I don't take a speeding ticket lightly. They're expensive, and how much fun is it to sit by the road with a cruiser sitting behind you, lights flashing. There's no way that makes you look good, and no way to be invisible. Passers-by look at you smugly and feel really superior, not because they're great drivers, but because they didn't get caught. I know this first-hand obviously, because those are my thoughts. Then after I witness someone pulled over, I usually piously slow down for 15 minutes which I believe is known as the "halo effect."
Recently I was driving my parents to their doctor visit when I noticed a speeding police car behind me, lights flashing, so I immediately got to the side of the road to let him pass. In a quick flash I realized that the cruiser was not trying to pass me at all. I told my parents that it was me that was being pulled over. (I believe the proper grammar here is "It was I" but can you imagine how that would sound? "Mom, dad, it is I that is being pulled over." anyway...)
I wasn't panicked because I didn't really know what I had done wrong. I'm very careful about applying lipstick or mascara at red lights only, just like the PA Code of Driving says, but I started to get my license out anyway, since I figured at some point the officer probably would want to know who I was.
When I began to roll down my window, the "Bad Boys, Bad Boys" song started to play in my head as my mom leans over and starts to holler, "we can't do this, we have to get to a doctor appointment!" I think, "Oh man, am I wearing underwear that would be fit to be seen running in, for the "Cops" episode in which I was going to appear?" I calmly said, "Mom!" Mom has selective hearing, and clearly had not heard me. Again, though louder, "Mom!" No hint of recognition. Was I not her child for 55 years? This time, I said "Mom, Seriously!!" I unclenched my teeth when I said hello to the officer coming up to my window. Silently I prayed, Please, please, let the nice officer be hard of hearing!
She told me I had been doing 44 in a 25 zone, and the location where she had clocked me. She was calm and efficient, having no idea what she was in for, as she asked to see my license and registration. I was driving my parents' car, which I believe is the uniform car for every person over 65 in York County, and they all seem to curiously be the same color, some sort of hunter green. I asked mom for the registration.
But mom is busy--she needs to convince the nice officer that it wasn't my fault at all, but hers, because she had been talking to me. I apparently was just a blow-up doll there to make things look legitimate, since mom totally ignored me. The officer remained professional as she tried to get a word in edgewise between my mom declaring her point, and me trying to say "mom, I< was driving, it is MY fault." Now you know how a mother's tone can get, and mom's was just that way as she scolded me for trying to tell the officer that it was my fault, not hers.
The officer remained professional, although I believe she was beginning to wonder if this was gonna turn out to be a little more problematic. Now my mom can multitask with the best of them, and was accomplishing all this while still trying to produce the registration. She pulled out a wallet that I am not kidding you is almost 3 inches thick. My dad, quietly sitting in the back, was starting to worry me. "Are you okay back there?" A muted grunt was the response, but he still had color so I got back to the subject at hand. The officer told me at that point that it was okay, she had my license, and the registration wasn't the big concern at that moment.
Then mom starts to say that she's going to pay the fine, which at this point is sort of jumping the gun. Quietly I think, we'll deal with that later. But mom says, if the officer knows that we're trying to make the doctor appointment on time, she'd let us go. Bless her heart, my mom really, really loves me. She was still looking for her registration, and was down to the third or fourth level in her wallet.
When the officer comes back to the car, she told us all to keep calm. I could've done that better, had I not noticed that now there was ANOTHER cruiser, complete with flashing lights that had joined the frenzy. I commented on the fact that double-teaming me made look even worse. She told me it was routine, and it was for her safety. Did my mom have a "Rep?" She's a sweet little white haired great-grandma of 85, with no rap sheet, but I guess her reputation preceeded her.
Officer #1 glanced at my dad in the back seat and asked if he was okay. I'm not sure how he answered, I believe he was having flashbacks from the Big One, WWII, but he still had color which came to be our point of reference for his level of consciousness.
The officer produced my canary copy of the ticket, told me how much the fine would be, and the rest of the information I needed to know, ending in expensive. Don't think for a moment that mom was going to give up, she was still trying to convince the officer that she should hand the ticket to her. I signed the ticket, much to mom's displeasure.
I couldn't help but laugh at the whole situation, since I was picturing it all as an episode on "Cops." My face was bright red from laughter, which I should add my mom later reported to the doctor as being a side effect of my medicine.
As the officer began to wrap up the stop, we realized we had a mutual friend/relative, and so it ended up okay, because it was a little more relaxed. She was great, and I'm not trying to kiss up to her, because number one, I already had gotten the ticket, and number two, what are the chances she'll ever read this?
We arrived at the doctor's office approximately 4 minutes late, which for anyone who knows me, including my doctor, knows it was a miracle in itself. One of the worst parts of the whole episode was that for once, uncharacteristically, I would've been ON TIME., But it didn't count!
We had to tell the doctor what had happened because I looked contrite, my mom looked defeated, and my dad just looked dazed. Our doctor told my parents that they would never die of boredom having me as a daughter.
As a postscript, my mom's burning question for the doctor was to ask if she could begin driving again after a "leave of absence" she'd had from some medical problems.
Another postscript--mom finally did find her registration, and told me proudly she always knows where both copies are. "Both?" "Yes," she said, "I always keep one in the glove compartment."
Last postscript--The doctor's wife/receptionist asked my parents when the visit was over if they wanted her to call them a cab.
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