It was Lula and Nathan Jr's first day of school today; Lumpyhead started his school year on Tuesday. Lula has none of the separation issues Lumpyhead did his first year. Lumpyhead cried at dropoff for the first - I don't know, six weeks or so? Lula cried today at pickup.
Leaving a crying child at dropoff fills you with guilt and dread. Hauling a weeping child home who wants to stay at school makes you feel like the least popular person in the world.
Seriously. That dude spreading H1N1 at the mall is better-liked than me. (I even took time off from work to pick her up, that Little Ingrate.) At least Nathan Jr was mildly pleased to see me.
As I was driving home, a police officer turned on his lights behind me. I changed lanes to let him by, but he changed lanes, too. I pulled off into a strip mall parking lot. So did the cop.
Internet, I ran a red light. Right in front of a police car.
Sure that was stupid - particularly the "right in front of a cop" thing - but it was completely unintentional. I swear I didn't notice the red light, and I travel that road all the time.
The whole thing makes me uneasy. How many other red lights have I run, completely unaware? Had the officer not been there, I would have never known. On occasion I might try to squeak through an intersection on a yellow, but mis-time it and run a red. That wasn't the case today.
I blew right past a stoplight, with my three children in the car.
With my three children in the car.
And that makes me positively nauseous. While I can think of much better uses for a hundred bucks (or however much this ticket will cost me), this incident could have ended much, much worse.
I don't think I want to drive anymore.
Nobody half-asses it like me.
4 comments:
It is amazing how distracted we can be, isn't it.
Glad you came out of it with only a ticket.
well weird as it is to say, I'm glad you (only) got a ticket and now that you are aware of it, you are going to be hyper aware - they couldn't be safer.
I have run red lights maybe 4 or 5 times in my driving life, but most of those times the intersection was thoroughly empty. Because if there was traffic, the fact that there was a vehicle crossing my path would have alerted me.
But a coupla times I did it while trying to do a right hand turn during that 2 second opportunity when there are no oncoming cars and THAT was scary.
We have definitely all done this. I think you would have noticed had there been danger. You probably didn't because the intersection was safe. Not to say that you should go blowing through lights all the time or something, but I totally understand.
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