Thanks FPD

Just wanted to shout out a thanks to the police officer who pulled me over for speeding today and DID NOT give me a ticket. I owe the smaller Dixon Chicks for this one.

My early driving years were filled with angst for my parents. I rear ended someone in my first car on an overpass. I then rolled the same small hatchback car, stuffed with three friends, off a highway due to speeding and other stupid teenage antics while driving. Totaled that car. Then, I almost drove myself and a friend over an embankment while driving around an L turn in a new mall and simultaneously trying to change a tape. So, you think I'd have learned by now. Especially with my own children in the car. Sigh.

To get to our house we have to drive almost a mile on a 2 lane road that circles around our neighborhood for 4 miles. The speed limit is 30. I regularly speed on this road for various stupid reasons:

- Apparently, I like to drive too fast.
- I hate hearing screaming children in the backseat and just want to get home.
- I'm constantly late.

So I pull onto this road, speed up, and then immediately see the 2 motorcycle cops; one writing a ticket and the other just getting back onto his motorcycle. So I slow down quickly, but not before he pulls right out and flashes the light. Damn! I pull over and he comes over and asks for my license and registration. He then comes back and tells me he pulled me over as I was going 45 in a 30 zone. Then he asks me why I was speeding. I tell him my daughter was screaming in the back seat because she was hungry and I was trying to get home to feed her. (while not entirely true at that moment, it does happen often) He looks back at Katherine and then at Natalie and smiles and says she must be hungry too. I give him a lame smile and he says that the ticket is $241 and that he'll give me a warning this time. I am so thankful I could kiss him! I was fully prepared to accept the ticket I deserved and come home and have Dean be really angry, but today I got lucky. And you know what? I'm going to take this lesson and drive 30 on the road from now on. All the neighborhood teenagers will hate and curse me I'm sure, but I don't care.

In the meantime, as I drove home from the incident, another 1/2 mile, by the time I turned into my neighborhood I had five cars behind me. And guess what? They were all going 30mph.