No, Officer, I Don’t Know Why You Pulled Me Over

Don’t you hate it when people get away with stuff?  Someone speeds past you and you see a cop but the speeder never gets pulled over?  I have been pulled over numerous times.  The kicker is, I am usually ignorant as to why it happened. 

Episode 1:

Rural-living girl and the second time driving in the big city of Fargo where they had one double turn lane and, from what I remember, thousands of one-way streets.  Freaking scary crap for a new driver.

I turned down a street and began to realize I was going the wrong way.  So I began to speed to get to the next street quickly to turn around.  Yes, in retrospect, this was not the brightest decision out there but it seemed like a good one at the time.  Police car came around and followed me with his lights on. 

POPO:  “Are you old enough to be driving?”

Me:  Insulted that he would assume that, but scared to death he would haul me out of the car and call my parents who lived in a different town.  “Yes.  I just got turned around.”  After rummaging through the smallest purse ever, I handed over my newly made license.

POPO:  “Clearly you were turned around.  Have you ever driven in Fargo before?”

Me:  “Yes but not around here.”

POPO:  “Do you need help to where you are going?”

Me:  “I don’t think so.”  Still gave him the name of the place I was trying to find. 

NOTE:  This was before GPS (my electronic savior)

POPO:  Gave me the step by step, LANDMARKED directions to my destination and asked me to please pay better attention.   

Episode 2:

Headed to work at 6:15 am and see police lights on and make my way over to the side of the street.

POPO: “Are you in a hurry to get somewhere?”

Me:  “Just headed to work, right there (point to the elementary school).”

POPO:  “The reason I pulled you over is that you were speeding through a school zone.”

Me:  (Looking shocked and still trying to process why this mattered when school wouldn’t start for another hour)

POPO:  “10 miles over the actual speed limit.”

Me:  “Oh!  I’m so sorry.”  Although I was scared and a bit shaky, I kept my cool.

POPO:  “Just get to work and slow down.”  Handed me back my information.

Episodes 3 and 4:

Minding my own business and driving the speed limit I noticed the police lights summoning me to pull into a parking lot to the right.  My good friend was in the car and we had something sticking out of my trunk (I can’t remember what is actually was).  I thought I was being pulled over for the trunk item.  

Me:  After we stop I start to get out of the car to explain the trunk item. 

POPO:  Already out of his car, “Ma’am, get back into the car.”

Me:  Slightly offended at the word “Ma’am,” but apparently not listening, I continued and explained, “I was just going to tell you about…”

POPO:  “Ma’am!  Please get back into the car and I will come to you.”

Me:  “Oh, ok.”  I get back into the car.  I had no idea this was a thing. 

POPO:  Coming over to the car.  “Can I see your license in and insurance?”

Me:  Handing over information.

POPO:  “The reason we pulled you over was because your inspection sticker is out of date.” 

Me:  “Oops.  I forgot.”  Total lie.  It was expired for three months but I was too lazy to take care of it.

POPO:  “I’m going to write you a warning and you need to take care of it within ten days.”

Me:  “Ok, I will.”

POPO:  Going back to his car with my info and talking to his partner, they start totally laughing, 

Um, could you at least wait until I pull away before laughing at me?

8 days later…I see lights in my rearview mirror and realize I totally and completely forgot to get my inspection done.  Crap.  I pull over to the side and begin to rummage through the center console to find my warning paper.  As the police officer ends up on the side of my car, I am smoothing out the slightly crumpled warning notice.

POPO:  (with a sense of humor?)  “I see you already know what I pulled you over for.”

Me:  “Yes.  I’m sorry, I forgot all about this.”

POPO:  “You only have a day or so to get this done (taps on windshield where my expired ticket is located) otherwise you will get a ticket.”

Me:  “Yes, I understand.”

Captain Obvious:  “The warning will expire and become a ticket in less than two days.  You need to try and get this taken care of…today.”

Me:  “Yes, sir.”

He gave me a second warning ticket and I really did follow through and get the inspection taken care of that day.  I was a bit humiliated by the fact I got two of these warnings just a few days apart.  I’d like to say for every year after, I was on-the-ball and got my inspections done when they were due.  Maybe I need to do a blog post on procrastination.

Episode 5:

It was a Friday afternoon and I had to rush home become I had company coming to visit.  It was around Easter because I was working with kids on stuffing eggs to give away and my front passenger seat was over-flowing with dozens of colorful plastic eggs.  I was running late due to traffic on one portion of the freeway so when the traffic seemed to clear a bit I sped up to make up for lost time. 

I saw the lights in my rearview mirror, but I really didn’t think it was for me so I moved over one lane.  Then the lights moved over one lane as well.  Damn.  I pulled all the way over to the side. 

POPO:  “Um…do you know how fast you were going?”

Me:  “No, sir.”

POPO:  “Well, you passed me!”  (Then he chuckled when he saw my look of shock)

I honestly could not believe I actually passed a police officer in a MARKED car and didn’t realize it.  WTH?  I usually never pass a police officer unless he is well below the speed limit or already pulled off to the side of the road.  I must have been seriously distracted.

POPO:  “I need to see your license and insurance.”

I reached around in the back of my seat to grab my purse and began to worry.  I couldn’t feel it.  I unbuckled myself and turned full around to check the back seat area and nothing.  I pulled the insurance card from the glove compartment and handed it over.

Me:  “I am sorry; I seem to have forgotten my purse with my wallet.  It must be at home.”

POPO:  “The insurance card you gave me is also expired.  Do you have another?”

I’m in full panic mode by this time and start shaking a bit.  Thoughts of being arrested, or “taken downtown” start rushing through my brain.  I am at a loss to find a current insurance card.  I have unloaded the entire contents of my glove box, which contained years worth out-dated insurance cards.  The officer kind-of just shook his head.

POPO:  “Do you realize how many violations we are dealing with here?  Speeding, no license, no proof of insurance and today is the last day on your inspection.”  (That last one totally blew past me, at least it wasn’t actually expired)

Me:  “I’m sorry, everything is current, I swear.  I have the same insurance.”  (I held up the out-dated card in a pathetic attempt to show I was once a law-abiding citizen)

I should also mention that at the same time I was pulling out all the maps and crap from my glove box I was putting the stuff on top of the pile of stuffed Easter eggs on the front seat.  As I was pleading my case about actually having insurance, the weight from all the glove-compartment crap, began to distribute the eggs.  So, while I am trying to corral the eggs and plead my case by showing my card, he stopped me.

POPO:  “I tell you what, it looks like you have your hands full.  I don’t really have the time to write up all these violations so I am letting you off with a warning.  But, please, please put your proper insurance card in your car and get rid of the expired cards.  From now on, double check to make sure you have your wallet before you leave your house.”

Me:  (Too relieved to actually respond with a coherent sentence since I was still trying to figure out who I was going to call to get me out of jail)  “Uhh…thank you.”

He kind-of rolled his eyes, smiled and walked away.  I was still in shock and sat in my car for what seemed like an hour until I slowly drove the rest of the way home.  I highly doubted I would be so lucky the next time.  And for those wondering, I did not have to cry, bat my eyes or show any cleavage.  I think just being dingy enough got me off…or it could have been all the eggs.  Either way this was truly a Phoebe moment.

There was other time when I got caught in a speed trap outside of Dallas and on the actual ticket the officer wrote:  “On phone, dog on lap,” but let’s save that story for another day….

You Totally Have to Get That Groupon

Greetings, Blog Land.  I decided to come off the lurker bench & guest blog for my very busy & awesome sister-in-law…but only because I thought I could offer you 2 very important life lessons.  We’ll get to that later.  She told me to warm you up with a little intro, so in the interest of efficiency, this is me: sailor chick, bulldog mom, happy wife to a sweet Spreadsheet Guy, dressage horse lover, rum connoisseur, safety geek by trade, only child, missing a rib (creepy, huh?), triple hip surgery survivor, weight lifter, cilantro hater, running despiser & world travel buff.  Holla!  Enough about me.

Let’s get straight to the life lessons.  Please, please, for the love of God, think it through before you get all jazzed over a hard-to-believe-it’s-such-a-great-deal Living Social or Groupon offer.  DO NOT email the link to all your friends with a “we should totally do this!” before doing your homework first.  Relax.  The deal is good for HOURS yet.  Urbanspoon it.  Let Yelp light your path you before you commit that $49 (yes, I know it’s regularly worth $119!).   Allow me to illustrate.

A few months ago, a $49 Living Social deal called for me from my for-marketing-crap only 2005 Yahoo email….and there I was, like a moth to a flame.  Seriously though, that’s a great deal for a 90 minute massage and a 30 minute sauna session though, right?  I bought that puppy, thinking “what a great treat that will make after some hard day’s work of saving lives all over the US of A.”  Fast forward to a week before it was due to expire.  How had time gotten away from me, and this glorious 2 hours eluded my free time for so long??  Sinful!  I made the appt and counted the moments until the stress would melt off my bones like sweet corn butta.  

In hindsight, my usually keen red flag should have raised during the appt making process.  Of course, I booked it online (who wants to talk to anyone for such trivial things anymore?), and was surprised that I could get in within a day or two.  Sadly, I DID check Yelp and this shack scored 1 star out of 5, with a “this was the most unpleasant massage I have EVER gotten in my life.  Avoid Virginia, she’s horrible and wouldn’t stop talking the entire time.”

I had to break up with my last massage girl because she wouldn’t shut the hell up, and finally pulled the plug when she told me how she accidentally ran over her dog & killed it, which made me cry for the dog WHILE I was face down getting a massage.”  WTF!  I figured, maybe I should avoid chatty chicks this time.  There was one male option, and he seemed to have less appts available…so I used the “oh, he must be popular with the patrons = good masseuse” and was sold.  I’ll call him Todd, even though I don’t remember his name.  I won’t name the place, but it sounds like Massage Eggscape, with an X in there somewhere. Check and check.

I pull into the place for my session, and it’s in a shady area of a neighboring city.  Unkempt shopping center, the type where every 3^rd space is for lease with a paycheck advance gig next door.  But!  I’m not one to judge books by their fraying covers, so I press on.  This could be a hidden gem, you know!   I check-in and am given the usual forms to fill out.  No, I don’t wear dentures, and yes, I had a heart murmur.  As I’m doing this, a woman at the counter picks up the phone & dials up an apparent ex-customer.  It went like this:

Desk lady: “Hi so&so, it’s Jackass from Massage Eggscape…just wanted to call & see how you were doing.  Are you still seeing that same chiropractor, or did they refer you to the orthopedic surgeon?  Oh, okay.  Well, can you please keep me updated so we know how to handle the situation from our end?  What’s that?  No, we’ve never heard of a massage causing a herniated disc.  Yes. Yes, we’ve had quite a few complaints about that masseuse.  Yes, we’ll be taking some action from here about it.  Well.  Please keep me posted on your treatment, it will help us decide how to punish our employee.”  THIS WAS ALL ABOUT 6 FEET AWAY FROM ME, a brand new customer.  Would you not place this call from a back room…a bathroom, even.  Anywhere but there!  I’m starting to fret, but how bad can a massage really be?

Next, I’m escorted into the sauna room and given a series of directions that include  “The lock on the door doesn’t work & neither does this intercom thingy or the temperature gauge inside.  Feel free to use the (1989 after market car style) stereo.  Your masseuse will come get you when it’s time.”  Whatevs.  I’ve had a rough day, some dry heat might feel good.  Mind you, this sauna was something you’d pick up at Costco & set up in your basement…and so was the neon light effect fountain in the room.  I undress, wrap a towel around myself & climb inside that baby.

Then it hit me (well, 2 things hit me).  First, DO NOT eat bean containing Mexican food for lunch before you enter a very small, enclosed & heated contraption…or before someone is purposely trying to wring out every last anything from your body with their herniated disc causing hands.  The beans will fail you, this I can guarantee.  Second, DO NOT partake in a sauna before a massage.  You get sweaty, gross…and why?  I kept thinking…is this even good for me?  My deodorant is starting to fail!  I need to get out of there.  I need to vacate the bean graveyard.  So, I sat there in my cheap spa robe waiting for my sweaty skin to dry, hoping my masseuse would hurry the hell up & get this show on the road.   It occurred to me that I could be in the midst of my guest blog topic, so I snapped a few pics and thought of some witty crap to say (which I’ve since forgotten).

Todd summons me, and it’s no surprise that he’s socially awkward & maybe hasn’t had his teeth cleaned this decade.  Awesome. I’m face down first, and Todd goes into his schooling and type of hybrid massage/Chinese healing bodywork spiel.  Yeah, yeah…just get to it, bro.  He then asks about how my online booking went, and “I know this is a weird question, but why did you choose the only man?”  I suddenly felt a panic & wondered if there was something more to the “X” somewhere in Eggscape.  No worries, I’ve taken some krav maga & could unleash the whoopass, if needed.  

Did I mention he was awkward?  Then, he says “what kind of pressure do you like?”  Medium, I say.  “Oh, okay [fake, creepy chuckle], some people like to call my style “a bully’.”  Yes, folks…I had selected the disc herniator.  To top matters, I had to somehow hold in my Mexican lunch effects.  You know that takes a refined skill & extreme mind control.  Admit it…there are 2 kinds of people…the holders & the crop dusters.  You know who you are.  

The music from the rigged-up car stereo died half way through, but never fear…after 2 minutes of fumbling around, Todd cued up Neil Diamond on his cell phone.  No lie.  This was Cracklin’ Rosie alright.

There’s one thing I can’t handle, and it’s long finger/toenails on a man.  Wouldn’t you know that Todd took great pride in digging his dagger fingernails into my skin.  My very much crawling skin.  Yuck!

I’m all for a deep tissue massage, mind you, and can take a lot of pain.  I won’t kid you, there were at least 3 times that I thought he was literally going to break one of my bones.  I had to tell him to “[gasp] alright!  ease up!”  at least 4 times, with no adjustment in pressure.  For real?  Long story long, I was bruised all over the next day.  And the next.  But, I saved $70 off the retail price!

Folks, please remember 2 things:

1.  Research those deals before taking the leap.  There might be a reason that company is drumming up extra (or any?) biz.  If they make an injury claim investigative call in front of you, just leave.  Now.
2.  Refrain from all roughage before a massage.  Oh, and just avoid the sweaty balls sauna altogether unless you own it or are Finnish…then, sweat & socialize in it to your heart’s content.  

Now back to regular programming.

Peace out.

The Bus Stop Game

I was up late perusing my non-cable television options and came across a new late night game show.  This show is completely cheesy and somehow filters the stupid in people.   

The premise of the game is much like Cash Cab with less of a budget and relatively easier questions.  Imagine a Tic-Tac-Toe board.  There are nine different categories and each category has a dollar amount after you pick it.  The questions range from really easy to kind-of hard. 

Cash Cab is different in the sense that the people get in the cab and they actually get a ride to their destination by answering questions and getting them right.  The monetary value increases and the Cash Cab people have options for lifelines.  Once they get three questions wrong, they are out of the cab and back on the street.

For the Bus Stop Game, from what I can tell, the contestant gets into a Hippy VW Van, otherwise known as a VW bus.  But, they don’t actually move.   I guess this the “stop” part of the Bus Stop Game.  If anything, it is a glorified bus shelter where people can win some money answering questions while enjoying free air conditioning.

In the two episodes I watched, I did not actually see anyone win money.  Sure, some people got questions right, but since they couldn’t get three in a row on the tic-tac-toe board, they didn’t actually win.  A poor man’s Cash Cab. 

The amount of money they could win is significantly less had they been playing Cash Cab.  But then again, Cash Cab is geared toward a different type of clientele compared to the low-budget bus game.  Obviously, the cab is hailed by people prepared to pay a certain price to get somewhere quickly.  The Bus Stop Game uses those waiting for a particular bus that may or may not be taking them directly to their destination.

I could be biased here, the bus service in some cities might be far classier than in other cities.  From what I have seen, the Bus Stop Game has not found these classy bus stops yet.  Without being completely rude, the contestants I saw on the game look like they need to take the bus, if you know what I mean.  Not in an I-am-saving-money-by-using-the-Park-and-Ride way, but more of an I-lost-my-license-and-my-friends-don’t-have-a-car-but-that’s-ok-because-I-am-high way.  For me, I think the scary part of bus traveling is when I have to transfer to a new bus.  The transfer station downtown is a bit seedy and downright scary at night. 

Back to the contestants...  Thank goodness they didn’t promote what city they were in because I would have been embarrassed for the education system.  It’s bad enough to say they were somewhere in America.  Here is an example of the face-palm reactions I had….

Host:  What was the name of Mitt Romney’s running mate during the last election?

Dude:  Um, is that like the vice president?

Host:  [Not really even shocked because he’s seen stupid before] Romney’s running mate.

Dude:  [Still not sure what “running mate” means] Um, I know it isn’t right, but Joe Biden?  Or is that right?

The host of this show has to pretend like he is just as stupid and often agrees with the contestant that the questions are hard…even if they are only worth $50 and easy.

Host:  What two states are not contiguous? 

New Dude:  What does that mean?  Hmm.  What does that mean?

Host:  Two states.

New Dude:  Ok, I guess I’ll go with Hawaii and Alaska but I don’t know what that word means.

Host:  [Completely shocked] Yes that is right.  Alaska and Hawaii, good for you.

Some contestants had good problem solving skills like this new dude, but poor Tic-Tac-Toe playing skills.  When you failed questions on three corners, picking the last corner is not helping you.  You cannot win three in a row with a corner, unless you have another corner.  The goal is to get three in a row and then you win. 

It was funny how some people would ask for a “Shout out.”  This is straight from Cash Cab.  Unfortunately, you couldn’t get help, but you could keep getting questions right/wrong until you exhausted all possibilities or finally get three in a row.  So, this could be a painful game to watch if the person keeps getting questions wrong.

There were actually some questions that were interesting and although they were multiple-choice, I have learned new things.  For example, if you took the blood vessels out of your body and laid them end-to-end they would wrap 2.5 times around the Earth.  Isn’t that amazing?  I loved that one.  Also, "The Jazz Singer" was the first talking film, which is crazy because Neil Diamond was in it (I kid).

If you are up late and have the opportunity, watch this show.  You might learn something or you might feel a tad bit smarter and superior because you knew what happened on July 20, 1969 and the bus stop dude thought it was when the Vietnam War started….