Why Did the Sounders Fans Cross the Road?

Last night, Z and I went (as proud Season Ticket Holders) to the inaugural Sounders FC game. Growing up in a country outside the US, my husband is understandably a HUGE fan of the World's Game. And I enjoy watching the game, as well as the hot guys who tend to play it. We were both very excited.

So first and foremost, let me say how much that game kicked ass! Our seats were on the end of the field where we were right next to the end where we scored 2 of the 3 goals, and since they switch sides in the 2nd half, we got to see all of our goal keeper’s amazing saves up close, too! It was so great! My voice went a bit hoarse but Z sounds like he was out all night drinking last night from all the shouting and cheering and celebrating. It only barely sprinkled on us a little bit, so the rain wasn’t a problem after all, which was awesome. And talk about great seats! I was imagining what it must be like to sit there during a Seahawks game. We were in the lowest section, closest to the field, not our usual Seahawks seats in the 2nd to the last row in the tippy top of the stadium. So cool! And we found parking in a lot not too far away for only $5. AND by the time we got back to the car and drove home, we were home by 9 – so it wasn’t even a late night! Such a great game to start the team off with – a 3-0 shutout of a team that was in the MLS Cup Championship game last season!

That was all great and I am not going to let the earlier evening’s unpleasantness overshadow it. However, it bears mention.

So we’re walking from the parking lot to the stadium, down around Pioneer Square. I’m following Z and he decides to cross at a crosswalk where the light is still green but the crosswalk signal is blocked by a bus (from our angle at least – you could see it if we’d waited to start the cross until we were all the way at the edge of the corner, but we didn’t). I figured the signal was probably blinking and we should just wait, but Z starts to quickly walk across the street, so I follow. It wasn’t like there was a long period of time where we thought it over, it all happened in a fraction of a second, ya know? Well another thing blocked by the bus was the traffic cop who was standing on the corner there. Great. He waves us to keep crossing after we’ve started and once we get across he asks to see both of our IDs since we were jaywalking. He then proceeds to talk in an extremely condescending tone to my husband, explaining how we should not have crossed the street when the light was flashing. He was really the stereotype of the asshole cop who seems to need to talk down to people to make himself feel powerful. He was a prick, no doubt about it. Well as you may know, my husband does not like to be talked down to. In fact, he refuses. I appreciate this fact about him. However I disagree with the ways he tends to express his unhappiness. He ends up getting in an argument with the cop and finally just says “Fine, you know what, nevermind. Just give me the ticket so we can get going.” To which the a-hole replies “Alright then, I can do that.”

Lovely.

So we have to follow him over to his car (he’s still holding our licenses so it’s not like we could run) and he proceeds to write out Zaki a ticket for $56. For jaywalking. (For the record, I asked Z later and this is apparently less money than the ticket he got a few months back for speeding 5 whole miles over 60 on I-5 - yes, he was going a whopping 65 on the freeway. So that’s something I suppose.) Once he’s done writing the ticket the jerk asks me if I would be willing to listen to him or if I’d like a ticket, too. I said I’d be fine to just listen to him. And then this jackass proceeds to go over the EXACT SAME things that he was just saying to Z. As if I hadn’t heard him. Again, he just needed to exert his power or something. I just nodded and stayed silent until he gave me my license back so we could get out of there without owing another 56 damn dollars.

As you can imagine, this ruined our moods for a while and we really had to struggle to forget about it.

Anyway, Z says he’s going to fight it. I imagine if he does go in they will reduce the fine but since we were, technically, jaywalking, they won’t throw out the ticket.

So let that be a lesson to you: I had always looked at the flashing crosswalk sign as a signal to hurry up and cross cuz your time was about up. Apparently it REALLY means that you need to stay put so that cars can turn.

Oh, and if you’re gonna stand your ground with an asshole traffic cop, whatever you do, don’t dare him to give you a ticket.