Impounded: A Journal Entry

Rinnng. Rinnng. Rinnng. I groaned as I rolled over, grappling for the phone. Not only was it one in the morning, but I was six months pregnant and had to get up at 4:30. This had better be good! I had not even been able to get to sleep until shortly before midnight, because my nephew had been at our apartment all evening.

"Hello?"

"You’re never going to guess where I am!" My husband’s voice vibrated with barely controlled anger. My first thought was if this is Bryan, who is in the apartment? I thought I had heard him return from taking my nephew home. Hmmmm, must have been him leaving instead. My next thought was where?

"I’m at the New Miami Police Station!"

"What are you doing there?" I drawled each syllable out. I was now fully conscious, but definitely still not comprehending.

"I got pulled over for running a red light, and apparently the tags on the car are expired so some woman officer actually impounded it. They wouldn’t even let me park it at your sister’s. That’s the light I got pulled over at; the one by your sister's. All I did was let off on the break when it turned yellow in the opposite direction and kind of started easing out. It was midnight for crying out loud. There wasn’t a soul coming." At this point I was processing quite rapidly. For one thing, my husband rarely gets irate, but he was definitely irate. Next, his anger was directed at the female police officer involved. According to him, she must have been power hungry. I mean she actually handcuffed him. Next and most importantly, the car is registered in my name -- I was in big trouble. It was going to be a very long night, and I was going to have to keep my mouth shut and let my husband rant and rave.

By the time I arrived at the police station, I think my husband was even angrier. I actually had to push him out the door as he was screaming over his shoulder, "I feel like I’ve murdered someone." I saw the police report later, and he was described as belligerent. Yep, that sounds about right. However, I was just thankful that his anger was still directed elsewhere and terrified that my normally mild-mannered husband was going to get arrested.

All the way home, I wisely let my husband vent. About half way there, he did question why I had not renewed the tags. I took the opportunity to apologize profusely. For some reason, I had thought that I had until November, the anniversary of the purchase. Nooo, my birthday was the deadline. However, I wasn’t going to quibble. I was flat out guilty, but very grateful for a certain female cop who had felt like she had to throw her weight around. No matter what I had done or not done as the case was, Bryan was far angrier with her than he was ever going to be with me. All I had to do was listen to him rant and rave. So what were a few hours of sleep?

We crawled into bed around 2:30 with Bryan still grumbling about how he had never been so humiliated in his life. At this point, I was hoping for maybe an hour’s worth of sleep. He was starting to slow a little. He was no longer shouting and his voice was no longer radiating fury. Hmmm, I thought – I might actually be able to just gently drift off. He doesn’t really need a response. It was in the middle of this drifting that I heard it.

"Well, that makes three tickets I’ve gotten now." Whoa, how many did he say?

"Threeee?" I held up two fingers and pretended to be counting the ones I knew about. "Ummm, you have something to tell me?" Apparently, my husband had received a ticket for speeding in a school zone a couple months before and had failed to mention it to me. Yes! I was off the hook! I rolled over and went to sleep!