I Am A Criminal

Photo credit http://www.dallaspolice.net/

My heart sank when I noticed the red and blue flashing lights in the rear view mirror.  Finding a safe place to pull over, I fished my wallet out of my purse as the officer approached the car.

"Ma'am, the reason I pulled you over is you were going 35 miles an hour in a 25 zone," he told me, pointing to the numbers on his radar gun.

Red and blue are two of my very favorite colors.  But I did not like those colors yesterday!  For the first time in my 12 years and 200,000+ miles of driving, I received my first speeding ticket.  The officer was very nice and tried to make me feel better by telling me he has received much worse citations for speeding himself.  I could tell he felt bad for me, but I deserved it and April is No Mercy Month I guess.  Anyway, even though I cried a little the sheer irony of the situation made me want to laugh.  Our supposedly quiet little street is plagued by drag racers from the local high school raising merry hell, making me nervous for the safety of my little ones.  My neighbors apparently reported it so often to our local police that they set up a speed trap, which caught peace loving, law abiding little me neatly in it's black and white jaws.

It's embarrassing.

If I get a ticket I want it to be for real speeding, or doing donuts in the middle of the interstate or something exciting like that.

I was literally pulled over one block from my house.  Seriously....that's just not funny. (Cue my husband dying of laughter!)

Thank you Officer for making our streets safer by giving me a ticket!

If just one hell-raising dragster is caught, the ticket will be worth it.  Bella has scared the shit out of me several times already by running out the front door to the street when my back is turned for two seconds.

This reminds me of my current favorite TV show.  America's Dumbest Criminals was on for 4 seasons from 1996-2000, hosted by David Butler, and I recently discovered it on Amazon Prime.  I laugh till I pee my pants at the ball-busting idiocy of the real life situations portrayed on this show!  My current favorite is the bright guy who tried to rob a convenience store where the owner was armed.  Apparently all the local gangsters knew better than to stick up this particular joint, but this was an out-of-town bonehead who wanted some free cash and packed the key that opens all cash registers on his hip--or so he thought.  (This was all caught on security cameras!)  Crook walks up to the counter, reaches towards his waist and starts to say,

"This is a rob--"

Before he can get the words past his tonsils, the guy behind the counter whips out a 9 mm and nails the nitwit in the leg with two shots.  Criminal drags himself out of the store to the emergency room, where the cops pick him up in short order.  This is my favorite part: the video of the guy on his hospital bed when the cops are interviewing him.  The crook is outraged, and keeps exclaiming,

"It's just NOT FAIR!  It's not fair....He could have at least let me finish what I was saying before he shot me!  It was so rude, and not fair at all...."

This is why responsible citizens need to keep their guns.

This is why America's Dumbest Criminals is the most hilarious show ever.

This is why I'm glad it is no longer running, because they would probably be delighted to include in an episode the story of the girl who was stopped for speeding one block from her house.