blow

I had my first personal encounter with Dutch police yesterday. I noticed a cop car following me and said aloud to my two passengers "Haha, it's silly but I can't get rid of this American fear of cops! Every time I see one, I immediately slow down 5km/hr and frantically start reviewing my driving over the past 10 min to find anything they might have caught me doing. So silly." And I kept driving.

Then I noticed that on top of the cop car was a sign flashing "Stop, Politie" in red.

Ah! Shnitty.

I pulled over and proceeded to roll down my window. The window, however, has a tendency to get stuck, so by the time the cop walked up to my door he found me giggling and snorting in my efforts to get it to move down to a decent talk-through level while trying to stay serious and look responsible to the approaching officer.

He smiled at me and said a typical Dutch thing which translates roughly to "Tough work".

I giggled (oh why does my giggly silly bit come out at the worst moments?).

"Did I do something wrong?" (smile, snicker).

"Nope. We're just on the look out for drunk drivers tonight; cars with several people in it, driving around at this hour, are likely to have come from a bar."

"Oh man, what a relief! I was freaking out thinking I did something wrong without knowing it! I was trying to figure out what you caught me at!"

The cop just smiled and put the breathalyzer in front of me. "Blow."

I should have taken a deaper breath, you have to breath long into that thing! Finally it beeped and I could stop.

And that was it.

"Have a good night ma'am."

I was almost disappointed.