Fun encounter with a Sheriff's Deputy.

This is only indirectly mm-related (I was medicated at the time and had a cig case with several mm cigarettes on me.

Two days ago I was walking to the supermarket, thinking how nice a soda would taste while resting on a park bench for a while and enjoying some medication. So I stopped at a small store that carries "retro" sodas and got a chocolate creme soda in an old fashioned brown bottle.

I came to the crosswalk and there was a OCSD gang unit car, with a stopped car. The two officers were just returning the driver's ID when I walked up. One officer looks at my hand, smiles, and asks in an apparently friendly manner if the bottle is a beer.

I thought about my answer. My first thought was to just turn the bottle around and show him the label. My second thought was: "Why the hell is this any of his business? He does not have probable cause to ask me anything."

So I told him exactly the above: that my initial thought was to show him, but then thought better of it. So he gets in my face and says that his probable cause is that the bottle, being brown, looks like a beer bottle. My response: "That store back there sells at least 100 different retro sodas in brown bottles, so your information (brown = beer bottle) is faulty." So he gets even more in my face, and starts "level one" body language designed to make me show subservience.

I remembered something I read some time ago, and I said: "Officer, am I under arrest? If not, am I now free to go?" He threw up his hands and stalked back to his car, and they drove off.

Felt good.

Remember this: always be polite, say as little as possible, and - at the right time - say:
"Officer, am I under arrest? If not, am I now free to go?"