A Ticket to Nowhere

I got a speeding ticket while on an errand of devotion, if you please, and if that were not enough, the ticket was totally undeserved.  I know what you'd say.  You'd say that everyone says that, but in my case it's true.

I was driving east off of I-15 concerned that I not be late for the funeral of my friend, Robert Matthews.  He was a very kindly, beloved, long-lived man, so of course he had lots of friends and I wanted to visit with his widow, Shirley, for a minute, and to see him one last time.

In the rear-view, I see the officer,  blue and red lights ablaze, urgently gesturing for me to pull over.  I comply.  I think for certain I've run a stop sign because there was nothing else it could possibly be.  Ha!

"Do you know the speed limit along here?" he asks.

"I don't know.  About forty maybe?"  I say.

"It's twenty-five and you were going fifty."  The sounding clunk was my heart sinking.  The squishy sound was my eyes bulging.  I am incredulous.

The street is right off I-15 and is a real boulevard.  Five lanes maybe or at least three really wide ones.  A main drag.  I sit in silence doing all things right yet still get a ticket for "only" ten over the speed limit.  Ninety dollars for the ticket and sixty for the online driving class.  No wonder Lindon City can afford the big-deal office building.

I had to drive to Lindon to pay the ticket and get the driving class going so it doesn't show up and clobber my insurance rates.  While driving down there, I build a full head of steam about what I'm going to tell them about their little money-making speed trap and how I hope their city dies on the vine from people avoiding driving through it at all costs.

When I get down there, however, everyone is so darn nice.  Even when I complain that it was a speed trap, the woman merely says nicely "I'm sorry."

I pursued it.  "That's a main road to State Street from the Interstate.  Twenty-five is ridiculous."

"Well," she says, still sweetly and without a note of sarcasm, "there are schools and rest homes all alone there."

"They should teach their children to stay out of the road," I respond lamely, making a stupid attempt at a joke.  She laughed.

The thing that really made me mad on top of everything else was my parting shot:  "The officer was really nice when he gave me the ticket, though, and gave great directions to the funeral address."

"Thanks for saying so," she said graciously.

I hate nice people.  They ruin all my fun.