My Arms Are Tired, I’ll Catch A Plane

My Two Most Favorite Jokes
True story and the inspiration for the video.
After the summer of 1976, I bought my first car. I was 16 and the car was too much for a 16 year old kid, but she was mine and I took her everywhere to show off the beauty lines of her 65 body. She had dish-slot mags with larger rims on the rear, custom chrome side pipe exhaust that made beautiful music of that 389 Detroit engine, with headers and custom carburetor. She sounded awesome and was a beauty to look at both outside and inside as well, with her black Pontiac vinyl racing bucket seats, wood trimmed dash and center console which sported the stock Hurst Linkage with T-handle shifter and racing gears, topped off with the GTO Racing Logo adorned both inside and out. She was the first of the muscle cars, a head-turner and she never lost a race.

On the weekends we paraded around on all the Cruise Strips proudly. Close to home in Monterey, the happing place to be was cruising on Calle Principal between Jefferson and Franklin. There’s a duel level parking structure we’d turn around in, check out girls and rev our engines. The City Council and police did their best to disrupt the kids from cruising with various tactics. One such tactic was to alternate the street from a two-way, to one-way, then change the direction, then back the other direction, two-way half-way and so on. One time on a weeknight with nothing to do and no cruise happening, I went cruising anyway. As I made my circle in the parking structure as usual, upon exiting I failed to notice they changed the lane directions again. The officer that was watching for the next sucker to fall for their little trap, had no problem spotting me in my hot-rod and didn’t hesitate to light me up.

Here’s where the jokes come in to play. The officer asked for license and registration followed by routine questioning. He asked where I was coming from and I told him from the airport. He then asked if I had flown in from somewhere else and I said “Yes, and boy are my arms tired”. (Joke 1.) He didn’t get it at first and was caught off guard momentarily, but wasn’t amused when he figured out I was being a Smart Alec. He then asked me if I knew why I was being pulled over and not knowing why I said no. He said “When you came out of the parking garage didn’t you see the arrows?”. I don’t know why, but I just couldn’t help myself and I quickly replied “What arrows? I didn’t even see the Indians”. (Joke 2.) Well, he was caught off guard again, but due to my ridiculously over animated response, he was able to figure out this one much quicker than the other one and angrily barked for me to get out of the car. So I got out and took the butt chewing that I deserved. After more than 30 minutes or so he finally let me go. He cussed me out pretty good from what I remember, but he never gave me a ticket.

Deep down inside, I think he thought the jokes were funny, he just couldn’t let anyone know.