the ticket lottery ... after years of trying, I finally won!

My driving record:
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There might be some parking tickets on there, except that I have never actually paid any of those parking tickets, and I don't know if they go on your record if you don't pay them. (I now consider the occasional paper under your wiper blade just another part of working downtown with 2-hour-limit meters. You sometimes just forget to go refill them. I'm pretty conditioned, though. Sometimes when I'm at a friend's house or something I'll panic after I've been there awhile, wondering if it's time to go put money in the meter.)

I happen to be one of the world's worse speeders, however. Well, I guess there are a lot of really bad speeders out there, so maybe I can't really claim that, but I usually feel like a snail if I'm not passing people pretty regularly. For someone with as much "lateness tendency" as I have, I have always considered it a mighty grace of God that my record has stayed like that for the near-decade since I started driving, as speeding has saved me from countless "late to work"'s.

Today, however, I met my match.

I was doing 71 in a 55 - all you who are calling me an elderly driver after hearing that, back off. That was only because I was slowing down for my exit. For those of you calling me a speed demon, that part of the freeway shouldn't be 55, anyway. The rest of the freeway is 65. (Which I still think is too slow.)

Anyway, that cop was rad. I knew I'd been had as soon as I turned the corner - that's a speed trap I always forget about, and he was practically pointing his radar gun in my face. He turned out to be the nicest cop ever, and took my ticket to 65 to boot. It's not even that inconvenient, because I work practically next door to the courthouse.

I have this respect for that cop, partly because he works in a rainforest on a motorcycle and was sweating like a dog when he pulled me over, and partly because he administered my christening ticket. I should have gotten his name and asked to take a picture with him. I guess a copy of the ticket will have to do.

I don't think all the credit goes to my cop, though. One possibility is that God decided it was time for me to come into my own. On the flip side, my roommate and I both left pretty late today, so she prayed we'd be safe on our way to work - she might well have prayed that cop on me. I'll let her work that out of her conscience while I'm over here, trying to figure out if the money I've made not being late to work exceeds the cost of my ticket, which I suspect it will, hands down.