I am a heinous criminal

Just what I get for trying to be good and go exercise! I got stopped this morning for coming to a rolling stop. Incidentally Wes got all those other tickets that we got LAST WEEK dismissed. So this is karma I guess. Bad, Bad Karma. $158 or Defensive Driving HELL are my options. Neither option is good.

All of a sudden cops are swooping down around us like a locust plague.

Seems like an appropriate time for a driving story.

Ok. I am sixteen. I am going to take my drivers test with my drunk step mother. She follows me to the DPS office. I am driving my car...she is in her caddy. I guess it didn't occur to her that I shouldn't drive to the dps office to get my license. Like I said, she was usually inebriated.

So we get there and I get all ready to take the test. My car is out of inspection and the registration is out too. Hmmmm What to do?? Well it was decided that I can take the test in her precious Cadillac that I had previously been banned from even thinking about driving She is chain smoking in the parking lot. The officer and I switch cars. Again let me stress that I have never driven the car and apparently the brakes are much more sensitive than in my old jalopy. I realize this when I come to my first stop and almost throw the both of us through the windshield. Several mistakes later it is time for me to parallel park. The Cadillac is the very long 1980's version and I panic. I grit my teeth and pull the thing foward and backward until...wa la! I do it. Unconvinced the officer gets out with his ruler and begins measuring the distance to the curb but it is unmistakably perfect. I parked the 40 foot Cadillac flawlessly parallelly!!! (Yes I know that is not a word.) Fate smiles down on me and I am saved by the virtue of my perfect parking - a feat which has not once since been repeated in my lifetime. Now I can't parallel park to save my ass.

Anyway, I am one glorious point above the failure mark!! While waiting for my license the fattest woman I have ever seen comes in. I get the stress giggles and cannot stop laughing no matter how inappropriate it is. I snort and cough and laugh some more. By this time my step mother has smoked a whole pack of Virginia Slims and is accordingly pissed off.

They finally hand me my license and I am grounded for two weeks from driving.

It was a fitting beginning to my driving career.