Stop Sign

Because it is winter and due to time change to Pacific Standard Time, it becomes very dark in the evenings in California.  In the streets, 7 PM looks and feels like midnight.

 

Yesterday evening, my wife gave a list of groceries to buy and asked me to go to Safeway (a grocery store chain).  So, at about 8:20 pm, I leave my house in my SUV.  After 5 minutes of driving, I stop at the STOP sign.  It was pitch dark.  No one was in the street.  No pedestrian.  No other car.  Still, I came to a full stop. Then proceeded to drive.

 

I could immediately see in my rear view mirror a police car.  But he did not flash his headlights which is an order for me to stop my car.  Therefore, I kept driving.  I knew he was after me because he did not try to overtake me.  He followed me for a full 2 minutes.  Then, flashed his car’s headlights.

 

I then pulled my car to the right and stopped my car.  My hands on the steering wheel all the time.  That is what required when the police stops you.  In USA, police officer will take about 5 minutes to get out of his car and approach you.  He will not get out of his car immediately.  In those 5 minutes, he will get all the details about the car and its owner from his computer through your car license plate number.

 

He got out of the car.  The police officer is more afraid of you than you afraid of him.  He walked slowly and stopped at the back seat of the opposite side (right side). He had a flash light and asked me to roll down the back right side window.  I roll down the window.  Now he sees me and confident I am not a criminal with a gun and therefore comes to the front seat at the passenger side.  Asked me to roll down the window.  I did.  Here is the conversation:

 

                                                                     (Google Image)

 

Officer:  Sir, do you know why I stopped you?

 

Me:  I don’t know.

 

Officer:  Sir, at the stop sign, you did not stop your car behind the line.  Your car stopped after crossing the line.

 

(My mind was thinking – What the F? Is this a big crime? Have you been waiting in the cold dark night just to catch me crossing the line and stopping my car at the stop sign? Hey, you should be happy that I did stop my car at the stop sign.) (But my brain is saying – Don’t show your smartness to the police officer.  If he wants to, he can give you all sorts of trouble.)

 

Me:  Is that so officer?  I am sorry I did not notice that.  I will be careful in the future.

 

Then he gave a 3 minute lecture about how these laws are for my own safety.

 

Officer:  Sir, can I see your Driver’s License.

 

I gave him my Driver’s License.  He said please wait and I will be back.  He goes to his car to check if I have any arrest warrant against me.  He comes back after 3 minutes and gives my driver’s license back.

 

Officer: Please drive safely and that too in this weather.  Where are you going? Any drinking plans today?

 

Me:  I am going to Safeway.  I don’t know if I have a drinking plan or not.

 

Officer:  You can go now. Please be careful.

 

I start my car and go to Safeway – cursing him all the way.  At the same time happy that he did not give me a ticket.  Just a warning and lecture only.  If he had given a ticket, that would be considered a “moving violation” and raise my car insurance fees.

A Blast from the Past

We all do stupid things when we’re younger and then laugh about it later. Right?  I’ll admit that I did something stupid a few months after I got married.

 

I had a Tamil Brahmin friend (guy named R) who was in love with a Bengali Brahmin (girl named P).  Back in the day, a Tamilian marrying a Bengali was not easily accepted by the parents.  My friend had a lot of confidence that he could convince his parents to accept his decision.  The problem however, would be convincing the girl’s dad.

 

One day my friend went to the girl’s house to meet her father at their home.  He expressed his desire to marry P.  Now P’s dad is a straight up gentleman.  Instead of yelling at my friend or kicking his butt out of the house, he told my friend R to bring some elders from his family.  He said the elders from both families will discuss the issue and decide.

 

Now the ball is in my friend’s court.  He has to take an “elder” from his family to talk to P’s dad.  The problem is that my friend has not yet told his own family anything about his love for P.  Therefore he’s unsure on which elder to take from his family.

 

So what did he do?  He asked ME if I could come to meet P’s dad and represent myself as R’s uncle.  I said: Who?  Me?  As your uncle?  Dude, you and I are the same age. Who on earth would ever believe that I am your uncle?

 

My friend said, here’s the plan.  “My girlfriend P will let her dad know that I’m bringing my youngest uncle.  My uncle is the youngest of 11 children and R’s mom is the oldest.  Therefore they’ll appear to be around the same age.”

 

But still why ME?  His answer was that I was the only married guy in our group of friends…so I was the chosen one. And of course like an idiot, I agreed to do this.

 

So one evening my friend and I go to P’s house.  Her father welcomed us in and offered us tea and biscuits.  He asked me for my name and what I did for a living.  Here is where I made the mistake.  I told him my real name and where I really work.  I also told him that I got married recently.  He then talked about some problems associated with inter-state marriages, different customs and culture, different food habits, problems with raising kids, etc. etc.

 

I had absolutely no interest in what he was saying.  I just went there to help out my friend and his girlfriend.  While the dad was talking, my eyes were wandering around the house.  I saw a room that was partially open.  I could see P was listening to our conversation intently.  When we exchanged glances, she could tell by my facial expression that I really didn’t want to be there but I could see her expression and it was “thank you soooo much for doing this for us.”

 

A few days later…

 

Well it seems that P’s dad works at an office and has a best friend there whom he tells his problems to.  P’s dad said that his daughter loves a Tamil guy and he is unsure about what to do.  He said that he even met his R’s young uncle to get more perspective about R’s family and potential issues.

 

That office friend then asked for more details about this young uncle.  P’s father told him the details.  The office friend then said, don’t believe these guys.  They are trying to scam you.  I know this young uncle.  He is my nephew. He has no sisters.  He’s not the youngest of 11 children.  And he certainly is not R’s uncle.

 

Later that night P called me and told the whole story and wept on the phone.  There was absolutely nothing I could do to fix this.

 

Epilogue: A few months after that incident, my wife and I came to the USA.  Two months later we received their marriage invitation.  Last year, they (R and P and their 2 grown kids) visited us in California.  I was narrating this incident to the 2 children.  R just listened, smiled throughout and laughed it off.  P was blushing non-stop, still a little embarrassed as she just ran out of the room before I could finish the story.

Contest/Product Promotion

IndiBlogger’s so called “contest” is just getting on my nerves.  To get maximum publicity for a product, many companies organize contests (thru IndiBlogger) so that bloggers write about them.

 

It’s only 11am now (December 18) and I’ve already read 5 posts on LenovoIndia.

 

Last week, I read 8 posts on Protect Against Smelly Stubble Activity.

 

The week before that, I read 7 posts on Bacardi Breezers.

 

I thought blogs are used to express our thoughts, feelings, opinions/views, ideas, and experiences.  I think of it as a vehicle to discuss ANY TOPIC that we see fit. It can also give our friends and family instant access to our thoughts and it’s kind of like our online diary.

 

IndiBlogger has changed that.  Now what I see are more and more posts on advertising products in the name of contests.  Like I said earlier, it’s a vehicle to discuss ANY TOPIC that we see fit.  So I’ll say that product promotion does fall under the “ANY TOPIC” category.  I guess there is nothing really wrong with that.  However, my problem is that I like to leave comments on people’s blogs.  What am I supposed to write as a comment?

 

I could praise their storyline (if it’s good). However, when I have to write 8 different comments on the same subject/product, I feel un-original in my comments.  I feel like I’m just copying and pasting my comments.

 

On the flip side, if I do not write a comment at all then the author might think that I never read that post.  No, I did read that post and the 8 others just like it.  So going forward, I’m thinking of only going to give a 5 word comment to any post that participates in these product promotion contests.  “Good luck with the contest.”

 

Now if you post that you won the contest, then HOORAY for you and I will “praise you like I shooooooooooould” (that’s a reference to a song by Fatboy Slim, song name is Praise You).

 

Now please do speak up, if you’ve ever won any prizes from these contests.  Thanks.

 

Happy New Year to you and your family.