Don't Mind Our Dust...

The parking lot of the office complex where I work is getting a makeover. I don't mind having to park farther away in the neighboring restaurant's parking lot for the week, and I can handle the Latin-born workers' intense stares as I walk in and out of the building (thank you, Uruguay for all your training), but the random rumbling and shaking of the building as they scrape off the old layer of asphalt is going to kill me! No matter how consistently I feel it I still get the urge to duck and cover beneath my desk as I try to remind myself that it is NOT an earthquake...

Pulled Over

I consider myself a good driver. I have only been in one accident (which wasn't my fault), and I have never gotten a speeding ticket. But that doesn't mean I've never been pulled over; I have been pulled over 5 times - all within the last 4 years. You may be thinking that I am a mastermind of escaping speeding tickets but that would be wrong... I have never been pulled over for speeding, it's always something crazy!

First Time - Burnt out brake light. Not a big deal, but I was on my way to a meeting and would have been on time if there wasn't a new cop in training who took FORTY-FIVE minutes to write up a fix-it ticket... I ended up being 30 minutes late. I think they could only spare that much time to let the newbie practice because it was a Sunday. They must have been bored.

Second Time - Obstruction of view. I had a small Uruguayan flag hanging below my rear view mirror. Again, this was on a Sunday when the cops were bored. I pulled it down and he let me go.

Third Time - Registration not quite expired. I had Colorado plates while going to school in Vegas, and a motorcycle cop pulled me over to remind me that my tags were expiring at the end of the month. I was honestly able to tell him that I had spoken with my dad about my tags the day before and was waiting for the new ones to be mailed to me.

Fourth Time - Burnt out licence plate light (I REALLY think cops love to target me when they're bored). I was driving a friend home from a church dance at 1am. The cop asked me where I'd been, where I was going, and if I had been drinking....as I was thinking "I'm 25, don't have a curfew, and made a complete stop at the last stop sign..." It's like he was trying (unsuccessfully) to find a reason to keep me pulled over. Three years later and I still haven't fixed this light. No one else seems to have a problem with it.

Fifth Time - Missing registration stickers. I was VERY confused as to why the highway patrolman started tailing me before flipping on his lights. Of course this would happen the ONE day I was trying to get to work early. Turned out someone stole my registration stickers off of my licence plate! I had proof of registration, etc. So I got a fix it ticket and paid $18 at the DMV for a replacement sticker. The cop told me how to prevent this in the future by taking a razor blade to the sticker once it's on my license plate so that it can't come off in one piece for a thief. Go, go, ghetto cop!!

I swear - it's always the strangest things.