Clover Conditioning

It is not enough that we break the heretic. We must make him one of us. Words to that effect, as spoken by the character O’Brien to Winston Smith in 1984. Or the off-duty cop running the Court-Community Corrections Program Driver Improvement course I attend this past Saturday. All eight hours’ worth.

I played the part of a good Clover for an entire Saturday – pretending to agree (obligatory) with every jot and tittle of “safety” drivel – in order to disappear a ticket I got a few months prior. Yes, even when you carry a V1 – the finest pork-detector on the market – you are not invincible. Sometimes, it’s just not your day. And then, it’s your turn. A guy in a big SUV pulled out right in front of my car, forcing me to brake hard to avoid him. Annoyed, I broke left and passed the SUV. At just that moment, Officer Stand and Deliver happened to be coming out of a nearby side street. He was perfectly positioned to see me exceed the ridiculous 35 MPH speed limit (50 yards behind me, this same stretch of road is posted 45 and of course traffic is moving closer to 50) as I maneuvered around the obese SmooVee. He painted me with his instant-on and though the V1 chirped furiously, it was already too late. Fifteen minutes later, I had a piece of payin’ paper. My first one in six years.

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