel and plastic tumor. When I got it out, it was the size and weight of two red bricks. I threw it off the top of my stairs as part of my victory dance and it defiantly chipped the cement below. One time in San Luis Obispo, the neighbor girl upstairs confessed she hit my ride in the parking lot. I checked out the bits and pieces of HER car littering the ground and chuckled. That car could take care of itself. So I was at my mom's house in Manhattan Beach for the Christmas hell-i-days when my brother gleefully pointed out that my auto registration was hopelessly out of date. Dreading the lines at the DMV in LA, I opted to 'let it ride' until I got back to SLO. Glenn, always on the lookout for something shiny along the side of the road, found a license plate in the bushes with a valid sticker. We decided it would be a fine idea to chisel it off the discarded plate and affix it to mine with the appropriate glue. Our arts and crafts worked like a charm. So well in fact, that I just continued to 'let it slide', showing a slight addiction to procrastination. One fine day, I decided to drive to the beach. The sun was shining, the surf may have been pumping and my Corrosion of Conformity bumper sticker (way before they sucked) was glaring. I was sitting in traffic, surrounded by a number of other potential criminals, minding our own business when I get pulled over by the heat. He saunters up and asks to see my driver's license and registration. I show him my ID and fumble through the glove box for my non-existent registration documents. I sheepishly tell him I can't find it (as quoted from the ticket...), and he authoritatively tells me it is because I don't have it. I get slapped with this ticket, but feel proud because society is now a safer, better place to live with me out of the way. As I go around to the back to peel off the results of Glenn and my hard work I ask simply "why me?" as in, "out of all those other chumps on the road, why are you running my plates?". No real answer. I show up to court with all the other petty criminals. They sent me to the wrong room so I missed the informative docudrama describing my rights. There I am in the crowded courthouse listening to a bunch of college kids begging and pleading and receiving the harshest relative sentences for their litany of non-crimes. I start to sweat because my crime of stolen stickers on my plate is waaay worse than their silly infractions. The judge calls my name and asks me if I saw the video on my rights. I say no. The bailiff hands me a piece of paper with a bunch of rights on it and I slump back, assuming I am now at the end of the line. A short while later the judge calls my name again, surprising me with his expediency. "Mr. Morey, you are charged with having expired registra..." and I immediately interrupt him with my statement. "Here you go, all up to date, here are the forms and receipts, all in order!". He scrutinizes them and proclaims that "since these are all fix-it style tickets, I move to dismiss charges 1, 2, and 3. Now in the future...", "yes SIR, on time, every time from now on!" (insert big smile, show teeth). The bailiff tries to correct him about the nature of the charges but is luckily ignored. I hustle out of there and bolt down the cold halls of justice before the pendulum decides to swing back again. I don't think I made it to the beach that day, but I am sure I wet my pants with joy. Since then, I can't seem to remember to put my sticker on in a timely and prudent manner and eagerly await the next public servant looking to polish his badge with another citation. Rolling through the quaint town of Los Osos on my way to score some tube time at the Canyon, I pass the fuzz driving the other way. I glance his way and that is all he needs. Cletus spins a u-turn a la 'Dukes of Hazard' and initiates some hot pursuit at a smoking 25mph. I swear, my photo must be in some goddamn training manual for those monkeys. Anyways, the look on his face when I hand him my registration stickers still in the little bag is priceless. We proceed on our merry way, ticketless, as per usual. After nearly 2 decades of proud service, the Felony Wagon was showing signs of age. The coolant disappeared when I wasn't looking and when I took the cap off at the gas station after refilling it while hot, the geyser of super-heated muck water shot out like a steaming fountain. It was so 'Three Stooges car repair', that the fact I avoided any more horrible disfigurement from the scalding shower was lost. The repairs would cost more than the car so I elected to sell it to a program designed to get polluting older vehicles off the road. All I had to do was get the car 25 miles to Carpinteria. I figured I needed to open all the windows since I would be driving with the heater on full blast. I took out my safety glasses and a trusty hammer and went at it. Those windows are hard and took two whacks each. Each time, the first whack nearly shook out my teeth like in the cartoons. I took tin snips and cut a hole in the hood to be bad ass. Driving down the freeway at 40mph, no one dared pass this rolling liability. They took that car and turned it into a two ton ball of iron and plastic and gave me $500 for the pleasure. My friends tried to convince me to fill it full of water-reactive chemicals that burst into flames where you would least expect it, and drive it off the end of the pier. Your friends are the cutest when they try to kill you with good advice. more stories >>