Things not to have in open view in your car when stopped by the police in Bumblef*ck, TX

I got a ticket Sunday on my way back from visiting my sister in DFW.

I confess: It was all my fault. I was doing 82 mph. The limit was 65 miles per hour. (It should’ve been 70 mph – NOTE: Johnson County is one big speed trap.) I wasn’t being as careful as I usually am. I was out front coming up over a hill. Easy pickins for radar. And as soon as I saw him (too late) hiding in a thicket off to the side of the road, I knew he had me. I pulled over to the side of the road almost before he’d turned on his lights.

See, speed is my weakness. I expect to pay the piper now and then.

God, there’s nothing better than a sunny 80-something-degree day with a hilly, mostly empty highway to fly down. When you were 12, did you ever ride your bike to the top of a hill, just so you could race down, feet over the handle bars, hands out slicing the wind? Occasionally, I’d set up ramps so I could get airborne. Even then, I was addicted to speed. So, no. The ticket doesn’t bother me so much. It’s my first in three years. I can take defensive driving to get my record squeaky clean again. The insurancecompanyfromhell never has to know about it. But of all the times to get pulled over!

See I had three problems:

One was that I’d forgotten to put my updated insurance card in the glove compartment.

Two was the half-finished six pack on the passenger floorboards. (I did not have gastrointestinal relations with that booze while driving. I did not.)

Three was the vicious-looking hacksaw in the back seat that everybody has been saying I need to put away. (Yeah, yeah. You all told me so.)

And that’s why this entry is coming to you from the Alvarado city jail.

Just kidding.

Officer Friendly gave me a ticket for speeding, a warning about the insurance card (He believed me! I wouldn’t even have believed me.), a strange look about the four-once-six bottles of beer (Texas just adopted a no-open-container law after all), and a stranger look about the hacksaw, which was in the car for a very good reason.

I just can’t remember what that reason was.

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