An Arizona Highway Patrol officer stops a Harley rider!

Sensing a potential “nut case” or perhaps just an eccentric soul of the road, the officer decided to play along. He was leaning toward writing a warning rather than a fine, provided the old man wasn’t intentionally being difficult. “Now look, Fred,” the officer said, leaning against the patrol car. “Everyone has a last name. You can’t just lose it. How exactly does a man lose his surname?”

The old biker sighed, a faraway look entering his eyes. “It’s a long story, Officer, so you’d better stay with me. I wasn’t always ‘Just Fred.’ I was born Fred Johnson. I was a bright kid—studied hard, kept my nose in the books, and eventually realized my calling was in medicine. I plowed through college, survived medical school, endured my internship, and finished my residency. Finally, I had that framed degree on the wall. I was Fred Johnson, MD.”

The officer nodded, intrigued by the sudden shift from biker to intellectual. Fred continued, “After a decade of the stethoscope and the hospital rounds, I got bored. I needed a new challenge, so I went back to school for my real dream: dentistry. I passed the boards and got that second degree. Suddenly, I was Fred Johnson, MD, DDS. Life was good, but boredom is a dangerous thing for a man like me. I started fooling around with my dental assistant, and as luck would have it, she gave me a parting gift: a case of VD.”

The officer’s eyebrows shot up, but Fred didn’t miss a beat. “Well, word travels fast in professional circles. The American Dental Association found out about the VD, and they decided that a dentist with such a condition wasn’t fit for the chair. They stripped me of my credentials. So there I was: Fred Johnson, MD, with VD. Then, the American Medical Association caught wind that the ADA had pulled my license because of the VD. They followed suit and took away my medical license too. That left me as plain old Fred Johnson with VD.”

Fred paused, a look of profound, tragic irony crossing his face. “And then, Officer, the ultimate blow fell. The VD eventually took away my ‘Johnson.’ So, as you can see, I am quite literally Just Fred.”

The officer stood there for a moment, the desert silence hanging between them, before he doubled over. He walked back to his patrol car in tears, his laughter echoing across the salt flats, unable to even think about writing a ticket for a man who had lost so much of his identity to such a specific sequence of unfortunate events.

But humor, much like the law, has a way of manifesting in different forms depending on the town and the temperament of the local police. While the Arizona Highway Patrolman was laughing in the desert, a very different scene was unfolding in a small, quiet town several hundred miles away. In this town, the law was less about philosophical bikers and more about the rigid enforcement of Main Street’s speed limits.

A local police officer, known more for his authoritarian streak than his sense of humor, pulled over a motorist who had been flying through the center of town. The driver, a young man in a tuxedo, looked panicked. As the officer approached the window, the man gasped, “But officer, please, I can explain—”

“Save it!” the officer snapped, his hand resting on his belt. “I’ve heard every excuse in the book. You were doing forty-five in a twenty-five. I’m going to let you cool your heels in a cell until the Chief gets back from his afternoon errands. Maybe then you’ll learn some respect for the local ordinances.”

“But officer, I just wanted to say—” the man tried again, his voice rising in desperation.

“And I said keep quiet! You’re going to jail!” The officer marched the man to the station, booked him, and locked him behind bars. He ignored the man’s pleas, convinced that a few hours of incarceration would do the speeder some good.

A few hours later, the officer felt a twinge of guilt, or perhaps just curiosity. He walked back to the holding area to check on his prisoner. The man was sitting on the edge of the cot, his tuxedo rumpled, his head in his hands, looking utterly defeated. The officer, trying to offer a meager olive branch, leaned against the bars. “Look, kid, don’t be so gloomy. It’s your lucky day. The Chief is currently at his daughter’s wedding. He’s going to be in a fantastic mood when he gets back here to process your release. He might even let you off with a slap on the wrist.”

The man looked up from his hands, his expression one of pure, unadulterated misery. “Don’t count on it,” he whispered, the gloom in the cell becoming almost suffocating.

The officer chuckled. “Why not? A wedding is a celebration! He’ll be the happiest man in town.”