Even though I desperately want to be a free-spirited, stick-it-to-the-man, Wall-Street-occupying Bohemian, I am a rule follower. In grade school, getting my name on the board was the worst fate imaginable. One of my teachers, knowing that I never got into trouble, put my name on the board as an April Fool's Day joke. I cried and cried. She quickly erased it when she realized she might have done permanent damage.
To me, getting pulled over (by the way, I wasn't the one driving) was like getting my name on the board to the tenth degree.
"How fast do you think you were going?" the very young-looking police officer asked us.
"Eighty-four," said Dan.
You have to understand that Dan is an engineer. If he says he was going eighty-four, he was going 84. He is incapable of lying even in attempt to get out of a ticket.
Also, he has this theory about speeding on the freeway. He hypothesizes that he won't get pulled over if he drives nine miles per hour over the limit. Ten, yes, but not nine. He sets the cruise and goes. That is how he knew he was going eighty-four.
"I clocked you at ninety-two."
"Oh."
In the course of our conversation with the officer, we learned that he had clocked us from the other side of the freeway, while he was driving the opposite direction, and had flipped around and cut through the median to catch up with us. We started to wonder if someone else had been going ninety-two, and he had pulled over the wrong car.
But eighty-four was still ticket-worthy.
First, the officer asked if we had our car rental documents. We told him we were the owners of the car.
My brother, who was the reason we were driving so fast to Pocatello, later explained that, "Nobody drives hybrids in this part of Idaho. He probably thought you weren't from around here."
Then, the officer asked for our registration. I know what the vehicle registration is, but I was nervous, and I started pulling out everything in the glove compartment. I tried to hand him anything but the car registration in my confusion - a road map, a Safeco claim guide, a box of tampons. Finally, I settled on two insurance cards and that elusive registration.
"At least we weren't listening to Public Enemy or Ice-T," I said to Dan while the officer checked up on us.
(I am pretty sure we were listening to "21st Century Breakdown" by Green Day.)
"I wasn't going ninety-two. I think he might have clocked someone else."
The officer returned and said, "You have a good driving record, and I'm going to help you keep it that way. I'm not going to write you a ticket."
Dan and I exchanged an astonished look.
"Just remember, seventy-five means seventy-five or slower. Not eighty-four."
He wasn't even mentioning "ninety-two" anymore.
In the end, I think he believed Dan. What liar would admit he was going eighty-four? Dan hadn't even stumbled and said he was driving "around eighty" or "close to eighty-five." What dishonest person is that specific?
We also noticed that the police officer dashed past us before we could even get back on the road. He pulled over a white Cruiser ahead of us. Could this be the vehicle he had actually clocked at ninety-two?
"He was just doing his job. If I were going ninety-two, I would have pulled me over too," Dan said as we pulled off the shoulder and back onto the freeway. "Cops are looking younger nowdays, aren't they?"
At dinner that night, I told my brother and his wife that both of us had just remained respectful and calm. In my case, I was most likely just frozen in terror, reliving that dreadful April Fool's Day when I saw my name on the board.
"Calm? You?" asked my brother.
"Well, I guess I giggled a little and tried to hand him a box of tampons."
"Don't do that. He'll think you're high."
For the latest blog updates, visit and "like" Rebecca Turner-Duggan
Check out more of my work in:
No comments:
Post a Comment