Story time.

This is a really old one, but when I was a young kid, we had a PC game called “Test Drive 2: The Duel.” You were a racer trying to beat a specific time, and there were speed traps. You had a radar detector that would alert you to speed traps, and if you were speeding, the cops would pull you over and write you a ticket before letting you continue. Of course, getting a ticket would ruin your time.

So I tried to slow down so I wasn’t speeding whenever the radar detector went off. I could never get the required times, no matter what I tried, because there was always a speed trap on every level. Eventually I complained to my brother, who had beaten the game several times over. He watched me playing once, and when he was like, “Why are you slowing down?!” Because I don’t want to get pulled over. “Your car is faster than the police car!”

I had been playing the game for weeks, and it never occurred to me to try to outrun the police. I’d see lights and sirens in the rearview, and I’d just pull over like a responsible citizen.

So I hit the gas and watched the police shrink in the rearview and eventually disappear on the horizon, and then I had to rethink everything about my life up to that point.