Saturday, November 22, 2014

Dear Paso Robles PD, Et Al


I am Kim Patrick Noyes. I live at an address in Paso Robles you can easily find. In fact, two of your finest met me in my alleyway a number of nights ago while they checked on a periodic neighbor. I thought they were there to check an abandoned stolen bike left in the alleyway the day before for which I had just phoned your dispatcher not 15 minutes earlier. This encounter with your officers went down like every other encounter I have had with Paso Robles' finest: a professional and cordial experience with nary a thing for which to complain. The same goes for the San Luis Obispo County Sheriff's Department. Even Atascadero's finest aren't too shabby. I speak from personal experience in each case. I'm putting this out here in the first paragraph to make it clear what follows is not a criticism.

I want you to know that dusty-dirty, sketchy-looking red 1994 Volvo 850 (pictured below) that you see putting about town sans front license plate with cracked windshield with numerous Cuesta College parking stickers and peeling paint and torn off side-stripping and busted front left headlight assembly protective cover replete with red duct tape to keep left headlight assembly in place and the missing front grill (that's a long story) not to mention the deal on its interior which I won't get into here for brevity's sake... well, that's my car. It seems that given its appearance it is a roving probable cause magnet which gets it noticed a whole lot more than other cars. This translates to its getting pulled over a lot more than other cars. I always know right away when I have a burned out light or a bad fuse because, BAM, I get pulled over immediately, which is nice in a way because things get fixed fast!  Recent example: you pulled me over the night of July 2, 2014, while APD pulled me over for the same burned-out tail light two nights later. It got fixed on the 5th. The reason for all this extra scrutiny is plainly obvious: profiling. I don't mean profiling in a pejorative fashion, but simply in an "it is what it is" sort of way. My car looks like it has a body stuffed in the trunk or 100 pounds of drugs concealed in the passenger compartment. If I were a cop I'd pull me over, too. However, for the sake of your productivity, I want to save you future man-hours (or woman-hours) in traffic stops with my car. I'm kosher (and halal) aside from enjoying pork and being a local wine snob. Yes, I drink local wines AND drive the car in question... but not at the same time!

But back to my point: I'm a very boring guy and there is nothing interesting going on inside my car other than my monstrous Chihuahua-Terrier (Terror) mix named "Tequila" barking at other dogs or anything that sports wheels or children or makes scary noises. Now she is the opposite of my car: looks innocuous enough but is most definitely up to something all the time. In fact, I'm afraid of her and request extra patrols of my alley on her account. Anywho, as for me, I am a full-time Cal Poly student who works part-time for Vino Vice Security here in Paso Robles. I'm also a proud member of the North San Luis Obispo County CERT and in what little spare time I possess I pretend to be the vice president of the Santa Lucia Rockhounds and chairman of their annual gem and mineral show (soon I shall find a replacement for my vice presidency). This is to say, I have no wants or warrants, have only picked up one speeding ticket in my life, have never been drunk, and have only experienced marijuana second-hand, at the Big Sur Jade Festival.

Thanks for taking the time to read this! Oh, and thanks for no fix-it tickets through all of those traffic stops!

The Kimobile. Photo by Kim Patrick Noyes (all rights reserved).

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