Let me introduce you to Roxanne. She is our beautiful, green Ford Escort. In some ways the first member of our family. Luke bought her while we were dating and we affectionately named her Roxanne. We love Roxanne. She is absolutely wonderful. She gets great gas mileage. She is speedy fast. And she is adorable.
And then, one day, about a month after Luke bought her, Roxanne was squished. She was squished beyond repair - we thought. Although our hearts were heavy because we loved Roxanne, it was nothing compared to the feelings we felt when we found out we had been hit by an uninsured driver. Being poor college students, what could we do?
We resurrected Roxanne as best we could. (Or I should say Mr. Borgelt resurrected Roxanne.) We were glad that she could be resurrected. It is amazing that she still runs. And she runs beautifully. She still gets good gas mileage. I still think she is adorable; however, she has a great, big, huge dent (dent doesn't even begin to describe what she has) in her rear. It is completely smooshed. She is also a little drafty. Only her front two doors open. The back is only accessible by climbing in through the front. In some ways, our poor little Roxanne looks deformed. But she isn't. She is beautiful and wonderful.
I love her.
She has to put up with so much.
She has to put up with incessant teasing about how deformed she looks. People always ask what happened in horror. And they say it like it is her fault. It wasn't. The other car ran into us. Roxanne was a victim of a cruel crime. And now, she is suffering the consequences.
But the new thing that she has to put up with is just annoying and discriminatory.
In Colorado it is against the law to not have insurance.
Luke and I obey that law.
We have insurance on our poor, beat-up Roxanne.
When we resurrected Roxanne, we were warned that we would get pulled over a lot.
I don't know if I believed them.
Everything went fine for over a year. We didn't really get pulled over. We were happy. Roxanne was happy.
Then, a few months ago, it happened.
We were driving home from Colorado Springs late at night, when we saw flashing lights behind us. Of course, our first reaction was that we must have been speeding. (Have you ever driven home from Colorado Springs late at night?) When the officer came over to the window, we handed him our information and our insurance card. He said that he had pulled us over because our tail light was out. He gave us a warning and let us go.
That incident began the questioning in our minds. A tail light out? Or was there more?
A few days later, Luke got pulled over in Arvada. Our tail light was out. Again another warning.
We began to get a little suspicious.
About a month later, we got pulled over again. Our tail light was out. We left with a warning.
Now, we should have just fixed the tail light and made it more difficult to pull us over. But we also began to see something. We had gotten pulled over three times in a month or two. And had been let off with warnings. We had gotten pulled over for seemingly insignificant things.
I began to get upset.
In Colorado, you have to have just cause to pull someone over.
It began to feel like we were getting pulled over because the police thought we didn't have insurance. That is a much bigger ticket than a tail light being out. They used the tail light as a means to pull us over.
As much as this annoyed me, the last instance made me furious.
Luke was driving to work at about 4:30 a.m. He saw two police cars ahead of him, and so he made sure he wasn't speeding.
The police were stopped at a red light.
Luke began to slow down for the light.
The light turned green.
Luke went through the green light and passed the police who were sitting at the light.
The police turned on their lights and pulled Luke over.
The policewoman who came to the window said that he had been going 60 miles per hour.
Luke was furious. There was no way he could have been going 60. He was on Buckley, slowing down for a red light with two police cars in front of him. He wasn't going 60.
Luke gave her his licence, registration, and insurance card.
After spending a few minutes shining her flashlight into the back of Roxanne and checking out his information.
She said, "Well, SINCE ALL YOUR INFORMATION CHECKS OUT, I'm not going to give you a ticket."
AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
All she wanted was to see if we had insurance. She couldn't even give him a ticket, because I'm sure she hadn't actually clocked him at all. She just used that as an excuse to pull him over.
When I heard about this, I was livid.
Just because Roxanne has been hit, does NOT mean that we don't keep insurance on her.
Why do they discriminate against poor Roxanne?
It wasn't her fault.
And it isn't ours.
So, Roxanne, although you are a victim of discrimination, we still love you. And we will drive you proudly.
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