Car Karma

We had girls night last night, which was the best one in recent memory, primarily because it was the ONLY one in recent memory. But also because it was lots of fun and Jenn had the best, I mean BEST nightmare student story ever.

After that lovely dinner with Jenn & Veena, I drove home, in Keith's Outback, and happened to catch Obama's speech on NPR. I knew Keith was recording it, but figured I'd listen in the car too - anyone who knows me knows that it's hard for me to get enough politics lately.

When Obama got to the part about "...change doesn't come FROM Washington, change comes TO Washington" I actually yelled "YEAH! WHOO HOOOOO" in the car and pumped my fist a few times. About 15 seconds later I notice the cop lights in my rear view mirror.

Crap! My mind races, 'when did I finish my second margarita? Was I driving like a maniac listening to the speech? Was I swerving?' I pull over to the shoulder and wait. The cop shines his floodlight at my car; I'm blinded.

I know that he's walking around the car checking something out but I can't tell what. I'm shaking so bad I can hardly push the button to roll down the passenger-side window, let alone pull my ID out of the stupid credit card organizer. He walks up to the window and says, "The reason I pulled you over is that you don't have your lights on. I saw you coming but only at the last minute."

I'm mortified. I know exactly what happened - the automatic day-lights in Keith's car look just like dashlights to me. Unless you know the car, you'd never know that the back lights aren't on because the dash lights and headlights are always automatic. I told the cop that it was my husband's car, and he looked at me like I was very special. Then I remembered that I was driving a dirty Subaru Outback with a bike rack and license plate that says "I [heart] tra1l". I guess it made sense to him that this car did not actually belong to the khaki-wearing soccer-mom looking woman before him.

At any rate, he was super nice - which was a great change in cop demeanor for me. He told me to get up to speed on the shoulder before trying to merge onto the toll road. Really, there is nothing more stressful than having a COP watch you merging back into 70 MPH traffic after pulling you over for being stupid enough not to turn on your lights at 8pm.

Tonight, a guy backed up into Keith driving MY car in the parking lot of the drugstore. Car Karma week, I tell you.