Stupid Cops

Cortney is out of town this weekend to be at a BYU basketball game with his Dad and brother. I'm thinking that the the Gods are just not in favor of us taking trips without one another because bad things ALWAYS happen to us when we're traveling apart. Case and point:

Cortney's flight left on Saturday at 6 am, and being that we are tight on cash, we woke Will up at 4:30 to get Cortney to the airport on time so he wouldn't have to park. And I also want to point out that there is currently a blizzard in Columbus. The night before Cortney left, it snowed a foot. And when we leave for the airport, it is still snowing heavily and we crawl at 30 mph the entire time. We get there late and are hoping he can still make his flight, and I head out, crawling back home at 30 mph. I notice lights behind me, but I've been passed by about 30 plows and am assuming it's another one, so I move out of the way. But the lights are still following me. And soon I hear a siren.

How could I be getting pulled over at 5 am, in the dark, during a blizzard, driving 30 mph? The police officer takes his sweet time coming up to my car and tells me my tags have expired. In Ohio, your car tags expire on your birthday, but seeing as how I was on my deathbed around my birthday, re-registering my car must have slipped my mind. I apologize and tell him I'll get it registered that day. Then he tells me he can't let me drive home and that I'll have to call a tow truck to come tow me home. Let's all keep in mind the blizzard that is happening around us and the fact and I'm seriously afraid I won't even be able to pull my car out of where I pulled off the road, less than half a mile from the airport, and this guy wants me to sit here with my toddler and wait for a tow truck?!. First off, who pulls someone over at 5 am in the middle of a blizzard? And don't even try to tell me this wasn't a "city revenue" ticket. I'm shocked the guy could even see my licence plates due to snow and ice.

Back to the tow truck... I remind him to look in the back of my car and see Will who needs to get home and ask if I can please just get him home, I will go and get the car registered that day. He leaves with my info and says, "he'll be back", whatever that means. He's gone for 10 minutes and comes back saying that he'll "let me go" but he "has" to give me a ticket. Snow has piled on my car and I'm still cranking the defroster praying that I'll be able to see on the way home. He hands me the ticket and says, "Don't say I never did anything for ya" Oh yes Officer, thank you for your mercy. Honestly, who does that?!

So I take my ticket and Will and I make our way home at 30 mph in the blizzard, and watch a car slide off the road. Perhaps that officer would make better use of his time helping people who are sliding off the road than pulling someone over to deter them from going home safely. I get back to our neighborhood and there is more than a foot of snow on all the streets and if I weren't driving the Explorer, I wouldn't have even made it in the garage. We were snowed in for the weekend. It sucked. My bright idea of saving money to drive my husband to the airport is derailed by a $116 traffic violation.

So this was the straw that broke the camel's back. No more trips, unless they are for business or we go as a family.