Tuesday, January 12, 2010

The Harried Husband Excuse


I dodged two bullets this morning while driving in to work.

The second bullet was a typical event in which traffic during rush hour came to an unexpected stop and I missed being rear ended by a van by mere inches. That was a close one.

But the first bullet is rather amusing in hindsight...

After dropping my wife off at work this morning, I did a "Hollywood" stop at an intersection, and got pulled over by a law officer. I also didn't have the most recently updated proof of insurance card in my vehicle, and the officer informed me that I had been speeding after failing to come to a full stop at a stop sign.

He began to lecture me on how my driving was reckless and a danger to pedestrians and other drivers...and he wanted to know why I was driving like that.

I lied.

I said that I was dropping my wife off for work, and that we were late, and that she was yelling at me for making her late, so that after dropping her off, I was a little amped up, and not driving safely because of that...and that I was sorry.

The officer than told me "Oh boy, I know how that one goes. Look, I'll let you off this time...just make sure you don't make her late again. It's hard to deal with an angry wife first thing in the morning."

I said, "I hear ya. Thanks for the break!"

LMAO.

Thank goodness the officer that pulled me over was obviously married to a woman for which he lives in fear of her emotional state...playing on his sympathies got me out of over $300 in tickets and an appearance in court to show my current insurance card.

3 comments:

CMPitts said...

Great idea!

I'm going to add this one to the arsenal for the next time I'm pulled over.

djc said...

I'm going to make sure that never happens to me by not having another wife.

Anonymous said...

Tom Hanks tells a similar story about when he was visiting Israel. He was driving, his wife was in the car. She had a license, he did not. We got pulled over for a minor infraction. The police lectured him sternly for driving without a license. Then the police asked, "why did you do it?"

He answered, "because I am the man". The policeman accepted that as a rational answer and let him go.

Naturally, it was funnier when Tom Hanks told it.