I had just passed a semi and was entering into auto-mode when the car in front of me braked, turned on its blinker, and drove off onto the shoulder.<\/p>\n
At first, I thought it was going to turn–on Highway 30, it’s normal for cars to pull off onto the shoulder prior to a turn, allowing those behind them to pass on their way to wherever they’re going.<\/p>\n
But as I got closer, I realized that there was no road on which to turn off–and that the vehicle belonged to the Nebraska State Patrol.<\/p>\n
Huh, I thought, wonder what he’s doing.<\/p>\n
He pulled out behind me and turned on his lights.<\/p>\n
It was my turn to pull off.<\/p>\n
When he knocked on my window and asked for my driver’s license, registration, and insurance, I took forever to get my insurance. It’d been a long day in Grand Island and my eyes couldn’t focus on the date on the insurance card. I didn’t want to accidentally give the officer an expired insurance card.<\/p>\n
But, at last, I determined that it was the current card. I handed it over, wondering if the officer would ever tell me why he’d pulled me over.<\/p>\n
At last, he revealed: “I pulled you over for speeding. Speeding while passing is illegal in the state of Nebraska.”<\/p>\n
He took my information back to his cruiser. I laid my head back on my headrest and wished for it to all be over. <\/p>\n
Passing. I should have known. I always pass fast, eager to get back onto the right side of the road as quickly as possible. I should have known that would be illegal. <\/p>\n
He came back at last, his clipboard in hand. <\/p>\n
“I’m going to have to give you a ticket,” he said, “because you were going so fast.”<\/p>\n
“You slowed down right after passing–I know it wasn’t your intent to speed. I took five miles off the speed I clocked you at–that’ll save you fifty dollars.”<\/p>\n
He gave me all the details, had me sign his copy of the ticket, wished me a safe drive.<\/p>\n
I put away my license, registration, and insurance card. I laid the ticket on the seat beside me. I started the car and drove off, already starting to tear up.<\/p>\n
He had been the first non-institutionalized potentially-single man I’d met in months.<\/p>\n
Will it ever get easier, being a single woman in a world with no prospects?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I had just passed a semi and was entering into auto-mode when the car in front of me braked, turned on its blinker, and drove off onto the shoulder. At first, I thought it was going to turn–on Highway 30, it’s normal for cars to pull off onto the shoulder prior to a turn, allowing … Read more I met a man<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"ngg_post_thumbnail":0},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/bekahcubed.menterz.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8169"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/bekahcubed.menterz.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/bekahcubed.menterz.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/bekahcubed.menterz.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/bekahcubed.menterz.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8169"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/bekahcubed.menterz.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8169\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/bekahcubed.menterz.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8169"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/bekahcubed.menterz.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8169"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/bekahcubed.menterz.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8169"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}