Oh my God, my friends, even though this happened on Friday—a whole four days ago—I’m still relishing the instant karma I was fortunate enough witness go down while I was driving. I can’t wait to tell you about it.
On Friday evening, Jalopnik’s Raphael Orlove, Deadspin’s Dvora Meyers and I were cruising along I-84 in Connecticut in our borrowed Mercedes-Maybach S560. I was at the wheel, our car in a group of maybe five or six other cars scattered across all three lanes of our bit of highway.
Suddenly, we heard the unmistakable hum of an engine approaching, fast, from behind, growing louder and louder. A white 2010-ish V6 Camaro with two black racing stripes went shooting past us in the middle lane. Now, there is nothing inherently wrong with a V6 Camaro, but this Camaro in particular was just guilty being too much of a V6 Camaro.
We were going about 70 mph, so the Camaro must have been doing about 95 to 100 mph, judging by the passing speed. Not terribly fast, but still dangerous.
Shortly after the Camaro passed, we heard the muted roar of another engine following behind. “That must be one of the Camaro driver’s street racing buddies,” I thought to myself, irritated. But as the second car sped past the Maybach, we realized it wasn’t just another driver, it was a cop in a Ford Expedition, and not even an unmarked one at that.
And before our very eyes, the magnificent scene unfolded: Whether the Camaro driver realized he was being tailed by a cop or not, he still refused to slow down when he approached a pack of cars and instead went to swerve very aggressively around them. Then the cop hit him with the reds and blues and pulled his ass over.
We cheered.
In my most ideal version of myself, I like to think that I’m empathetic and compassionate. That I’m patient and kind and I only want the best for everyone that I encounter. But the reality is that I’m a wrathful motherfucker and I absolutely live for this shit.
The high from that instant karma of the Camaro driver getting pulled over will sustain the wrath monster that lives in my cold heart for the next six months, I already know it. When I told the rest of my coworkers this story today, I did so gleefully and did absolutely nothing to smother it.
Does reveling in other people’s misfortune make me a bad person, even though they were driving dangerously and aggressively? Am I shitty for laughing very hard when Raph joked that the cop’s name was almost certainly HotRod McFreedom and that he handed the Camaro driver a coupon for two more cylinders and departed with the words, “Next time, son, drive like an adult”? Probably!
But we also cannot deny that a little karma demon lives inside all of us. And mine was fed last Friday.