Things happen for a reason

The other morning started out as many of mine do, me in my typical surly mood and my children poking the bear.  I have learned to TRY to overlook the drama that comes out of a certain little girl and boy in my house and am rounding the corner into not letting it screw up my entire morning (work in progress, work in progress).  Shaking like a paint shaker at Home Depot is a shit way to start a morning but it just seems to be the way it will go for me.  SO when the going got tough this particular morning, the tough got her ass in her car early and headed downtown to work.  I was out of the house about 10 minutes ahead of schedule so I was in no particular hurry.  I was not speeding, not bitching at the mini vans in front of me or cussing at the yanks eating my bumper behind me.  Just trolling along and happy to have left the team with daddy to finish preparing for school.  SO, I am driving on one of our major thoroughfares into downtown when I got in line behind an old blue head in a Lincoln.  She was going 12 mph.  Until her lack of speed made me catch up behind her it was not bothering me but then it started to bug me so I passed her.  I did not brake, I did not give a signal (mistake number 1) and I did not really speed up when I got on the other side of her.  I then got right in front of her.  I did not give a signal then either (mistake number 2) and I sped up just a hair (apparently mistake number 3).   When I say I sped up, I mean that I increased my speed by about 5 mph.  I was doing 20 when I came up on granny so by the time I passed her I MAY have rounded out a speed of 25 mph.  The speed limit on this part of the road is only 35 mph so no biggie.  I got just about to my favorite hot dog stand that resides on this road (snoopy’s) for those of you that live in my town and I saw blue lights behind me.  I kept on driving because I was not speeding so he could not be there for me.  Well he was and I figured that out quickly.  So I pulled over to the right, up the next residential street passed Snoopy’s. 

                            Oh yeah, this is SO not me in the morning.

Now to set this up just a bit, if you have read any of my blog posts then you are aware that mornings are not my cup of tea.  I am, at the best a sparkling bitch with major attitude if you mess with me before I am ready to be messed with.  It does not matter to me who you are, I do not want any contact with you that is not utterly necessary for AT LEAST several hours after I have crawled out of bed and made an attempt to be human.  A police officer is no different, probably should be but I make no distinction between living things in the morning.  I was now getting pissed because he was throwing a turd in the punchbowl of my 10-minute jump on traffic and my day.   What IN THE HELL could I have been doing wrong????  So when he pulled me, did he get out of his cruiser..Oh wait, I mean vehicle and come to see me immediately?  NO, he sat in his car, ran my plates, looked up what ever it is they look up and sipped his coffee for about 3 more minutes that seemed more like 10!  I DO NOT like to wait OR be made late and at this point I am about to be late because I have not reached the bottleneck section of my drive that is the gateway into downtown.  Damn him!  He finally gets out of his cruiser (vehicle) and WOW what a portly little fella he is.  I am surprised his ass didn’t bang on the running board of his vehicle as he crawled out.  His measurements must have been 40 waist with a 28 inseam.  A tailor’s nightmare for sure and what is up with police officers (some but not all) wearing uniforms so tight that if they fart they will discharge their weapon in self-defense???  He comes to the window and slows down at my back seat.  Why?  I am a small blond in a mommy style Lexus with stuffed animals and car seats in the back, how dangerous can I be?  Maybe he wanted a ride in the car seat; it was after all just his size.  He walks up to the window and taps on it for me to roll it down.   I roll it down half way (some of our police officers are doing strange stuff to female drivers now so I am not giving him a chance) and hand him my license and registration without speaking.  I do give him a half smile with a my right eyebrow raised.  I think the eyebrow raise is why my husband married me.  I did not speak to him, why should I?    When I gave him my information I turned my head and looked straight ahead.  Sure are some cute houses on this street now, the neighborhood sure has changed, wow.  He could not leave well enough alone and just give me the damn ticket so he starts in with the small talk.  “ MAM (of course Shorty had to add that now didn’t he) do you want to know why I stopped you?”  I look up at him and say, “no sir, not really” and I continue looking at him until he speaks.  He has inconvenienced me this morning so why should I make conversation easy for him.  He has the upper hand so screw him.  I am going to get the damn ticket no matter what I say so I choose to say nothing.  I know my husband wishes he were here because it is RARE that I choose to say nothing.  He says, “fair enough” then walks back to his car and does whatever it is he does.  He could be running my information or calling his mother for all I know but what I do know is that now it is to late for me to get to work and then hit the chic-fil-a for a snickity snack so just damn him!  I turn the CD player on to Eminem, nothing like a little fuel for the hatred fire I have going on…and Rhianna is currently enjoying being lied to so why don’t I just sit there and watch her burn right along with Eminem??? 

I sit there about 5 minutes and he comes back with my papers.  I look up at the window to see what he has to offer and get my left hand ready to embrace the ticket I am about to receive.  He says, “ you established that you have no interest in why I stopped you so are you concerned with the fact that I am going to issue you a citation, because I am required to explain why?”  I look up and say, “well sir, I care, but I am not concerned”.  “See I was not speeding, as a matter of fact I was going well under the speed limit, the only thing I did was pass an old woman who was traveling at an unsafe speed that was even slower than the one at which I was traveling, so I figure that it doesn’t really matter what I think or feel, you have your reasons and you are not afraid to use them so you are going to issue me a citation no matter what I say, am I correct?”  He smiled at me with a smile that told me he knew that I had a relationship with an attorney and I was going to call him as soon as I drove away, therefore he would not be seeing me sitting in court on his administrative day when he goes to defend his ticket righting.  He says, “you are correct in that you were not speeding but you did however pass the vehicle traveling in front of you without giving a signal when you passed on the right or when you moved back in front of the vehicle”.  I said, “ok sir, I can live with that, EVEN though you, me and her were the only cars on the road at the time.”  He said, “You didn’t let me finish mam.”  Damn him, throwing the word mam around like its no biggie.  Mam should fall in the category for women my age, (you know when you can’t tell if we are old and well preserved or young but well seasoned) as asking a woman when she is due when you can’t tell if she is just fat or if she is really knocked up!  Now I AM pissed and I wouldn’t pee on this little troll if he caught fire right by my window!  So, “mam you didn’t let me finish, you are correct, you were not speeding and you were in fact traveling under the posted speed limit but can you tell me why you passed her in an unsafe manner and why you did not give a signal?”  I said, “Well if my reason is good enough, will you let me go without a ticket, cause I am already late?”  He said, “Well lets hear your answer”.  See now he is just flirting and trying to be cute.  He has already decided and did so before he left his cruiser that he is not going to give me a ticket so NOW he is just wasting my time because he can!  I looked at him and said, “well sir, I was not speeding because I don’t speed I well, I am a mom in case the car seats in the back did not give that away.  I was also traveling slowly because until you stopped me I was not in a hurry and I was just enjoying my drive.  Then I came up on a car going really slowly so without thinking of a signal or using my brakes (why should I, I was creeping) I just decided to go around her, why? Because sometimes it’s not about speed, its just about not wanting to follow anyone, surely you understand that”.  He said, “well, that is honest and I do appreciate it so you travel safely and please use your signal from now on OK MAM?”  I said, “You got it sir.”  We chatted for a few more minutes with pleasantries such as where are you headed, where do you work, for how long and how many kids do you have?  It was all I could do not to turn into the back and say, car seats…count them 1, 2 so that means I have two children quickie quickerson, but even I know when to quit while I am ahead.  I asked him some of the same questions; I knew where he worked so I started with children.  He had 3 and was recently separated, we chatted for a few minutes and it ended up being a nice conversation with a very nice person and by the time I pulled away I was actually very glad that he stopped me.  He worked me out of my morning bad mood and folks that ain't easy to do!  I had no wedding rings on so maybe that was really why I didn’t get the citation…who knows but what I do know is that it ended up being a nice conversation with a nice person and as I continued on my route to work I passed a pretty nasty accident.  Made me wonder if maybe being stopped by the police officer and detained long enough to make me late also made me miss out on being part of that nasty accident.  No way to tell but just solidified my belief that people are placed in our path for a reason and if he was not placed in my path to keep me from an accident, then at the bare minimum he was placed in my path to give me someone to have a nice conversation with and ease into a good mood for the remainder of my day.  I can certainly live with that!

I love the cookies but hate the aggravating sales campaign used to make us purchase them.  A mommy, usually dressed in mommy jeans and some form of a sweatshirt, white socks and keds tennis shoes comes to the door with one or more scraggly teeth little girls ( who by the way could not look more disinterested in selling friggin cookies) and knocks at THE MOST inopportune time.  If no one responds, do they go away?  Oh heavens no, just like the Jehovah Witness people, they ring the door bell.  I am a loyal shopper so I only buy them from one person, who by the way has two of the cutest little girls in the world and I would buy anything they sell.  This mommy is not a girl scout cookie nazi, she is a good egg!  She sends an email or message via facebook and boom, she is done.  Several weeks later she comes with her adorable daughter to bring you your cookies.  Love her!  My husband and I are not smart enough to coordinate our purchases so about two weeks after they hit our house, he comes home with about 5 boxes of thin mints, ginning like a goof ball.

 My freezer is full of the foul little peppermint patty wannabe's until summer.  I did not buy any this year because I did not get an email from my friend who sells them.  So I have sworn off answering the door or shopping at places that allow these mommies and their daughters to stand out front and sell them.  Why is it almost always a table with 4 or more moms drinking coffee and yelling at the patrons to "get your girl scout cookies here!" But there are only 1 or 2 little girls in attendance and they are always talking to each other or playing some video game?  Isn't this designed to teach your daughters something?  Anyway...I stay away from grocery stores and shops until night fall so that I do not have to defend my NO to these people.  It is not that I think the girl scouts are bad, I know they are great but I do not like the bum rush I get before going into the store!  For the record, I do not take the tootsie roll or stick money in the red caldron for the bell ringers either but I do give to that organization also.  Again, its the bum rush I hate.  I am sure I have verbalized my disdain for the cookie campaign in front of my children at some point but it is not something I regularly do.  What happened today is proof that I do talk about it and that our children are sponges.

We had a birthday party to attend and my daughter wanted to pick the gift out herself.  Only fair right?  So we headed to K-Mart.  We pulled into the parking lot and I saw the standard table, over run with moms and lacking in the little girl department.  I gave a sigh and shook my head but my daughter was reading in the back seat so she did not see me.  We got out and headed to the door.  The moms were yelling at people about buying cookies and talking loudly to each other as if they were the only people in the world.  I was all prepared to shoot them a "don't bother me, I am with my daughter" their way and so far, I was doing a VERY good job of looking down at the street (ignoring them) and keeping pace with my daughter when she grabs my hand, takes a deep breath, screams and points at the table.  "OMG MOMMY LOOK OVER THERE, ITS THE COOKIE PUSHERS" Just to make sure I heard her...she repeated the COOKIE PUSHER part.   I started to laugh, literally OUT LOUD, I swallowed my gum and choked on my own saliva I was laughing so hard.  I picked her up and hugged her while I was laughing and we walked past the cookie table and the moms who were giving me serious stink eye.  Needless to say, the table is now quiet.  We went inside, picked out our gift and went home without purchasing cookies OR being asked again if we wanted any.

Got home and was home long enough to set our purchase down, fix the twins some lunch and had started cleaning the house when on the front porch there arose such a clatter....ding dong...avon? Jehovah Witness?  Encyclopedia salesman? NOPE..a mommy dressed in an outfit that screamed 1980 called and they want their clothes back!  She was selling guess what?  Girl Scout cookies.  My husband answered it because I answer neither the door nor the phone.  He left her on the front porch while HE searched for MY checkbook.  It was cold but yet she stood there with the door WIDE open.  WTF?  Were you raised in a barn???   Hi, welcome to our front porch you inconsiderate cookie person, oh no don't bother to come in or stay completely out just keep standing there with the damn door open!  We are paying to heat the outside today and appreciate your contribution!  I just kept vacuuming and never looked up.  Thirty minutes later I go for something to drink and when I open the freezer for ice, guess what I see.