I went to Denny’s with a friend in Fullerton Friday night. It was after 11 pm that we finished eating, and we had gone to the movies earlier and seen “The Cave“, which my friend found to be “cheesy.” After Denny’s, I was driving toward his house to drop him home, and on the way a motorcycle pulled in front of us and started driving at a steady pace. The rider was a very healthy fellow, and he drove the bike perfectly. We arrived at a red light, and I could see several police cars at a distance. It seemed like a check point, the random car searches or driver checks [for DUI] that the cops usually conduct. The light was red, and the biker was still in front of my car, his head looking straight ahead probably wondering about the cops. Once the light turned green, he moved a few inches slowly while tapping both his feet to the ground repeatedly. He then turned left slowly into a street, while looking at the cops a few times during the short turn. Whether he was trying to balance his weight on the motorcycle before starting to ride it again after the light had turned green, or whether he was trying to find a path away from the cops is a mystery. He made an exit from the scene basically, saving himself from the cops, while I headed toward the temporary check point.

Orange County is a place where most of the stores shut down after 9 pm. On the weekends, life goes on until midnight only in the very places that have some of the bigger movie theatres. While life does continue everywhere inside homes and with parties at clubs and other places throughout the night, majority of the attractions available to the general public close down early as the county officials try their best to maintain the safety ratings for many cities here [Mission Viejo and Irvine in Orange County have been rated the safest cities in the country]. While driving, I thought the cops were just having a routine check, probably to see why people want to be out at night ["how dare people have fun while we work!"] and how they can be bullied around. I drove closer to them, and slowed down. There were 2 patrol cars in the start; one to the right, and one to the left. We passed them, and a cop motioned us to keep driving slowly. We reached another cop who had a handy small flashlight, which I really wanted. He motioned us to stop. He looked at me and my friend, and asked “How are you two doing tonight?” We answered “Good, good” upon which he said, while still looking around the car, and at us, from time to time, “We’re conducting a random check for driving under the influence and similar offences. I’m just going to do a random check and you can be on your way. Where are you guys coming from?” I said “from Denny’s.” He looked at me and said in a surprised and interrogative manner “Denyys?” and appeared to have a surprised expression on his face, indicating that he was amazed that we were coming from that place, and not from somewhere else.

I almost cracked up at that moment, and had to hold my laugh; where else could we be coming from in California at this time officer, I thought. The city keeps questioning people who are up late at night, and thus majority of the peoples prefer to be indoors than to drive outside, and as a result [or as a causation] almost all the stores close down early, just as is the case with most of the stores in the entire country. Why this officer was surprised was beyond me; at that time of the night, even if 10 people were in a car and they say they all had left their houses just to fill gas and were going back home, people would believed them, as there aren’t that many places open late at night in Southern California [going to the same places again and again, even when they're open very late, is not interesting in my view]. I just nodded to signal an affirmative to the officer in response to his question, and I could see that he had noticed the evil smile on my face, which was the result of holding the laughter inside me for so many seconds. He then asked us “Have you guys had anything to drink tonight?” I nodded to say no, and my friend said “No.” The officer immediately said with a very calm and friendly voice “You have a good night”, and then started to walk to the car behind us. I didn’t get a chance to look at the flashlight he was carrying and pointing at every car, motioning them to stop or drive away. I really wanted that torch.

I started driving slowly, holding my laugh as we passed rows of more police cars and cops, who were standing and watching every car, including mine, pass through their “assembly.” Once we crossed all the cops, I started laughing, and my friend started cracking up in his passenger seat. We got home, and decided that it was too early to call it a night, so we went to a donut shop all the way in another city [Irvine, a few miles away] and had donuts. Surprisingly, we didn’t see a single cop in this city, even though this was the safest city in the country. I then dropped my friend back to his home, and headed to my own dwelling. By the time I got back to the same street where I had held my laughter earlier, the check point was there no more; the cops had probably went to setup a check point somewhere else, or gone to eat donuts or eat at Denny’s.