Why is it that you always feel guilty when a Garda car pulls up behind you? And why do you feel like blurting out every single indiscretion of your life and throwing yourself at the mercy of any cop that stops you at a routine tax and insurance checkpoint?
Even if you've done nothing wrong, never gone over the speed limit, never broken a red light, never driven erratically, you always feel like a little boy about to be told off for being naughty when you see the law. It's illegitimate guilt, often totally irrational, but an integral part most humans' psyche. And I'm a divil for it.
A few weeks ago, I was driving home from Clare. I was tootling along on the Dublin side of Kildare town when I saw a Garda checkpoint ahead. As I slowed down, I immediately felt guilty. Even though I had done nothing wrong. Well, nothing he could possibly know about, anyway.
All manner of scenarios went through my head - some notorious knicker thief had been spotted in the area driving an ancient old green beemer and I was about to be dragged out of the driver's seat and birched; this fella wasn't a cop at all, but a hijacker dressed up and poised to make off with my precious banger; a Garda helicopter had scoped me back in Laois cruising at a sinful two kilometres over the limit . . .
All of these possibilities and more rushed through my brain. Hardly surprising, considering my mental condition. I'd just come off a week of working nightshifts, I'd had around two hours sleep, had spent four hours driving, five hours surfing and was now three hours into the drive home. I'd had far too much caffeine and I'd given up nicotine that morning. I probably should have been tucked up in a warm cosy bed, but instead here I was on the edge of the Curragh, edging towards what I imagined was my downfall.
I pulled up alongside the Garda, pressed the button and tried to look as nonchalant as possible as the window slid down, even though my heart felt like George W Bush's brain cell, rattling furiously in an empty space.
He looked about 12. He smiled, bid me good evening and pointed his torch in at the passenger seat, which was lain flat with a surfboard on top of it.
"Tell me this," said he. "Did you ever try and stand up on the surfboard after 14 pints of stout?"
Honest. On my dead childhood pet's grave. That's what he said. I nearly wet myself. "No, garda, no I haven't," I said, barely able to suppress my giggles.
He asked for my driving licence. As I rummaged for the shameful, scrunched-up provisional licence I kept stashed about my person, he flicked the torch over at the various bits of paper stuck to my windscreen that prove I'm a grand law-abiding citizen.
He looked at my licence. "Well, I see by your L-plates that your intentions are good. You should technically have someone with you . . . (which, bizarrely, isn't true in Ireland when on your second provisional, but I wasn't going to get into a debate on the subject) . . . but the auld surfboard will have to do for now, eh?"
He gave me a conspiratorial wink and bid me on my way. And, although I'd done nothing wrong and had a good chuckle at this kindly young man's expense, I still felt as if I'd just gotten away with some heinous crime that I didn't even know existed.
And now, do you know what? Now I feel guilty for slagging him off, nice chap that he was. Sheesh, there's no winning, is there? Bloody Catholicism, it's a bugger.
