coffee is bae

many years ago, when my father was a young man, he was living in London, and he was not doing so in the strictly legal sense. plus he was squatting, and one of his roommates was a burglar. like, full on breaking into homes and stealing TVs kind of guy. not a group of people who wanted to attract the attention of police.

so one day, my dad dropped that roommate off at work (someone's house, I assume), and went to drive back to their squat on his roommate's motorcycle. let's assume the vehicle itself was of questionable legality, and my dad for sure didn't have a license to drive it. let alone anything that said that he was allowed to be in England in the first place. and my dad

gets caught

in a roundabout.

he cannot figure out how to get out. he hadn't been in the country too long, and was still figuring out how to navigate all of the weird things that for sure did not exist in Israel or Greece or anywhere else he had lived. and you know what? fair. I DID grow up in a country with those cursed circles, and I struggle with them sometimes myself.

now in this particular roundabout, there was a police car parked at the center, and those police officers watched him go around two times. and he figured that if he went around a third time, the police would pull him over and ask for documentation that he did not have.

now, another fact about my dad is that he has balls of steel. this man has made many choices that I would describe as....unwise. many of those choices involve brashly making illegal choices right in front of authority figures, and then talking himself out of them like a snake oil salesman.

so my dad. he drives that motorcycle right up to the cops at the center of that roundabout, and he says "excuse me. I'm a foreigner in your country, and I'm stuck in this roundabout. can you help me get out?"

and who would do that if they had anything to hide? that is a move made by someone who believes that police always act in his best interest. nothing suspicious going on here!