The following is a detailed account of my run in with the law, the judicial process, and some other random legal talk that makes me sound too legit to acquit.

Sometimes I speed.  Don't EVEN roll your eyes or start to think I’m some irresponsible, immature, teenage-like driver who jams Miley Cyrus with the windows down (sometimes), because you speed too.  If you are human and have a right foot, or something replacing that foot, sometimes you speed.  So, when I tell you I got a speeding ticket here in a second, don’t judge me.  You do it ALL THE TIME!

So, I got a speeding ticket.

But, like, I have reasons, and also it’s mostly completely DC’s fault…who happened to not even be in the car.

Every Tuesday, I rush out of work, change into my running clothes, catch the train, get to my car, and head to a local pub.  At said drinking hole, there is a running group that runs the 3 mile dirt loop around Rice University.  More on this group in a later post because a certain pub owes me a blasted tech shirt and until then, I refuse to even MENTION THEIR NAME.

Moving on, every Tuesday we finish our run, maybe have a drink at the pub, and when DC finishes his 2029348302 mile Tuesday evening ride, he meets us for a drink.  Then we go home.  Me in my car, him on his bike, we go our separate ways (and for the record, I always beat him).  Except for this one night when Devin decides he must mess with the universe and have me drive behind him all the way home because he doesn’t have lights and it’s dark and that really sounds like a personal problem to me, but because I care if he makes it home in one piece so he can make me dinner because I love him, I do as I am asked.

Naturally, we go through the elderly neighborhood where a blue-hair pulls out in front of me like a bat out of hell, and then lays on the brake and proceeds to go 10 miles an hour.  This is not an exaggeration.  When I can say “My husband can ride his bike faster than that” and mean it…as in he is doing it right then, you are driving too slow. 

So he keeps going and I realize I am at the point where he will make it through the light and I probably won’t because of Myrtle here, and then I will fail as a motor pacer and a wife and because of me (and Myrtle) he will probably fall and crash and yard-sale all over the place and I will be responsible for picking him up and all of the bike pieces because I will be scorned for just leaving any of it and then I’ll have to take him to the hospital with his broken collarbone among other things and it will be summer 2008 all over again, which I will say, was not the best summer of my life (except for when he proposed), and then all of his racing dreams will be crushed and it will be ALL BECAUSE OF ME.  All of this is going through my head but also just “HE CANNOT BEAT ME HOME!!!”

Conveniently, Myrtle turns.  And I gun it.  I was all Dukes of Hazard like, except I was not wearing flannel.  And I was in a Volvo.  Actually, I just punched it to get around Myrtle as she turned, and as I punched it, I glanced into the opposite lane and looked a policeman dead in the pupils.  Busted.  I did what you do every time you’re speeding and pass a cop- I stared in the rear view mirror not watching the road while I continued to drive (safe.) and said a run-on prayer of dearGodpleasedontlethimpullmeover slash devincantbeatmehomethisisarace slash imeanimtryingtokeephimsafedontmakemestop.

Cue the rainbow lights.  Beeoowoop!

This bucko waltzes up to my window, looks at me (by the way, forget talking myself out of this.  I look a hot mess; nasty sweaty from running, probably dead mosquitoes on my forehead…because I run that fast) and asks for my license.  He comes back, looks over his aviators, and says, “Do you go by any other names?”  Holy crap!!!  How did he know?!  I was just about to tell him I go by Ginger when I’ve had a little too much to drink when he said, “Stephanie WOOD ring a bell?!?!”  My maiden name.  Who does this guy think he is?  I told him, in my naturally sarcastic charming ways that it would be really silly to go by my maiden name if I am married with a new name, dontcha think, cowboy?

Then he pulls me out of the car through the window, I throw some judo chops, I grab his cowboy hat, hijack the car, and drive it off a cliff in the grand canyon.  OMG what if?!?!  That would be a way better story.  By the way, this is typically where I say why are you still reading this?  Go do something productive like re-lacing your shoes, Stacey Carosi.

This man brings my ticket back to me AFTER I PRAYED FOR A WARNING.  Hello???  And as I am signing it, he says to me, “Did you see that cyclist up there?  You know you could have hurt him?  Then what?”  I laughed.  I LAUGHED!  and said something like, “Well, I would get some dough, a new car, a lot of bikes that’s my husband.  I suppose that would be pretty sad, except that I was DRIVING WITH HIM TO SAVE HIS LIFE SLASH RACING CAREER!!!”  He just hands me the ticket and tips his hat.  Drat you, Texas gentlemen.  DRAT. YOU.

All of this snowballs into me realizing I took defensive driving within a year (again, you are not allowed to judge and also I have reasons), and will have to go to court for this.  Do I hire an attorney?  Do I just go alone?  Do I not pay the ticket, pick up Rhonda on my way out of town, and make some dreams come true by turning back into Ginger and Candy Thelma and Louise?

4 weeks of stressing.  4 weeks of getting my story right.  4 weeks of consulting every first year law student I know.  A phone call to our insurance to ask how much it would effect us only to be told by Trudy Teenager that, “like, I know you don’t want it, like, on your record ‘cuz, like, it’s a lot of money”.  4 weeks of people saying West U is tough and I probably most likely, yeah definitely won’t get my ticket deferred.

The court date came yesterday and I was ready to go all Elle Woods on this guy.  I had my argument (Your honor, my husband made me do it).  I had my law suit on (don’t act like you don’t have one).  I took a seat toward the front of the room.  I wanted to look like the eager student who raises her hand all the time and always knows the answer.  OMG I wanted to be Hermione.  Hermione would win a case.  Open-shut.  Behind me, in the other 12 rows, were about 40 people of mixed races and one 6’5 white transvestite who, I am 90% sure, just came from work.  We’ll just leave that right there and move on.

I marched up to the stand when Judge Nebakanezer, or whatever, called my name.  My name as in my MARRIED NAME or MY ONLY NAME.

“How do you plea?”

Crap crap crap.  No one told me about this.  Crap crap crap.  Maybe he’ll let me text Hugel?  Phone a lawyer friend?  Crap crap crap.

“Uh.  No contest?”

“What do you want?”

“Can you defer it so it won’t go on my record?”

“Ok.  NEXT!”

Are you even serious right now???

I just won my first case.

I’d like to thank A Time to Kill, Legally Blonde, A Few Good Men, Jodi Picoult, and also my 6th grade health teacher who made us watch the OJ Simpson trial EVERY DAY in class.