Freak Out!!

Do you ever find yourself in a freak out moment? Like something that is normally a simple, common sense situation but it catches you off guard and for that moment you turn into a babbling idiot or an instant airhead who couldn't find their way out of a paperbag? And worse, you have a witness? And even worse, you drink too much coffee and decide to BLOG ABOUT IT? sigh. You just guessed that's me, huh? Before I lose the nerve and delete this, I will quickly tell you my freak out moment that happened at on June 5th at precisely 10:32am. And no, I don't remember this date because I have a good memory. Read on.

I was driving to East Bay Open Studios as one of the artists in the event that weekend and my brother was going with me that day. The drive takes about an hour and a half. So, I’m driving. And...i'm still driving, and singing to the radio, la la la (brother covers ears), whatever. La la la LA LA LA!

Me: WHAT IS THAT BEHIND ME???

Brother: That's a cop, Rose.

Me: Omg, omg, what do I do?

Brother: (yawn) Pull over, Rose.

Me: (puts blinker on) Oh look! He's moving to the other lane! He was probably just trying to go around me! (turns blinker off)

Brother: Rose, you're in the far left lane. He was parked on the side of the freeway.

Me: Oh no! He's behind me again! (turns blinker back on)

Brother: Start getting over, Rose.

Me: But I haven’t had a ticket in like, 9 years!!

Brother: Rose, you still have to pull over.

(Notice the overusage of my name here? What IS the point of that?)

Me: Do you think I can outrun him?

Brother: Um…you’re driving a Prius.

Me: I was kidding!

Brother: How can you even speed in this thing?

Me: You know, there’s a recall on the gas pedal. It’s supposed to stick.

I pull over to the shoulder and the officer comes around the passenger side. He looks like the Doogie Howser of all cops. My nerves have gotten the best of me and I’m all shaky and twitchy and nervous. Great, he’s probably going to search my car for illegal substances.

He asks me “Do you know how fast you were going?” I have to stop and think for a moment. I know I was going with the flow of traffic. But I was obviously going over the speed limit or else he wouldn’t have pulled me over. And honestly, I wasn’t paying attention (totally my fault, I know!) So I think, okay..speed limit is 65 so I make a guess and say, “66?” But when I say it, it comes out all stutter-like so it actually sounds like "sssssiiixxxxxttttttyyysixxx?" and yes I don't just say it but I ask it in the form of a question which really shows I have no idea and i'm making an obvious guess.

The officer snort-laughs and pulls out his radar gun thingy and shows me the speed I was going. Seriously, they can do that? I told you it’s been a long time since I’ve had a ticket for anything because back then—they didn’t show you! He showed me my speed and I almost laughed. I didn’t know my little gas saving Prius COULD go that fast. My response was “Wow.”

Office Doogie turned out to be not so bad. He lowered my speed on the ticket so I could get the minimum fine and do online traffic school. Really, online? That’s way cool. I think he realized I wasn't on drugs but I was a bit mentally unstable. In the end, lets just say I sold enough art that weekend to pay for my ticket and traffic school, and then some. (we won’t count how many times I got lost and unnecesarrily had to pay toll. That’s another post!)