A long, long time ago (last fall), in a land far, far away (30 miles out of Forks), I was pulled over by a law enforcement officer. Due to the fact that I have to drive through the national park daily, I’m not going to publicly confirm that it was a park ranger. It was a park ranger, but I’m not publicly confirming that.

After pulling me over, the officer walked up to my car and said, “Oh, hey Christy! I wouldn’t have pulled you over if I knew it was you! How are you?” Those park rangers are a tough bunch.

After catching up on the local park gossip, he said to me, “I just pulled you over because your license plate light is out. I don’t need to see your license or anything. I know you’re not a criminal.” The joke was on him because at the time, I was engaging in illegal activity! My license had not yet been changed over to Washington despite having lived here for almost two years.

Immediately after being pulled over, I had the guys at Jiffy Lube check out my license plate light. By immediately, I mean about three weeks later when I remembered. The mechanics replaced the bulb and said it was working fine. We got home and the light was out again. We had a second person look at it who also said it was working fine.

Like most other subjects, I know nothing about license plate lights. In fact, before this all happened, I didn’t even know that license plates had lights. That being said, even I know that if something is supposed to be lit up and it is not being lit up, it is not working fine.

Being frustrated that no one could fix the light, I gave up on the whole darn thing and decided just to continue on with my crime spree. First, the out of state license and now the broken license plate light. I was out of control.

Eventually, I got tired of being a criminal and had a good mechanic look at the light. He immediately saw that my trunk arm thingy on the inside (not the real term) had cut the cord to the light. Problem solved. Light fixed.

I tell this story because in the six months that my license plate light was out, I drove by (and in front of) law enforcement officers from every other agency and NO ONE else pulled me over at night. I’m not sure if this is because other law enforcement agents are completely unobservant or because the park rangers are really bored, but I’m not throwing either under the bus because I may or may not have a Pennsylvania driver’s license still.

The life of crime is hard to break out of.

If you know the real name of the trunk arm thingy, or for questions or comments, e-mail me at christyrasmussen@yahoo.com.