Not from around here

The police are very…effective around here. Before moving to Monroe, we had each only been pulled over once.  Since we’ve lived in Monroe, we’ve each been pulled over once more within a month of moving in.

 
How’s that for a welcome to the neighborhood?*

 
I think it all started with the day we signed our mortgage in downtown Monroe.  We pulled into a parking spot and looked for a meter.  Free parking? Impossible! We went to school in Ann Arbor, where there is no such thing as free parking.  There is, however, such thing as $1.00 an hour parking at meters.  I quickly discovered there that it was cheaper to get tickets than continue to feed the meter (and easier, as you might imagine a day’s worth of meter quarters is hard to come by without some effort).  But FREE?! We were dreaming.

 
Anyway, the sign said “one hour” and this being our first home, we assumed the mortgage papers would be signed in under an hour.  Turns out they had to reprint some documents and we walked out of there just over an hour….just in time to see the policeman leave the ticket on Ryan’s car.

 
My response was hysterical laughter – we were doomed to get parking tickets in Monroe! The fiancé’s response was doom – this was a bad parking omen for our new city. The previous house owners joked with us that the policeman ran our records, saw we were still from out of town, and had flagged us. The mortgage company paid for the ticket (I wonder if they’ll pay for any tickets we get anywhere? Wouldn’t that be nice!)  I laughed until we each got pulled over within a month.

 
First, Ryan was pulled over for speeding in my car.  My car, speeding! Ha.  Then he couldn’t find my registration (oops!) and it turns out he was going 90 down I-75.  So yeah, I agree with that ticket even if I’m not totally confident my car can even GO 90, though I have no doubts he was speeding.

 
To which, of course, Ryan proclaimed, “YOUR stupid radar detector didn’t even go off!” To which I replied, “Then maybe you should have bought me a better quality one instead of that cheapo.”  I laughed when he told me he had thrown it out the window after he had been pulled over (and would have laughed more if he had then been pulled over for a littering charge!).

 
I didn’t laugh when I got pulled over a few weeks later.  It was the middle of the week, late at night – I was just leaving an 18 work day after parent teacher conferences (I’m a teacher if I hadn’t mentioned it already).  I do the exact speed limit the entire drive home, and then sure enough on Dixie I see someone pulled over.  This normally is the sign for, “you’re-safe-because-they’re-with-someone-else” so I continued the 45mph I was doing.  Two minutes later lights were flashing behind me.

 
I practically handcuffed myself.  I had no idea what I had done wrong but it must have been bad to be pulled over.  I was doomed, going to jail.  My students would read about me in the paper the next day and how I was in jail for doing the speed limit.

 
Thankfully, I had the registration this time and gave the police officer everything.  As she walked away to her car, I gathered up the courage to ask her why I was pulled over.

 
“Tail light’s out,” she replied.

 
As she ran my license, I laughed a hysterical witch doctor laugh. Pulled over for a tail light??? I have three! I’ve had my car four years and a light has never been out.  And here I was convinced I was going to jail for a burned out tail light.

 
She let me go and I turned in the sub to noticed yet another cop car out of the corner of my eye.  I kid you not, I almost parked my car there and walked the rest of the way….especially when I saw him pull out behind me.  I figured he’d have to take me to jail at this point because I was going to go crazy.  I started reviewing phone numbers to make my first call from my jail cell.

 
I guess another car committed some crime and saved me from being pulled over in my own subdivision.  Phew.

 
Needless to say, I read parking signs real close and check my lights every week like a good little driver.  These Monroe cops are thorough!

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*Yes, I am thankful for present and active police presence.  Just a little humor, that’s all.

This entry was posted on Saturday, December 30th, 2006 at 6:05 am and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.