Sunday, January 11, 2009

Road Tripping

The Legend: Two friends are under the influence of LSD and get pulled over for going too slow.

Status: Probable

Example: [Taken from the Internet]

"Two buddies are road-tripping to a Grateful Dead show, and to make the drive more interesting, they each eat a dose of LSD. They're rolling along the interstate and start to trip out, they're laughing and having fun driving along. Suddenly, they notice a cop car with its lights on in the rear-view mirror, and start freaking out. The driver repeatedly says, "OK I'll just admit to speeding, I'll get a ticket, and it will be OK." He rehearses this plan over and over until the cop knocks on his window, and then he says to the cop, "I'm really sorry officer, I know I was speeding, I know I was wrong. I'm sorry I was going too fast." The befuddled cop then says, "Well, that's all well and good, but you were doing 10 mph."

Analysis

There are a few things about this emailed gem that make it more of a story and less of a true account.  It is littered with puns. "Road tripping," is an LSD reference. "Rolling along," is an ecstasy reference. Of course they are going to a Grateful Dead show, right? Never mind that Jerry Garcia, leader of that band, died in 1995 and this email started circulating in 2001.

This email is also similar to a scene in a 1996 Chris Farley/David Spade movie called Black Sheep. In that movie the driver and passenger become high on a nitrous oxide leak while driving. When they're pulled over by the police they think they were speeding when it turns out they were only going 7 mph.

Even though this particular emailed account is just a story, there are many instances of drivers being ticketed for going too slow, some of them stoned. Being under the influence of a hallucinogen, whether it is a mild one like marijuana or a stronger one like LSD, is going to change your perception of your environment. That is the reason you did the drug to begin with. One of the outcomes of that changed perception is going to be that you become a lousy driver, so let someone sober drive.