Normally, this blog is simply a place for me to vent my outrage about what is occurring in our world today. I don't get that personal, really. Even when something personal has happened in my life that compels me to write here, I try to write in such a way that it is universal and expresses a social viewpoint. This blog has helped me to view the world more third-person.

Sure, only two people have voted on the future of this site, and one of those votes is mine, but that's okay. As much as I would like people to read this, I write it for me.

Today, I do have to share a personal experience. It happened to me last night, and the profundity of it has not completely sunk in.

I left a friend's house last night at about 10:30 and I'm standing on the train platform to head home. I'm at Thorndale in the Edgewater neighborhood here in Chicago; I feel safe there -- used to live up there -- but it's still fairly urban with some empty, run down storefronts and such.

I see no one else on the platform. It's not cold, but chilly enough for me to thrust my hands in my coat pockets. In my right pocket, I find a matchbook with three matches. So I get a bright idea -- I'll light a match and warm my hands. I do so, and meanwhile I'm looking at the other two matches.

I'm not afraid to admit it: Even though I'm 28 years old, I like fire. I light matches all the time, play with lighters, drip candle wax on stuff. Yes, it's a juvenile and primitive, but it's not destructive.

I light the other two matches with the lit match and watch it burn, book and all. Now that I've satisfied my boyhood instinct, I throw the burning matchbook down and stomp on it, effectively quashing the fire.

Just as I begin the momentum to bend over to pick up the remnants of my pyromania, a man walks up to me, 6' 3", 220 pounds or so, wearing a black hoodie and carrying a green backpack. I'm not far from the Loyola University campus, so I'm thinking this is a college student. He saw me light something, drop it on the ground, and stomp on it, so perhaps he's looking for a cigarette.

"Hey, what's up?" the man says to me, as he unzips his hoodie to reveal a badge. Another cop in a green parka comes around into my view; he looks no older than me.

In Chicago, it's illegal to smoke on the train platforms. I'm pretty sure it's illegal to light matches, too. Yes, I was stupid and I had probably broken the law, so I cooperated. I presented my ID when he asked for it. I happily answered his question when he asked me why I was burning the matches. As soon as the answer came out of my mouth -- "My hands were cold" -- I knew it sounded like a lie. What kind of a lame ass excuse is "My hands were cold" when a cop asks you why you were burning matches on an El platform?

He starts searching my pockets, asks me if I had any dope. No. Why did I have the matches? I'm a smoker, but I don't have any cigarettes with me right now. Do I have any pipes? No, sir. He finds my disk-on-key right after asking me if I had any pipes, and I had to explain three times what it is before he got it. "Does the FBI know you have this?" I laugh nervously as he gives me my keys back. He asks me one more time why I was burning the matches, and I answer the question with more verbosity. Yes, my hands were cold, but I was bored and I lit the last two matches. I put them out and had every intention of throwing them away. I meant no harm.

As I'm explaining my more honest answer, he's doing a quick search through my bag while I'm wearing it. The other cop says to me, "Dude, you can put your hands down." I didn't even notice I had put them up. The casualness tells me that I'm fine, that there won't be any problem.

Then it changed.

The officer searching me closes my bag after his quick, perfunctory search and sees my button. It reads, "I love my country but I fear my government."

The officer reads the button out loud and adds, "So, am I a part of the government?"

My response was, "No, you're simply ensuring the safety of this train platform." I didn't say it with any malice or pithiness. It was an honest answer.

"Why don't you take that bag off so I can get a better look through it?"

I now get the full search. I'm asked two more times if I have drugs or paraphernalia. The green parka-clad officer takes everything out of my bag, examines my PDA, rifles through all of the pockets, opens the cases of every CD and MiniDV tape in there. The other cop is frisking me, removing everything from my pockets.

I knew that the only reason this was happening was due to my viewpoint. I looked around for a witness, but everyone else was all the way on the other end of the platform, no one close enough to see what was happening. I thought to protest and ask for a badge number, but decided against it. Then it really started to hit me. If I ask for a badge number, I'll get harassed more. If I protest, I'll get the ticket for lighting the matches. If I complain about being thoroughly searched because of my beliefs, I'll be arrested. No matter what the situation, even one as silly and innocuous as mine was, police always have the upper hand, and too many officers are all too willing to abuse it.

I also thought that it could have been worse. I was wearing my work clothes and a clean leather coat, and I had a fancy disk-on-key and a PDA -- the cop in the hoodie at one point said, "We got a gadget-head here." If I had looked like a pot smoker or anything less than middle class, it could have been worse. If I had been African American, or worse yet Arab American, it could have really been worse.

At the end of it when they found nothing, they handed me back all of my stuff in the condition I gave it to them. I apologized for my actions, and they walked away, leaving me with a warning. They were courteous at the end, but it was pretty obvious that they wanted to rattle me because of my political stance. I wasn't detained or roughed up, I didn't resist, and I suppressed my fear as best I could. I was a "good citizen" during the whole event because the consequences of objecting could have been worse. Yes, officer, you win.

Today, I'm wrestling with the significance of it all. It hardly registers on the scale of abusive police actions. I can't stop thinking, however, of what it means. I don't qualify as a victim -- Rodney King was a victim. Was it an orange alert thing? Was it simply ideologies butting heads? I lit a match and had a dumb excuse for it -- is that enough probable cause to search for drugs? And does having a button that expresses an oppositional viewpoint make me an enemy combatant? My mind is spinning, and I'm not sure if what happened last night will ever totally make sense to me.

I'm not filing a report or anything. No harm was done, and the whole event was at most insipid. It does demonstrate something, only I'm not sure what that is yet.

By the way, the matchbook was still on the ground after they walked way. They could have given me a ticket for littering.