So I'm stopped at a stoplight and a cop pulls up behind me. I say to my spouse, with whom I am speaking via my cell phone, "Can you call [boy]'s speech therapist and tell her we'll be late for his appointment? I'm about to get pulled over for an expired registration."
Sure enough, just after Cop and I successfully complete the left turn, the blue lights come on. Boy is really excited about this and thinks we're going to visit the police station. I spend the intervening moments between the full stop and the time the officer arrives at the window gathering my license, registration, and failed state emissions inspection and teaching my son to say, "Mama got pulled over."
Cop comes to the window and says, "Hello, Ma'am, are you aware that you registration is expired?"
"Yes, sir," I say, and then continue, "We failed our inspection, as you can see, because our check engine light was on, and we've been waiting for our income tax refund so that we can get it fixed."
"I certainly understand that, ma'am," the nice officer says, "and I just pulled you over to make sure you were aware of it. I don't give tickets unless I have to, but another officer might write you a citation, so I wanted to give you a verbal warning and make sure you got it taken care of. Do you have your license with you?"
"Yes, sir, it's here."
"Thanks, I'm going to go run a check on it, I'm sure it'll come up clean, but I've gotta check, and then you can be on your way."
I spend the next few minutes teaching my son to say, "Thank you, officer," and when the cop comes back to the window he asks, "Have you ever been confused with someone from Mooresville?"
I'm sort of shocked, and a little worried. "No, sir."
"Wayyl," he says, in a Southern-cop kind of way that makes my hair stand on end, "there's another white female with and ID with the same ID number as your license, and she's about your age, and she's not what you'd call an upstanding citizen, you see."
"Oh, my." I don't like where this is going.
The officer relieves the anxiety that is no doubt showing on my face and says, "I cross-checked it against your vehicle registration and you're clearly not her. But you might want to check with the DMV and see if they can give you a new license number. Some officers aren't so thorough, and I'd hate to see you get into trouble over this other lady's outstanding DUIs."
"Yes, sir, thank you, sir." I exhale and my son echoes from the backseat, "Thank you, officer."
He hands me my license and says, "Be safe, now. And get that registration taken care of."
"Yes, sir, I wil."
We were fifteen minutes late to speech therapy, but I was pretty OK with that by the time I got there.
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Topic: Today I'm gonna... (Read 1349612 times)