Consider Me Spanked

Grandma said I shouldn’t post this, but I promised to deliver both the good and bad on this trip. Also, I can admit when I’m wrong and this time I blew it.

We got stopped AGAIN for speeding. I had just seen the sign change to 60mph and noticed I was going 80-ish. You know how you register things like that about a minute too late? Well, yeah. I guess the ish looked more like 90mph when he clocked me.

Peanut’s adrenalin rushed through her as she launched into the details of yet another encounter with her mother and a traffic cop. Hush! It was different this time. We weren't in North Dakota with the wonderful people anymore. This was Missouri! And I was going ridiculously fast. It had just gotten really dark. I wasn’t on a well-lit road. Etc. etc. Essentially, I was doomed.

Here’s how it played out: The cop took both Grandma’s license and mine and came back to our car hours later – well, it was a long time. Then I had to get out of the car and I was sure he was going to make me touch my nose with my finger or something like that. Instead, I saw he had another officer there to watch the car and then he proceeded to "counsel" me. He brought me outside the car out of respect and said he didn't want to fill my daughter's head with ideas. (Thank you!)

He said in a very Montessori way that he didn’t really believe in punishments (like giving me a ticket), choosing instead to counsel people like me. People like me. I wondered precisely what he meant by that but didn’t ask. (I didn’t ask to take a picture of him either.) In the state of Missouri, going 30 miles over the speed limit would require an in-person appearance in this particular county, at some future date, clearly cramping our road trip style.

He also made it very clear that if I had hit a deer, assuming we all lived, I could have gone to jail for endangering my kids. As I stood there taking my deserved beating, he continued with two tales of recent accidents, one of which occurred exactly where he stopped me. A mom and her 9-year old daughter were killed after hitting a deer a week before. He looked deep in my eyes and said he sincerely wanted us to stay alive and to do that I needed to be able to avoid a deer or another car that nails one. To do that, I need to stay within 10 miles of the speed limit. I believed him.

So, it really sucked. I’ve never been one to break down under pressure, but I’ve been known to fall apart as soon I leave the scene. (That’s why I’ve always loved the scene with Emma Thompson in Love Actually after she opens her Joni Mitchell cd.) This cop was incredibly effective and I felt shame for the first time in a really long time. Incidentally, I’ve also slowed it down considerably.