The bus was there at the station across the street and I didn't want to miss it. I hurried to the corner, stopped, looked up at the crossing signal, which was red, then looked both ways. No traffic in sight. Bus about to leave without me. Just as I started across the street against the red light, I noticed that someone on the other side of the street was dressed oddly. In uniform. A police officer? I looked again. Yes, a police officer was heading across the street towards me against a red light. It took about two more steps for me to realize fully that I was breaking a law while walking directly towards a police officer. And another step to know that I wasn't going to stop. I had to catch the bus. This police officer was at least 15 years younger than me. When I was about half-way across the street, I saw that the police officer was following a man who was crossing in the opposite direction. “Hey, you aren't supposed to...” I heard the police officer say as he followed the man. The man seemed to be ignoring the officer and was bent for the corner where I had started from. We were two jaywalkers trading street corners while ignoring a police officer. As the officer and I passed each other in the middle of the street, he hesitated and began to say something to me. “I'm sorry,” I said, “but I have to catch that bus.” I pointed at the bus on the corner and kept going, hoping the policeman wouldn't decide to drop the other jaywalker and follow me instead.
After getting safely onto the bus, sans policeman, I wondered at my behavior. I hadn't even hesitated as I crossed the street. Catching my bus was clearly more important to me than avoiding censure for jaywalking from a police officer. When did this happen to me? When did I pass the point where I get to decide what makes sense, which laws I will follow and which ones I'll ignore, which persons of authority I will defer to and which ones I'll ignore? When, for that matter, did police officers get younger than me?
