the day i almost went to jail

We hit the road following brunch. I drove since Jesse was still feeling the effects of Saturday’s drunken debauchery. An hour and a half out of Blacksburg, I was driving around 80 on 81 and saw a VA state trooper in his secret spot. I slowed down (as did many other cars) and proceeded to drive just under 70 mph, as the trooper slowly pulled out of his spot and joined the flow of traffic. He then caught up to me and I heard a siren. Surely it couldn’t be me. After all, I was driving 5 mph over the speed limit and plenty of cars were passing me by on the left. It can’t be me because I didn’t do anything wrong. I noticed he was right on my tail, so I turned on my turn signal and moved to the shoulder. Naturally, I freaked out. I was being pulled over for the first time in my life.

The most country-accented man I’ve ever heard in my life approached the car. He asks, “Did you know that you’re driving with expired tags?” (Jesse’s tags just expired a couple of days ago). Jesse casually responds, “It’s my car. You know? I completely forgot. It was just a couple of days ago.” The trooper says in a heavy southern drawl, “That’s alllllll-right.” The trooper turns to me and asks, “Ma’am, can I see your driver’s license?” which I give up to him with an incredibly shaky hand. My hands were trembling and I could barely grab the wheel. I felt out of breath and wanted to cry. I had never in my life received a ticket for any reason and here I was getting pulled over in the middle of nowhere, driving someone else’s car with expired tags and an out-of-state license. Could it get any worse? Yes (of course it can, this is ME were talking about). The trooper asks, "Can I see your registration?" Jesse starts looking around but couldn't find his registration. I thought, Certainly I’ll be going to jail for this. Good thing I know lawsomnia personally. I’ll need good representation.

So, the trooper sees that Jesse is searching frantically (yet thoroughly) for the registration. He says, “I’m gonna run a check and I’ll be back.” At this point, I’m still freaking out as I’m trying to convince myself that going to jail in the middle of nowhere couldn’t be that bad. Maybe they’ll have good Southern food there.

Ten minutes later (trust me, it felt like an eternity), the trooper comes back with my license and a citation for me. He says, “You know, we’ll just forget about the registration.” He wasn’t so forgiving with the expired tags. He hands the citation to Jesse even though it’s for me. I asked him, “Is this gonna stay on my record?” He chuckles and says, “Oh no. You won’t get any points or anything.” He then explains what to do next, which I didn’t understand because of his accent (besides I was too busy thanking God for not going to jail). He then says, “Y’all be careful pulling out into the highway, ok?”

Poor Jesse felt really bad. He apologized profusely for putting me in that situation, for freaking me out like that. I just sat there and continued driving, praying that the hand-shaking would finally stop. We stopped at the Dairy Queen in Harrisonburg so I could treat myself to a shake. I certainly deserved one after the hell I went through.

A couple of miles later, it hit me. Previous to this incident, I was probably the only Californian with a spotless driving record (no accidents, no parking tickets, nothing). If you know what it’s like to drive in California, you would be proud of this too. Unfortunately, I must now relinquish my title.

This post is a continuation of the previous post: don't piss off a turkey