Ma'am Could You Dim Your Headlights?

You’ve seen them parked along the highway waiting and watching. Every so often they will all congregate in one place and there will be a whole gaggle of them. You will see their markings before you actually see them. You will be driving along at a legal rate of speed when you will see the first sign “Slow Down License and Registration Check Ahead”. Then there are usually a line of spitting and sputtering road flares accompanied by some delineators or better know as traffic cones. You will instinctively start to sweat and your mind will start going over whether or not you have had an alcoholic beverage in the last 48 hours and where your registration might be. Yes we have all been there and we all do the same thing. We slow down, reach over to the glove compartment and start rifling around looking for the registration while unwrapping a stick of gum and shoving it in our mouth. That is not what happened this day.

It was a beautiful sunny day the wind was minimal which was unusual for late March in El Paso. The order had come down that there were to be road blocks set up on each of the major highways leading out of town. All extra units from the local sheriff, city police and state trooper offices were called in to man the three road blocks. Trooper Bob and his partner were sent about five miles outside of town on Highway 62 to set up a barrier in order to check license, registration and drunk drivers. Trooper Bob and Trooper Ray dispatched the flares, set out the cones and lined up the signs. Deputy Doug from the sheriff’s department set up his cruiser just on the other side of the blockade in case someone got cute and decided they weren’t going to stop.

It was about 5:00 in the evening and the sun was beginning to lower in the sky when down the highway the troopers spotted a beautiful powder blue convertible Cadillac rolling up the road. The ever observant troopers spied a man driving and a woman in the passenger seat. Trooper Ray began motioning the car over to the side of the highway. Trooper Bob approached on the passenger side of the vehicle. That’s when he spotted it. He looked up at Trooper Ray who was standing on the driver’s side of the caddy and then looked back into the passenger seat of the car. There was a red head with the seat leaned back as far as possible, sun glasses on and quite obviously asleep. She looked peaceful as she reclined with her top off sunning her chest.

Trooper Bob cleared his throat and greeted the driver as did Trooper Ray. Still the woman did not stir. The tanned driver in his golf shirt and checkered slacks returned the salutation and asked what he could do for the officer’s. Trooper Ray requested a copy of registration and driver’s license and the man responded by leaning over the sleeping beauty to search the glove compartment. This evidently was just what it took to arouse the woman. She took her sun glasses off and rubbed her eyes. Then she looked around and saw the two officers standing over the car. Then she looked at her companion and said “Melvin, what is going on here?” Melvin had a grin from ear to ear on his face and said “nothing Dear. These officers are just doing a routine registration check.” The woman still did not realize her top was in her lap and replied “oh, that’s nice.” She looked at the officers and wondered why they too had smirks on their faces. She had not made a move to cover herself. She stretched then realized with great horror that she was indeed topless. It was about that same time that Trooper Bob found his voice and said “Ma’am could you dim your headlights, we can’t see what we are doing.”

The woman screamed in anger and embarrassment and then struck her companion with the back of her hand and cried “MELVIN! Why didn’t you tell me?” Melvin grinned and then drawled “cause you just looked so dang cute!” She looked at the two officers horrified and they just nodded in agreement.

The troopers agreed that this had indeed been a sucessful road block.