Paul Revere and the Time Warp.

Upon seeing his signal in the belfry of Old North Church, the prototypical American hero threw his leg over his horse and galloped off to alert the Minutemen to impending danger. So intent was he on his crucial task that he failed to notice the zone of shimmering light on the road until he rode through it. The cyan shimmer faded and was replaced by strobing flashes of blue and red. His path was blocked by two cumbersome wagons marked with "Massachusetts State Police", yet no horses were in sight. Two official-looking young men with unusual lanterns and practically shaved heads signaled him to a halt. "Stand aside!" he shouted, "I must warn the militia in Lexington and Concord; the army is coming to seize their arms!" The two men glanced sidelong at each other, as if to say "We've got a live one here..." and approached Revere, unsnapping their holsters and resting their hands on their pistols.

"Excuse me sir, may I see your license, registration and proof of insurance for your, uh, conveyance, there?" asked the younger one.

"What do you mean?" Paul half-yelled, disbelievingly. "Please, good sir, I must warn the militia..."

"I'm sure you must, sir. License, please?"

"A license? To travel? Have you lost your mind?"

The officers exchanged glances again. "Step down off the horse, please, sir. We're going to do a little field sobriety test."

Following the officer's instructions, and literally shaking from the stress of the delay to his vital ride, Revere's finger missed the tip of his nose by a good three inches. Worse, as he leaned back to try again, his coat fell open and he felt a hand snatch his flintlock pistol from his belt. "Lemme guess, sir," sighed the policeman, "you ain't got a license for this, either?"

"A license for a pistol? I've never heard such utter..."

"Didn't think so," muttered the officer, cuffing Paul Revere with his partner's assistance and then shoving him into the back of the squad car after a brief struggle and much shouting about "... but Liberty depends on..." and such.

(Back in the city his accomplices, a Mr. Newman and a Capt. Pulling, were proned out by a SWAT team in the belfry of the Old North Church when Bostonians, seeing the light of their blinking lanterns, mistook them for a terrorist bomb and called 911 on their cell phones...)