slow down, butt head!

Bam! Gochya!

I admit, I drive a bit like my gas pedal is made of lead.  My husband shakes his head in both frustration and amazement at the speed with which I need new brakes.  I joke that my little Corolla can do anything, it could out four-wheel any truck, I am sure I could blow the stickers off of a race car if given the chance, and I know for a fact that a time or two I have made that bad boy fly.

I am not a maniac, I just like speed.  I am actually working on this, trying to pay more attention to it just in general, but speeding comes quite naturally to me.

I think this is why I am not allowed anything with an actual engine or horsepower.

As a result, when I am driving and I look up to see an esteemed police officer aiming one of those magical little radar guns at me I utter a string of curses.  It is not a sight I typically welcome.

But this morning, while being radar-ed I rolled down my window and yelled back a very genuine "thank you!" to the officer astride his motorcycle.

Why, you ask?  What on earth was I thinking, you wonder?

It is simple, you see, I was in a school zone.

The office laughed and yelled back "you are welcome!" and I noticed he was busy filling out a ticket when I passed on my way back by him once I had dropped Meatball off at school.  Fabulous.

You may be thinking I am a hypocrite, and frankly, I see your point.  But I will blaze on here in all my hypocritical and self righteous glory, so deal with it.

Not the gentleman from my school zone,
but the set up is similar.

If you are going like 10 or 15 over the speed limit on the freeway I may think you are going a tad slow for my taste and pass you.  If you are pulling that on a regular city street I will be probably keeping up with you.

Side streets lined with houses?  Anywhere near a school or park?  You, my friend, are an asshole.

As a teacher I had to do crosswalk duty occasionally, and let me assure you that job sucks worse than a vinyl bra on a hot day.  People would speed through that area with adorable little kindergartners trying to balance on their training wheels.  I had the stop sign ignored on more than one occasion while someone drove right through in front of the crossing children.  And when the pick up lane gets backed up and some jackhole has to pull IN TO the cross walk, blocking it, because they don't want to lose their spot?  Because surly they will die if they have to be two more people back in line! Yeah I want to implant the stop sign I am holding into the hood of their car as a gentle reminder that being a douchecanoe is not appreciated.

Horrible, but to the point. Lets keep it fictional.  

I don't know what anyone is thinking speeding through a place where children are known to be crossing.  I mean, they are kids.  Have you met one?  They are the least predictable little monstrosities on the planet.  Beings with absolutely no sense of logic or safety.  A short list of crap more reasonable, logical, and predictable than children walking on a sidewalk to illustrate my point:

• Pigeons that play Chicken with my windshield while I am driving
• RuPaul's wardrobe
• My uterus
• A mosquito's flight pattern
• Politics

Driving at a speed that will not facilitate immediate and sudden response is like asking for tragedy to strike.  But in this case, you'd be doing the striking.  Its too horrible to think about.

So in short, don't be a self absorbed dingleberry.  If you are late for work, the extra 20 seconds you tack on by actually going 15 MPH and not passing people will not make you suddenly "not late."  If you are just impatient think of how much longer you will have to wait if you get ticketed ... or worse.  I mean, it seems simple, don't be an ass hole.  Slow down and we can all be happy.

So thanks again to the police officer dutifully making sure it was an asshole free zone near my kiddo's school this morning.  Thanks, more generally for all you do to keep us safe.  And hopefully you will remember how nice I am if you ever aim that evil contraption at me while I am anywhere other than a school zone.