My various brushes with the law

In this post, we will explore some of That Girl From Shallotte's brushes with the law. We'll skip over the parties I hosted/attended that were busted up (though Rex in leather-daddy garb speaking to the RPD during a White Trash party in Oakwood was priceless). The pullovers after 10 on the island when I was in high school were par for the course of keeping us local kids from harassing the tourists who pumped up our economy. I can't count the speeding tickets I was given by local PDs, highway patrolmen, sheriffs and even DMV enforcers in my 20s, but I do offer this advice for speeding ticketees: Go to court, speak with the ADA, plead guilty and get it reduced to nine miles over the limit so it doesn't go against your insurance.

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My best friend in high school, Tonya, and I were supposed to be at a basketball game senior year. Instead, we went out in her Jeep to find some Shallotte action.

Shallotte was still a small town then, just a two-mile strip along Highway 17 between Wilmington and Myrtle Beach before the bypass was built.

We stopped at the Zip Mart in the middle of town to use a pay phone to call friends. A guy in a white truck pulled up beside us and was leering at us, but we didn't pay him much attention.

From the Zip Mart, we ventured a half-mile down Main Street to Burger King and went through the drive-thru. Guy in truck was behind us in line and we noticed him throw a beer can out. We pulled out of the drive-thru and into a parking space next to some friends of ours. They passed us a joint through the car windows. Tonya took a drag and passed it to me. I took a drag and passed it back to her. She took a drag and passed it back to the other car. (We later learned it was laced.) We didn't even notice that guy in the truck had parked on on the other side of the Jeep.

We left and went to the other end of Shallotte to use another pay phone and guy in the truck pulled up next to us. I screamed, "Go to the police station!" and Tonya screamed back, "Where is it?!" Keep in mind that Shallotte was a very small town.

So I told Tonya to get back on Main Street and take a right. She was so panicked that she took that right so hard we went on two wheels and I saw the pavement coming at my face. We made it to the police station and pulled up with the guy in white truck right behind us. I had always had a hard time getting in and out of that Jeep, but I flew right into the station with no regard to Tonya's well being. I screamed to the lady at the desk, "SOMEBODY IS FOLLOWING US!!!"

The lady behind the desk looked at me blankly until five seconds later when Tonya ran in and screamed, "SOMEBODY IS FOLLOWING US!!!."

It's a bit hazy here, as we were both stoned to the bone as we used to say, but the lady behind the desk dispatched the one cop on patrol to go out and find a white male in a white truck. While she was doing this, Tonya and I were in the waiting area, which featured a glass case of confiscated drug paraphenalia. Tonya pressed her face against the glass and declared, "That's just like the bong Chip made last night!" I grabbed her by the shirt and got her back into the theatre-like seats bolted against the wall we were supposed to be sitting in.

After a while, a lady cop came from the back and asked us to accompany her to her office to question us. We passed by the two jail cells and both freaked out: "They're going to arrest us!" But she didn't. She took us to her office and we sat across from her. She asked us for our home phone numbers and Tonya screwed up her prefix a couple of times before I jumped in and blurted it out for her. Then we were asked to give a description of the guy in the truck and Tonya said, "He was wearing a plaid shirt..." and I interrupted her to say, "He was wearing a beige work shirt with a name badge embroidered on it. He had blond hair and looked like he was in his 30s." High Tonya started laughing, and high Leigh Ann muttered, "Shut up, Tonya, shut up, Tonya, shut up, Tonya," which didn't help.

So they took us back to the waiting area, with the chairs bolted against the wall. We were so stoned that I can't remember what got us laughing, but we were dying with tears running down our faces. The lady at the desk asked us if we were okay. I put my arms around Tonya and said, "We're very upset."

The lady behind the desk left. Tonya and I were alone in the waiting room. We'd just seen "Nightmare on Elm Street" a few weeks earlier. We became convinced Freddy Kruger was coming to get us and we freaked out. We sat there by ourselves for a long while white knuckled, one of us watching each door, braced for Freddy's inevitable entrance. Finally, the cop car pulled up in front. We both leaned forward and the theater seats came unscrewed from the wall, pitching us both onto the floor. Which made us start laughing again. So hard that we coudn't get up.

The Shallotte cops caught the guy and took us to I.D. him. He told the cops we'd been smoking pot, but he was drunk, so the cops didn't believe him. By the time they sent us home, we'd both missed curfew. Thankfully, our buzzes were wearing off. Neither of us got in trouble; we both told our parents, "Sorry we're late, but we were at the police station."

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My senior year at Elon, I was tooling around in the worst car in the world. My parents told me I could study abroad or have a car, and I chose to spend a semester in London. When I came home and was living off campus in Burlington, the redneck capital of the world, they did buy me an old car to get around in. That car, a '77 orange GLC with a manual choke, no a/c, mismatched black plastic seats and a horn that went off on its own deserves its own entry. But that's a story for another time.

Believe it or not, I got a bunch of tickets in that car. Toward the end of my senior year, I was going back from campus to my apartment in Burlington when I saw blue lights behind me. I pulled over, rolled down the window and went for the glove box to get my registration.

The cop came to my window and asked if I had my license and registration. I replied, "Yes, sir." The cop said, "That's ma'am." So I knew I was not getting out of this ticket.

She then asked me who the car belonged to. I assured her I would never steal a '77 orange GLC with a manual choke, no a/c, mismatched black plastic seats and a horn that went off on its own. She informed me the plate did not match my car and that she would have to confiscate the tag. She was nice enough to let me drive the car to the apartment first.

When I called home in tears, my daddy realized he'd put the wrong plates on the beater cars he bought for Jill and me. And he laughed. I didn't.

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After graduation from Elon, Rex came down to help me move to Raleigh with him. It was late at night at our apartment complex in Burlington. Rexy was upstairs messing around on the computer. I was downstairs in the middle of packing up huge boxes. It was cool outside and we lived in a safe complex with a good number of Burlington cops, so I had the door open with the screen door latched.

I was taking a break and watching MTV (they played videos then) when I heard a scratching sound coming from the area of the screen door three feet away from me. I looked over to see a naked man with a tee shirt over his face jerking off.

I sprinted right over the boxes and up the stairs. Rexy was sitting there using the computer when I ran into the room screaming, "Call the police!!" I threw the baseball bat at him while I grabbed the phone and dialed 911.

Rexy went down the stairs to close and lock the door while I was on the phone with the police. While we were waiting for them to show, I thanked him for being so brave. Rexy said, "What's a naked guy going to do to me?"

The cop who showed up shortly after was the one I'd said, "Yes, sir" to just two weeks before.

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After college, Rexy and I moved to Raleigh and lived in a cheap townhouse near N.C. State. In those early years, we both worked two jobs to make ends meet.

I came home one night after my second job and opened the door to our dark and empty apartment. I heard noises from upstairs and immediately ran across the street to use the pay phone to call the police.

I hung out in the parking lot until they arrived. After telling me to back away, the two of them, guns drawn COPS-style, flung open the door and shouted, "Police!" Remembering that our not-yet-potty trained kitten was locked up in the downstairs bathroom, I shrieked, "Don't shoot my cat!"

The two cops searched the apartment. After a couple of minutes, they came out. One said, "Ma'am, your upstairs toilet is hung."

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Not too long after that, I dashed from my horrible, low-paying job to Wal-Mart to drop off a roll of film. As I got out of my car, I noticed that I was being cruised by a guy in an old Pontiac covered in crazy religious bumper stickers.

I didn't pay attention to the guy following me around the store. I didn't notice him following me to my car.

So I was out on Glenwood Avenue waiting for a left-turn signal when he pulled up next to me. In broad daylight, with lunchtime traffic backed up, he got out of his car, walked around it and came up to my passenger window. With no pants on.

I couldn't turn, and I had no power windows at the time. But I did have the wherewithall to slowly lift up my mace and point it toward him, forcing him to get back in his car.

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About three years ago, my number one playmate, Greg, and I were chilling on my back deck in my safe little old neighborhood inside the beltline.

Greg was telling me an intricate story. As he talked, I saw a young man jump over the fence two yards over. Being panicked and basically polite, I didn't interrupt Greg. The guy kept running and jumped the fence to my next-door neighbor's yard. Only when I realized he was heading for our yard and wasn't going to stop did I say, "Go into the house, honey."

I must say, as he ran past us in my backyard, the guy did say, "Excuse me." As I was closing and locking the back door, I saw him stop as he encountered the snarling outside dog that lives next to me. He ran up the side of my yard and jumped the fence into the front, then continued down our road.

I called 911 and explained to the operator what had happened. I told her the guy was in his early 20s and was wearing a baggy white shirt and black shorts. She asked me if he was black or white. My diversity training in the politically correct corporate world kicked in, and I panicked because the operator was black. I was terrified to tell her the guy happened to be black!

Within minutes the police showed up. They said it wouldn't be hard finding the guy because when they tried to arrest him at Snoopy's, he threw down his driver's license along with the cocaine he was selling.