By Esther C. Baird
First Published in the Tri-Town Transcript Jan 21, 2016
Well the Snow Crusher, our Mini Cooper Countryman, hasn’t been able to crush a lot of snow this season, not that there were any doubts after last winter, and not (not!!!) that I’m complaining. It continues to handle great, and it’s particularly zippy on cold, but clear, winter nights.
It was on just such a night that I was driving home from Beverly, after running a church event. It was on the later end of when I like to be functioning as a fully competent human. By that I mean the wee hours of the night, for example, 9pm. Conveniently, at that time of night, there is no traffic. It was just me and my box of brochures from the event. I had a happy sense of accomplishment laced with the knowledge that a glass of wine was within my twenty minute time horizon.
But first in my time horizon, was a yellow stoplight. I knew in order to stop, I’d probably jettison the box of brochures onto the floor. And certainly my purse, the size of a small planet, would tip over and all my pens and chapsticks and gum and random bags of snacks and wads of receipts that I was keeping for their great significance, would spill across the car floor.
My only real option, clearly, was to gun it through the yellow light. And it was the right choice given that there was no traffic on the roads.
Except for the parked Police Cruiser sitting at the intersection.
Also it’s possible that the light turned red maybe just a hair before I made it through. The blue lights came on immediately and swirled into my rearview mirror.
I pulled over and sighed. I am the Director of our Women’s program at church, I was on my way home from an event to raise support and awareness for women trapped in exploitation, I was out late for good and important reasons!! And yet there I was. Busted.
I opened my window and smiled at the officer. “Hello, I know, I mean, I KNOW, I just blew that yellow light. I’m so sorry. I had to make a choice between possibly going through while it was yellow, or coming to a gigantic, screeching halt, and having things fly around my car. But I totally know I went through it.”
The office nodded kindly. “It was actually fully red when you went through it.”
“Oh?” I replied, “Hmmm. Well that’s not good. It is not ok to go through a red light – obviously. But, I just knew if I stopped it’d be this really hard, hard, stop.”
He nodded again. “These lights are timed such that if you are going the speed limit, you will never have a problem stopping in time for a yellow light. You’d have to really be speeding to be faced with that choice.”
I stared at him. That sounded irrefutable. “Huh. So, hmm. That’s a fair point. I most likely was speeding is my guess then . . .”
See how clever I am with words? I must be a writer.
He said he’d be right back. While he was gone I grabbed a handful of the brochures and fanned them out on the passenger seat. I wanted to connote that I was a person who cared, and was involved in our community. A person who would only go through a yellow [red] light after a long and harrowing night of generally being good hearted and generous. I hoped the brochures would downplay the glint in my eye that might communicate, Speed Demon Mommy Racing to Couch and Wine.
He returned. “So I wrote you up for speeding and for going through a red light.”
I was a terrible citizen. I’d burn the brochures and go be a cocktail waitress with my free time. “But,” he looked at me sternly, “I’m going to just give you a warning this time.”
Not a cocktail waitress!! I would live to run another church event!
And the Snow Crusher will live to crush the snow, (should it arrive this winter), just a bit more slowly.