Play misty for me and I'll make it rain

With light rain steadily falling, it wasn't so much a dark-and-stormy night as it was a misty moment in time earlier this week.

Cruising eastbound on Shadowlawn through Deer Field -- en route to a rendezvous with a pizza ordered at The Hut -- I had the edge of the $20 bill pulled from my wallet stuck between my front teeth as I snapped the seatbelt around me and kept the 14-year-old Mitsubishi Spyder convertible I drive on the straight and narrow.

And that was all good as a Greencastle City Police car passed by, heading westbound around that fateful section of the roadway where my torn rotator cuff occurred, now more than three years ago.

In the rearview I could see the police cruiser backing into a driveway on the north side of the street and figured it was the officer who resides along there. So I returned my attention to the misty scene in front of me.

That's when flashing blue and red lights first appeared behind me.

Instinctively I glanced down at the speedometer, seeing the Spyder was cruising at a clip of 28 mph, and tugged on my seatbelt, making sure it had snapped to attention back at Arlington Street.

So knowing my speed and my seatbelt were fine, I just knew those flashing lights weren't for me -- until I pulled over to the side of the road and the police car pulled in behind me.

This was beginning to feel like the day I got pulled over on Right-of-Way Road outside Fillmore after being clocked at 26 mph in a 20-mph zone. Honestly, I think the old Spyder idles at more than 30, so driving slower than that can take some attention to detail.

Yet in the drizzly mist, the officer dutifully got out of his squad car and emerged at my window, where I was now unwittingly holding my $20 pizza money between thumb and forefinger.

It was Reserve Officer Billy Wallace, a cheerful chap who popped out of his vehicle in the rain, not to scold me as much as to enlighten me on using my wipers and headlights in the dimming evening light.

For a moment all I could think of was the story former DePauw President Bob Bottoms once told upon arriving late at a crucial men's basketball game. He explained that he had just flown into the Indianapolis Airport and was hustling back along U.S. 40 in the pouring rain when a Plainfield cop pulled him over, stood in the rain and issued him a speeding citation.

Now that's pretty, pretty, pretty hard core.

But not at all what happened to me.

Indiana law, Officer Wallace told me, requires you to use your headlights whenever you're employing your windshield wipers and visibility is 500 feet or less.

"You only have your running lights on," the officer said politely, referring to what I thought were my more mist-appropriate and much sexier "fog lights."

Nervously, I laughed about how I'd turned on my lights earlier, telling him that in my Jeep, the dashboard lights are much brighter when I dial back the light switch one spot. Apparently doing that in the Spyder turns headlights into running lights.

Continuing the explanation, I realized I was waving the $20 bill all around as I related my explanation. Oh dear, I thought, he's going to think I'm trying to bribe him.

"Oh, this is for the pizza I'm on my way to pick up," I quickly noted, throwing my hands up to display the twenty better.

"Enjoy your pizza," Wallace instructed as I made sure my headlights and wipers were in tandem use as I crept away from the curb to continue the trip east.

Retelling this story later, I realized that something like this keeps happening to me.

I'll bet I've been stopped a dozen times in the Spyder for minor issues without ever getting an actual ticket (well, I'm jinxed now, aren't I?) in that car.

But now, I've learned about wipers and lights going hand in hand. That reminds me of the old Indiana State Police slogan I learned long ago as an officer's speeding ticket guideline: "Nine you're fine, 10 you're mine."

Actually, that's one of the things I love about my job. I learn a little bit from each story, each experience, each day.

Here's what I know now: Never hold a $20 bill in your teeth if you want anybody to take you seriously ...

Make sure it's at least a fifty!