Fair. It should be my middle name. And that’s why I was feeling so unjustly treated on Tuesday as we drove home from Illinois for the third time in a month.
It seems as though everyone speeds. Except me. Even my aunt and uncle who are in their 70’s go “just five miles over”. So this is the thought that was in my mind as I watched car after car pass me on I-44.
After lunch, I decided that I, too, would go five mph over the speed limit. I still wasn’t anywhere close to being the fastest car out there and was nearly run over by a mostly out of control U-Haul truck that was pulling a car on a trailer and was all over the road. But I desperately wanted to get home and thought if we could get there a little faster it would be awesome.
Less than 30 minutes later, Mr. Missouri State Trooper pulled me over. “The speed limit is 70 miles per hour,” he said “and we don’t speed in Missouri.”
Wow. I couldn’t believe it. Other vehicles were flying by me as if I were standing still but “we don’t speed in Missouri”.
He asked me for my license and insurance card. Our insurance year begins on August 1 and in the confusion surrounding our multiple trips to Illinois, that card he wanted was lying in the envelope it came in on my desk at home. I did have every single card back to 1998 which obviously earned me points because Mr. MO Trooper told me to just be sure to put the new one in the car when I got home.
He didn’t give me a ticket and for that I am grateful. I did the crime, I am guilty. But after he pulled us over, and we drove along in the right lane like a foreign concept, I watched as every manner of vehicle passed us – cars, trucks, farm implements – and was so frustrated at the injustice of it all.
People always ask me why I don’t speed and I tell them, because I will be the one who gets caught. And there it was, the proof that I am right.
So what did I learn? I learned that we don’t speed in Missouri if we are Lauri Rottmayer because we will be pulled over. And I am starting to get a strong feeling that speed limits were made just for me. Now THAT makes me feel special 😉
