Monday's Memories

So if you were expecting huge changes and new layouts after Friday's hint of something new, I'm sorry to disappoint you. The blog will be undergoing some changes in the next few months, but I'm not sure how sweeping they will be. In fact, maybe I'll start awarding prizes to anyone who can spot the miniscule changes that come over my blog this year. But then people would start identifying accidental changes caused by a lack of design knowledge so forget that idea.

When I started this blog, my purpose was to make more friends, and to affect others in various ways. One of the easiest ways for me to influence others is to make them laugh. That's why I do Random Dozen each Wednesday. That's why I write posts about being married to Indiana Jones, or about my failure at our church fellowships.

With the desire for laughter in mind, I've written about recent weekend guests  and my struggles with my inner Martha. But it has occurred to me that, getting into humorous situations is not something that's restricted to present day happenings. I've always had a knack for getting into things that, quite frankly, make for a good story. So I'm dedicating Monday posts to memories. Now, I know there are other blogs out there that have flashback posts and memory posts. They are often sweet and warm thoughts from great milestones in the bloggers' lives.

Do I have to actually mention that mine won't be like that? While I do reserve the right to get warm and fuzzy once in a while, let's focus on our actual purpose here--laughter. So my Monday Memories will, for the most part, consist of funny things that have happened to me in the not so recent past. I'll keep doing these memory posts on Monday until I get bored, run out of stories or have something better I want to talk about. In the meantime, I bring you the Tale of Two Tickets--

Once upon a time I lived in Wisconsin, 90 minutes north of my mother's house, and 60 minutes east of my sister's. When my sister was expecting her first baby, I drove her to my mother's house so that we could give her a baby shower. Long after the shower was over, we packed all the gifts into my minivan, and I drove my sister to her home. I say long after because it was an afternoon shower, but we didn't start the two and half hour drive to my sister's until after eight o'clock that night. When I got off the interstate, I still had quite a drive on the county highway in order to get to her town.

I was cruising along at a good clip because, after I dropped off her and her presents, I still had another hour to go to get home. When you entered the outskirts of town, the speed limit dropped from 55 to 25. I didn't see the sign that announced the new and much slower speed limit, neither did I see the police officer that sat right near the sign, waiting for dopes like me to fly on by. My sister had just commented that I might want to slow down when I saw the flashing lights in my rearview mirror. A short time later I took my ticket from him, threw my driver's license in my purse in disgust and drove my sister home.

I knew my husband was not going to be happy. When I left him with our two small children earlier that day, he had no idea he was going to be babysitting until well after midnight. And he certainly would not be thrilled to find out I had a ticket I would have to pay. I helped my sister haul all her baby presents inside, kissed her goodbye and started the trek home.

It had been an extremely long day and I was dreading the rest of the drive home. In addition to being exhausted, I also had to contend with a pretty fierce wind that had come up. The wind pushed and pulled at my minivan, and I had to constantly struggle against it as I drove. I was pretty miserable, but I was also sure it couldn't get any worse. At least, that's what I thought until I once again saw flashing lights in my rearview mirror.

It seems that I had been weaving back and forth in my lane enough that the police officer wanted to check and make sure I hadn't been drinking. I was both horrified at the suggestion, and incredibly relieved that he didn't make me get out and walk a straight line or touch my nose. The police officer asked for my license, and I dutifully reached for my purse. This was getting to be old hat.

Except I couldn't find the license.

"Just a minute," I assured the officer. "I know it's in here. I just had it out a little while ago."

Never mind why.

I dug frantically, but that license was nowhere to be found. I couldn't help it. I started to sniff. And then shiver. And then I sobbed. "I know it's here," I babbled almost incoherently. "I always carry it."

I wasn't hysterical, but there was no sign of the storm ending soon and the officer started getting uncomfortable. Finally he stopped my frantic pawing through my purse. "That's okay, ma'am," he said, holding his hand out. "If I could just--is that another ticket?" He pointed to the yellow paper sticking up out of my purse, and I sobbed harder. "Could I just--" he reached gingerly for the ticket. "If I could just see that, I can probably get what I need off of there."

I surrendered the ticket and struggled to get a hold of myself while I wondered if the fines increased when you were stopped twice in the space of an hour.  When the officer returned, he handed me my original ticket and explained that he'd stopped me because of my erratic driving. Had I been drinking? That started another deluge of tears. When I could speak, I squeaked out that, while I was perfectly sober, I was fighting the wind and was very tired. "I just want to go home," I wailed, like a bad actress in an afterschool special. The officer cautioned me to be more careful in my driving and sent me on my way.

The moral of the story? You can cry your way out of a ticket, but only if you show the officer the citation you just got less than an hour before.

The other moral? Your husband will be aggravated with you for the ticket, but he'll get even by telling everyone at church about it the next day.

Ahhhh, memories!