Anyway, my belief in the importance of personal autonomy explains how I was almost arrested Wednesday morning.

Now, never mind the fact that I should have been writing, and that if I had been, I would have avoided this entire mess; that's a whole other issue. Let me tell you what happened.

I was heading up to Dutchess County, NY, north of New York City, so I could get my car fixed. I'd been driving around for almost a week with a broken electrical circuit—the electrical circuit that controls the following logical set of devices in the automobile: the sunroof, the electronic locking system, the alarm, the internal lights, and something else I forget. Anyway, when the circuit died, it died with my sunroof in the open position, so it was imperative I have it repaired immediately.  To make matters worse, I have this "Premier Plus" extended warranty that requires me to have all repairs under the warranty performed by the garage where I bought the car, which is a Nissan dealer. My car is German. You see the problem.

Returning to the story, I set out at 5 am in 10-degree weather, driving along with the heat blasting in an attempt to counteract the Antarctic gale rushing in the open sunroof. Needless to say, it was a losing battle.

(Meanwhile, I have no idea why I opened the sunroof the other day, which caused this entire mess; it was 20 degrees out when I did it, so getting a nice dose of balmy air couldn't have been my reason. I think it was just something stupid like, "Hey, you've got a sunroof! Why not see if it still works?" Friggen' dumbass.)

About halfway to my destination, I stopped at a Dunkin' Donuts for an extra large, or "The Great One," black coffee. (For those of you who don't know me or the Northeast United States, Dunkin's and I are both Yankee institutions.) Or should I say a small coffee, because after scrounging in the change holder and under the seats (in a dark car, mind you), that's all I had money for—I'd forgotten cash at home and I doubted Dunkin's took a credit card.

Finally back on the road with my regrettably small black coffee, trying to stay warm against the hurricane-force winds tunneling into the car, I was able to settle into my drive and began to think that maybe the day would work out okay.

At about six-thirty, my tummy cried out for nourishment. I also needed to take my pills, and I couldn't do that on an empty stomach, so I steered myself to a breakfast institution, this semi-famous diner and truck stop directly off Interstate 84 in Fishkill, NY. (I won't mention the name because I don't like them anymore—I used to—and I don't want to give them any advertising.)

Remarkably, I found a parking spot right near the front door (this place is notorious for its lack of parking), slipped in there, and walked briskly into the restaurant—still carrying my luscious Dunkin's coffee. This is when the trouble started.

Trudging up the long ramp to the "PLEASE WAIT TO BE SEATED" sign, still shivering, I thought wistfully of eggs and bacon and tender flapjacks. At the sign, a haggard blonde woman with leathery skin, who appeared in her younger days to have gotten around, frowned at me.

"You can't bring that in here," she said.

"Bring what?" I asked.

"The coffee," she said. "No outside beverages."

"I'm still going to buy your coffee."

"Doesn't matter. It's against the law."

(Just so you don't think I'm a difficult person, allow me to interject here that there was another time I was told I couldn't bring in an outside beverage. Nine years ago, at "The Tasty" in Harvard Square, Cambridge, Massachusetts, the cook/owner kicked me out for bringing in an outside orange juice. Meanwhile, I'd brought the juice in because the prick was charging $3.00 for a thimble-sized glass. I left that day with the hate festering inside me, wishing a grease fire would catch him and the building on fire. Thankfully, the prick went out of business a couple years later. I guess folks just got tired of being reamed over the OJ.)

Still sipping from my loser coffee cup, I noticed that my lower back had tightened up and that my legs were shaking slightly. This, I realized, was adrenaline doing its work while I decided whether to fight or take flight. I suddenly wished that I'd shaved that morning because with my half-assed beard, I looked like one of the perps on COPS, and I knew that looking the way I did would undermine what little credibility I had. To compensate for my physical appearance, I removed the fleece I was wearing, exposing a red "STANFORD" sweatshirt, and hoped that the Eastern police about to pay me a visit would recognize the school as "the Harvard of the West" and therefore ascribe to me, the wearer, a higher degree of reasonableness than I was currently displaying.

For a moment, I wondered what Socrates or Thoreau would do in the same situation. A week earlier, I had taught my composition classes about "Crito" (in which Socrates debates with his pupil of the same name about the rightness of escaping his punishment, death by hemlock) and "Civil Disobedience." I knew exactly what each of them would do. Socrates would say that when you live in a society, you tacitly accept all of the laws and that you can't pick and choose the ones you want to obey. Good ole' Thoreau, that 1840s hippie, would say that I had a right—nay, a duty—to oppose an unjust law, which I was convinced described this "no outside beverages" thing perfectly. The only problem was, Thoreau also said that in protesting the unjust law, you had to be willing to accept the punishment, whatever it was.

By the time the blue State Trooper car swung into the parking lot (in a surprisingly sedate manner, I should add), my cup was 100% empty. Still, I continued to lift it to my mouth and even smacked my lips from time to time, as if to say, Boy, that's good coffee! One skinny old coot wearing a Stihl chainsaw hat eyed me from a nearby table. I raised the cup at him and continued to sip at air.

Above: A New York State Trooper cruiser.  Note the handy bumpers
on the front.  Those are for ramming bad guys from behind.