About a week ago I ran a red light downtown while picking up my brother. This wasn’t a case of it being a close call or anything like that – I sailed through a light that had probably been solid red for a minute! I had no idea it happened until my brother shrieked, “RED LIGHT!” at the top of his lungs as I sailed through the intersection without looking.
The story gets better. I had borrowed my mother’s brand-new Jeep for the trip downtown. The Jeep has something like 600 miles on it – literally brand-spanking-new and boy is she proud of it! That Jeep almost gets treated better than I did when I was a child!
Now, my poor driving is legendary in my family. It started with an accident and a couple speeding tickets when I was younger. To this day when we go somewhere as a family everyone volunteers to drive just so I won’t.
For the past several months I’ve been lobbying hard to convince them that I’m a better driver now. It is true – I don’t speed, don’t take risks and drive defensively like they teach you at driving school. There have been no tickets or incidents of any kind for the past decade or so.
So you can understand if I tried to forget the incident ever happened. My brother might have nightmares for years, but I’m fine with it. Nobody was hurt, the Jeep is good as new and life goes on.
Today I got a phone call from Mom, and she was laughing so hard she was crying.
“Hey Speed Racer, I just saw the funniest video I have ever seen in my life!” she exclaimed.
Speed Racer?!? What is that all about?
“What is in the video?” I asked even though I had a sneaking suspicion where the call was headed.
“I got this letter in the mail from the city that referred me to their website. I just watched my brand-new Jeep go flying through a red light downtown without even pausing. At the end it even zoomed in on my license plate. It was hysterical!”
My face turned red. No point in trying to hide it. “I guess I missed that light when I borrowed the Jeep last week,” I explained sheepishly. “So how much is this costing me?”
At this point I think Mom was watching the video again because she could barely talk through sobs of laughter. “The ticket was $95. No points or anything.”
Sigh. “I’ll be over this week to pick up the paperwork so I can pay it. I’m really sorry.”
More laughing. “I already paid it online,” she said, “We’ll settle up later Speed Racer – it was worth $95 to see your ‘excellent’ driving skills in action!”
Running a red light is no joke, but apparently being filmed doing so in a borrowed Jeep is!
I won’t live this down for years…
{ 4 comments… read them below or add one }
Hmmmm…funny, your brother didn’t mention this to me at all! Can you post the link??? (just kidding!).
He was hungover… Sadly I have no such excuse.
Oh too funny! At least mom had a sense of humor about it all…. And don’t feel too bad, no one can be good at everything, right?
If you think my driving is bad, wait until you hear about my cooking!