I got pulled over this morning. I still am a bit high on adrenaline. Ugh not the good kind. The girls were a mess this morning, we were moving from room to room trying to 1) get some house work done and 2) keep my sanity. A LOT of crying, a lot of whining, a lot of "No Mommie I don't want to"s while my 2 year old laid like a lump on the floor whenever any thing was said to her.
You would have thought it was Monday.
So at 9:30 when they were both screaming and Riley was asking to go back to bed. I thought They CAN'T take a nap yet, it's not even 10! If they nap now they will be ready for bed at 6 this evening, and up at 4 tomorrow morning. So in comes distraction: a trip to Target. We get loaded in the car, drive the 5 minutes to the store and walk around for an hour. Yes, now they are ready to go home have some lunch and take a nap. More than ready, if you know what I mean.
We're on our way home. We're driving home. Amity is fussing, I'm trying to hurry: If she falls asleep in the car I can kiss nap time good bye (she does NOT transfer and she will sleep for 5 minutes and be up for hours OVER TIRED). I'm behind a police car. No problem, I'm going the speed limit. I'm not riding along too closely.
Suddenly some thing giant and yellow is waving in rearview mirror. Oh Riley found the inter tube from the pool yesterday. Into the rear view mirror: "Riley, don't play with that it could get popped and won't work any more" I look back at the road and the cop as suddenly put on his turn signal and is STOPPING to turn RIGHT.
1) he didn't follow the law it should be at least 300 feet before the turn if going over 35mph (speed limit was 40mph)
2) You NEVER stop when turning RIGHT!!!!!!!
Now part of the stopping might have been because I was kinda coming up closer (???? I'll give him the benefit of the doubt?) than he anticipated and he was trying to decide what to do? Either way you GET OUT OF THE WAY if some one is coming up. I didn't hit him. I wasn't even close. But I was annoyed that he was stopping while turning (pet peeve, it is BAD driving) so I went around him (at a nice slow respectful speed and staying in my lane it wasn't like I was even veering out into the other lane)...He pulls a U-y and gets behind me. I turn off on to W st and he pulls me over.
I'm confused: what did I do wrong?
So then he spends 20 minutes (I kid you not) writing me a warning (for what??) while the girls are having a screaming match. And the A/C is out on the van so we're all dripping sweat and the baby is FREAKING because she wants some milkies and a nap and Ooooh I was ready to shake that cop.
He finally comes back with the ticket, I mean WARNING, and says "Okay so this will just take a few more minutes. Your story seems to line up. You do have two little kids back there and I do take into account that they are all fastened in the appropriate seats and and the seats are being used appropriately. bla bla bla bla here you go. Drive safely."
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I'm generally a VERY Nice person.. Some times I'm a down right push-over (though some thing I'm improving on) but some thing about this run-in (or not, thankfully) just brought out the mother-bear in me and I'm quite proud of how well I held it together.
That cop obviously has never been the primary care giver for 2 small children under 3. And he's certainly never hung around and or driven small children when they are losing it.
All police officers should have to babysit small children for a day (they can use mine: they'd give them a well rounded experience!) and drive with them before they go pulling tired, hungry frazzled Mom's over and KEEPING them for more than 2 minutes. I'm serious. I'm sure he needed to look up my driving record (which is clean except for this stupid thing that says I was in an accident in 2004 when it WASN'T an accident: the tire just fell off my car, I was going 20mph through a little podunk town and the tire just CAME OFF...I didn't even hit a curb I just kinda coasted to a stop. Yet it's on my record. ergh).
Sorry this was a very venty post. It's been a very hard day.
I encourage you to send a complaint to the police department detailing what happened.
ReplyDeleteSeriously. My husband used to get off work at 2 a.m., and our street came off of T. just near the Wegmans...right where the police liked to set up a DUI check point. Hubby would turn into our street just before the check point, and invariably he'd get chased. And pulled over--often right in front of our house.
One morning that happened, and the cop even tried to make hubby take a breathalyzer (which he refused), despite him having no signs of drunkenness and having a valid reason for "evading" the check point. He wrote a letter of complaint. And he never got chased again while we lived there.