So once the Thanksgiving festivities were over, we took a nap so we would be up and ready for our midnight rendezvous with crazed shoppers looking for deals.
Since we were in no need of any of the door buster deals, we left the house a little after midnight, believing that the rush of shoppers who had waited in line, would already be tapering off by the time we got to the mall.
We got less than two miles from our house and out of nowhere, blue and red flashing lights appeared behind us. There was a car directly in front of me and I pulled over, just hoping the police officer would drive right on by and either stop them or go to the emergency he must be dealing with. Wishful thinking. He pulled over right behind me.
Was I speeding? It didn’t seem like it. And if I was, so was the car in front of me but I decided I wouldn’t bring that up if given the chance. I'm pretty sure officers don't appreciate that.There was a long wait for the officer to finally approach the car. I was waiting for the “Do you know how fast you were going?” question and my honest answer would have been, “No.” I really thought I was within the speed limit to be honest.
It turns out that’s not why he stopped me. He stopped me because I have a headlight out. Which sort of ticks me off because I just had a headlight replaced within the last two weeks! Not ticked off at the officer, mind you. Just ticked off in general that my headlights keep burning out! That’s four headlight replacements in two years!! Two in the last two weeks!
And although I love my Subaru, the engineering on my Outback requires the garage to remove the entire front bumper every time they need to replace a headlight. That’s 1.5 hours every time I have to bring it in for this! Grrr!
Back to the story. I said, “Hey, thanks for letting me know. I’ll get it in to be replaced.” I was relieved and ready to be on my merry way. To which he replied, “Can I see your license, please?” Hmmm. Okay. I thought telling me my headlight is out was just a nice public service gesture… but okay… He took my license and my insurance card, looked at it, verified the address, asked for my telephone number and asked me if there was anything he would find on my record. Of course I told him no. And there really isn’t anything there. I am nothing if not a law-abiding, rule-following kind of girl.
So we sat and waited for what seemed like a very long time. I was amazed at the number of cars traveling on this road at this hour of the night. After the adrenaline of being pulled over started wearing off, it was sort of embarrassing to be sitting there in the bath of flashing lights! But what can you do? We actually laughed a little bit about it. Our first stop on Black Friday wasn’t exactly what we had pictured it to be!
Eventually the officer came back….. with a warning. I have five days to get my headlight fixed. Then I have to find an officer to verify that the repair has been done and ask him/her to sign and provide his/her badge number.
I wanted to ask, but was too afraid to, "How do I find an officer to verify the repair?” Do I just drive around and look for one stopped at a gas station? Do I drive down to the one who hides by the park in our neighborhood and walk up and knock on his window? If I see one in the median, should I pull up behind them? Do I drive around looking for a police station? Stop at a weigh station? How do I do this?
Hey, here’s an idea! I could drive down US Highway 41 at 90 mph and when an officer finally pulls me over I could say, “Thank goodness you finally caught up with me Officer! I need you to sign this form for me.”
Hmmmm... I guess that’s probably not the best approach. I’ll figure something out.
You may be curious if this stopped us from our Black Friday shopping. Nope! We continued on and in just a few hours we were back home with a few good purchases.
My daughter has had enough excitement for one night and has gone off to sleep. I’m getting ready to go back out solo to do a little more shopping. And then it’s over to the Subaru dealer to be first in line when the service department opens at 7:30 AM!
Just another adventure in A Very Kari Life!
Keep on smiling!
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