Not Only Adorable -- Also Useful!

Yesterday I drove from Austin to Dallas to introduce The One-Eyed Wonder to Princess Poo-Face (more on that later).  It was a great day for a drive -- clear weather, clear roads, and no one being a bloody stupid moron on the road.

Until I got to Temple, about an hour into the drive.  There was a white car in the left-hand lane driving annoyingly slowly.  I couldn't get around at first because this is the one place in the entire trip where I-35 actually curves.  Then, when the road straightened out, a big blue mini-van sped past me, but inexplicably got into the left lane behind the white car.  Then a little yellow car zipped past me and also refused to go past the white car.

"What the hell?" I thought.  "Some doddering old idiot is in that car up ahead and everyone else is being just as stupid!  Right.  I'm getting past this clusterfuck."  I got in the right-hand lane and hit the gas, and as I pulled abreast of the white car, I turned to glare at, I assumed, some old fart who couldn't be bothered to learn the rule about slow cars staying to the right.

Instead I found myself looking at the rear-window bars of an unmarked cop car.  Did anyone else not see that coming?

So he pulls me over, and takes my license and insurance, and glances at my inspection and registrations stickers but they're both up to date (ha!).

"Hi, officer." (He's cute in an Ed-Harris-lookalike kind of way but I don't mention that.)

"What's the hurry, ma'am?"

"I'm just excited to get up to Dallas with my new dog."  (Here Lola endearingly tilts her head to the side.)

"What's in Dallas?"

"My parents."

He heads back to his car to swipe my license, and I remind myself of my Philosophy of Speeding, which is as follows: it is worth paying a ticket every few years to be able to speed every time I take a road trip.

It doesn't seem very convincing right that second.

Then I realize that because he's parked behind me, he can see everything plastered on the back of my car, and not all of it is going to make me look good.  For one thing there's the Tinkerbell wheel cover, which will make me look like some empty-headed sanrio-shopping teenager.  Then there's the bumper sticker (applied by my aunt, not me!) cheerfully proclaiming, "Tattoos, Piercing, and Pain -- It's a Good Thing!" which may ingratiate me with the goth crowd but probably not so much with law enforcement.  The Marines bumper sticker fell off, so I don't have any respectable ties to the military and national security.  And the only evidence of my law school affiliation is the slightly cryptic "Make Love, Not Law Review!" which he's probably going to think is a reference to fornication rather than public service lawyering!

I'm screwed.

He comes back to my window, hands me my license and insurance and says, "Well, you haven't had a ticket in a few years.  So slow down, okay?"

"Yes, sir!  Thank you!"

I have never ever ever been let off with a warning.  Ever.  So it's totally due to Lola and her awesome powers of awesomeness.