A teaching moment

Getting pulled over by a highway patrolman is never fun, by any means, but I've realized that getting pulled over when you're alone beats getting pulled over with your kids any ol' day.

Here I preach to my girls all the time about obeying the law and the dangers of breaking the rules and then all that talk is wasted when I'm toodling down the highway and suddenly have flashing lights behind me.

This week I had an appointment out of town so I decided to take all three of my girls and make it a "girls day" out. We were having a dandy of a time cruising down the highway listening to some good tunes and playing trivia games. Right in the middle of nailing an answer to one of their questions, I see a State trooper whip out of an intersection and fly up to my tail, instantly flashing his lights.

"What the heck?" I stated. The girls must have recognized the immediate change of mood in the truck and all turned around to see the same flashing lights. I realized I was so busy yapping with them and helping pick out the next song that I wasn't exactly paying attention to my speed. As soon as my oldest daughter seen the lights, she sarcastically said, "Nice, Mom..." then slunk back down in her seat. The irritated 12 year old then says, "Oh great, now we're going to be late for lunch." And the little one says worriedly, "What happened, Mommy?"

The officer came to the window and informed me that their super stealth police aircraft busted me going 71 in a 65 mile per hour zone.

Those cotton pickin' planes! Then, the kind sir asked for my license and registration and insurance. I was quick to whip out my license, hoping my awful license picture wouldn't make him feel like he HAD to give me a ticket on account of how stupid my picture was, but the insurance card in the holder was expired and the new one was nowhere to be found.

I always make sure I have an updated copy in the truck AND in my wallet, just like the instructions say but THE day I get pulled over, of course, can't find the new insurance card anywhere!

As I rifled through every nook and cranny, getting more nervous as the seconds ticked by, I had every child in the truck and the uniformed officer standing outside all staring at me, watching as I fiddled through this and sorted through that for what felt like 20 minutes.

In my head, I wanted to yell, "Stop staring at me! I know it's in here, it's always in here! Just gimme a minute!" However, it was not and I had to let the children and officer know that I had failed as an experienced driver and admit that I was an official law breaker. I offered to call the insurance office to prove it, but he hurried off to write me a slew of tickets. My girls just looked at me with utter disappointment.

I told them all I'm sorry. Sorry for breaking the rules, sorry for making them late for lunch and sorry for knocking over the pedestal for which they had me sitting on. Okay, I might be exaggerating on that pedestal part, but I did apologize for the rest. However, I used this fiasco as a learning lesson for them. While the officer sat in his car and researched my criminal history while typing up multiple violations, I spent those minutes teaching my girls about the importance of paying attention to the speedometer at all times while driving and how easily it is to get distracted when there's others in the vehicle and so on. Now whether they really listened, who knows but it made me feel better turning a negative situation into a positive teaching moment, even though it really did make us late for lunch. Blasted traffic planes ...