Our spirits were high as we left the UT Martin rodeo on Apr. 15, 2016. We had just witnessed college barrel racing and bull riding, as well as seeing a misspelled tattoo that said ITFINE, and if you looked closely, you could see a teeny S tattooed next to the T. We manage to navigate our way back to the car, while miraculously avoiding the mass exodus of trucks. The return trip is where things really started to get spicy.
I should preface this next part by stating that I’m a competitive person, and sometimes that carries over into my driving. I see a chance to fulfill my distant dream of being a racecar driver when a truck whizzes by me with a teenage boy and a girl I’m assuming he’s trying to impress. I like to give little ego checks every once in a while, so I speed up my 10-year-old Impala (I’ve named him the White Knight) and I pass him several times, mind you, we are both speeding quite a bit at this point and my passengers were giggling and laughing and their Snapchat stories are going to be fabulous. Thank goodness we weren’t pulled over for speeding. Yet.
Background on the passengers: First, there's me: an adult woman from the Los Angeles area who can’t handle goats being tied up at rodeos. C: a native Tennessean who is unfazed by anything, except by cops, as I later find out. Zed: a homegrown Canadian who can rap with the best of them. And Luisa, a Dominican with some mean car dancing moves.
Driving through some small town, starting to lean forward in my seat because I have once again over hydrated, I see a cop car turn around and start following me. You ever have one of those irrational thoughts that go along the line of “I know he won’t be able to catch me if I speed up real quick and turn down a side street and park”? Thank goodness I decided not to act on it as I saw those blue lights reflecting in the eyes of my precious cargo, or as they preferred to be known as ‘softball players’.
Instead, I pull over, park, and turn off the car; meanwhile, the cop takes forever before I hear a muffled “Are you armed?” from his speaker. Irrational Lindsey wanted to point at my arms and say “these are the only guns I’m packing since I started doing push-ups”; after thoughtful consideration, I decided that that would be inappropriate in this situation. So I peek my head out and confidently say ‘No’, which failed and came out as a whisper. After he finally walks up to the car, before he says a word to me, I asked “Did you asked me if I was armed?” to which he replies, “I asked for you to put your car in park because your back up lights were on”. Well, I decided to just not my head and not tell him that I had indeed parked and turned off my car several minutes beforehand, because goodness knows I would get a speeding ticket, as well as a fix-it ticket for my wonky tail lights. So he gives me the spiel of why I was pulled over (speeding FYI), and all I hear in the background is Adele and nervous breathing from my freshmen. After a while, I’m asked if I have any questions, of which I had two:
1. What is the city clerk’s name that I’m supposed to call?
2. What does the PTL on your badge stand for?
I’m surprised I didn’t get a ticket for being a smart Alec with those kind of questions. But to answer those questions:
1. I’m not really sure ma’am
2. Patrol.
And here I was, giggling to myself because a cop, Praise The Lord, pulled me, a Canadian, a Tennessean, and a Dominican over because I had to go to the bathroom and we really got into our Adele song. Sadly, it was not my first time for that rodeo.
