...when I got a speeding ticket.

Pretty sure that everyone knows driving over the speed limit is against the law.  Also pretty sure that doesn't keep very many of us from doing it, or from feeling completely indignant about being caught and prosecuted for doing it.

Some people can break every speed limit that's ever been posted by at least 20 mph and get out of each and every ticket with a warning.  I contend these warnings are wasted, because these people then go on to speed some more, since they only got a warning.  Whereas I, diligent and responsible citizen that I am, only go on to get more tickets despite having been punished for breaking the law the first time and fully intending never to do it again.  It doesn't matter what I do.  I have the worst luck with law enforcement.

Case in point, the first time I got pulled over, it was by a male cop, I bawled like a baby, and yet I got three tickets.  A completely clean record served as evidence that I wasn't a rampant lawbreaker, and again, I bawled like a baby.  But still.  That cop looked at me and said "this girl needs to be punished for THREE DIFFERENT THINGS.  That'll show her."  The kicker?  I wasn't even speeding.  He was going the other way on a six-lane highway in the country's fourth-largest city (Houston, TX) and he saw my expired inspection sticker from THE OTHER SIDE OF THE HIGHWAY.  And then he TURNED AROUND ACROSS THAT SIX-LANE HIGHWAY to come get me.

But I didn't intend to talk about that time.  I intended to talk about this last time, when I was cruisin' through Texas to visit the parents.  I wasn't even speeding on purpose, which I'll admit, I sometimes do.  No, I was legitimately speeding by accident.  And that is when I got in trouble.

In the initial terror of getting pulled over, I always run through all of the contingency plans I came up with in times of non-terror.

Plan A: flirt shamelessly, deflect hatred.

Plan B: act insane, cause confusion.

Plan C: Mardi Gras in New Orleans.

But of course, these plans are ridiculous.  None of them are feasible.  Let's just take a look at them.  Respectively, A) I am horrible at flirting under stress, B) I would most likely get my license taken away and be institutionalized for observation, and C) yeah, right.

When the cop swaggered up to my window, I was effectively left without a contingency plan.  So I did what I always do when I'm getting in trouble - I told the truth and then I cried.

A number of thoughts went through my head after the cop walked back to finish filling out the form that I'm absolutely certain he'd begun before even getting out of his car.  Seriously, he was already writing when he walked up to my window, in a grand "I really don't give a damn about what you think you were doing, I'm nailin' you to the wall, sucker" kind of gesture.

But as I was saying, a number of thoughts:

When he came back, I had mostly gotten the running-mascara situation under control.  Only to burst into fresh tears when he started shouting at me again.

And then I just got mad.  Did I not TELL him I would have been going the speed limit if I had seen the sign?  I know he heard me because I told him three different times, in between him asking me how to pronounce my last name, which he did twice.  Hence my conviction that he was putting out an APB.  No, the only possibility left is that he blatantly ignored my story because he didn't believe me.

This happens a lot.  Cops never believe me.  Ever.  No matter what I'm doing, they assume I'm lying.  Which baffles me, because if you knew me (and most of you do, except for maybe the reader Google tells me is in Germany - guten tag!) you would know that I am physically the furthest thing from appearing criminal.  And yet, cops always approach me with suspicion.

Anyway, I've decided that some good citizen in East Texas really needs to put up first a warning sign that the speed limit is about to change,

and then put up a another, more explicit warning sign.

That would be the best of all good deeds right there.


*Note: I am typically against multiple punctuation, but I feel this situaiton warranted it since there was an umistakable quality to this cop's tone.

Another Note: I am also typically against spelling out East Texas accents phonetically, because they're always used to make people sound stupid, and I do not feel that they can always and unfailingly and without exceptions be used to gauge a person's intelligence.  But again, there was an unmistakable quality to this cop's tone.

Yet Another Note: Please overlook the absurd number of parantheses in this entry.  Unless I've given you a hard time previously about the number of parantheses you use.  Then you're free to lambast me.

A Final Note: If you're ever stuck behind someone who absolutely refuses to go even 1 mph over the speed limit, please don't glare at him or her with hatred and ostentiously pass him or her up on the road while ogling out your window to see if he or she is old or illegal.  He or she might have just gotten pulled over.

A Final Final Note: I apologize for the bitterness in this post.  I tried to leave it at the log-in screen, but I think I might have failed.  Stupid cop doing his stupid job.

Because there were so many notes to get through at the end of this one, I drew some bonus pictures.  Think Superman.

You're welcome.