enforcement agents

I was hanging out on the beach in Iraq when two American soldiers arrived. They faced off with some Iraqi sunbathers, West Side Story-style, then pulled small silver cylinders out of their pockets in unison. The cylinders expanded into long tubes, and a bouquet of rounded prongs popped out of the end. The soldiers held the silver contraptions over their heads like chef hats and danced around. You would think it looked ridiculous, but it was actually very menacing and intimidating.

The soldiers pulled hand cranks out of the small end of the silver chef hats, and suddenly I realized they were holding giant mechanical whisks. They inserted the whisks in the sand in front of the Iraqis and mixed the sand up into a frenzy. As they mixed, the whisks expanded to become a set of large wheels, and then two large beach bicycles. The soldiers hopped on the bikes and pedaled off along the beach.

I was about to go for a run, so I ran in their direction. The beach soon ended and became a series of crowded streets filled with bazaars. Most of the stalls were selling discount footwear. I finally caught up with the bicycle-riding soldiers, only to discover they were my friends Jake and Branda. I asked how they made their strange bikes, and Branda told me they got them out of a mail-order catalog for way too much money, considering they were already falling apart after one ride.

Then my mom swung by in a special car for legally blind drivers. We both pretended to be blind, which involved sitting in the back seat and hugging large teddy bears with "legally blind driver" printed across their chests. My mom took a wrong turn into the parking lot where all the cops hang out. "Just play it cool," she said.

Our car coasted through the crowded parking lot like a baby seal through a den of sleeping polar bears. There were all kinds of cops---city cops, state troopers, security guards, park rangers, mounties. I pretended to be blind. Suddenly, a cop was rapping on my window. I rolled it open for him, and he said, "I'm gonna have to take you in."

I said, "But we're legal," and pointed to the teddy bears. We had him, and he knew it, too. But he was on his home turf and had something to prove. He pulled out his baton and lightly rapped it against his palm. I started sweating like crazy. I tried to remind myself that just hearing that noise wouldn't really intimidate a blind person. If anything, it sounded like he was casually applauding our efforts. But out of the corners of my not-actually-blind eyes, I could see the other officers closing in on our car. This wouldn't end well.