Bring On The Sea Breeze

Lawyer Boy and I spent last weekend, Memorial "Sunburn Kick-off" Weekend, at my parents' beach house with my parents (you didn't see that coming and I know it), my sister and brother-in-law, and their two kids. The peach-and-white sand palace, appropriately named "The Beach Peach,"* lives four hours from Richmond on the Outer Banks, so LB and I tore out of work Friday afternoon so we could get home, pack nine times more clothes than we would need for a trip twice as long, and fire up the crane to hoist our Labradozer, Breeze, into the back of my Jeep.

If you've never encountered a Labradozer before, I highly recommend the breed. They're a high-energy, Cadillac-sized crossbreed of a Labrador Retriever and a bulldozer, and Breeze is really exemplary of the breed. At eleven years old -freakin' geriatric in dog years- she shows no sign of slowing down in trying to meet her goal of sniffing the crotch of every animate being in the tri-state area. We had another Lab, Amor, and she and Breeze were Bee Eff Effs in a way that made the Olsen twins look like frenemies. Three weeks ago, when Amor went to the Big Backyard In The Sky, we became worried that Breeze would slip into a deep doggie depression, so we decided to take her to the beach with us to keep her occupied. Our fears were apparently unfounded, since plenty of animate crotches still abound for Breeze to discover, and she hasn't missed a beat.

And so last Friday, an hour outside work, we had everything packed, loaded, and placated in the back of the Jeep, and we were off to show Breeze her first glimpse of the ocean!

Y'all, we got no more than thirty minutes outside Richmond before the ominousness (ominosity?) hit. We were heading through Prince George County on our way deeper into the eastern nether regions of Virginia, when we came upon a gas station so overrun with cops, squad cars leaking out of every exit and oozing across parking spaces, that we could only assume that Al Qaeda had been discovered, hunkered down over lemon chess pie in a back booth at the adjoining Stuckey's.**

In actuality, this was nothing more than a bored local police force out trying to raise funds for the annual Spring Fling by ticketing as many come-here's as possible over the holiday weekend. Guess who had been chosen in the Lottery O' Life to pay for the six trays of chicken wings doused in SHIT THAT'S HOT sauce?

As soon as we had cleared the stoplight directly in front of the gas station that had been marked for death, blue lights flashed obnoxiously in my rear view. LB and I exchanged puzzled stares. They couldn't pull me for an overdue inspection; that was current. For the first time in two years, my registration tags were actually current, so that couldn't be it. And how do you pull someone for speeding when you discovered them at a dead stop?

Dutiful, and fully huffed-up, citizen that I am, I steered the Black Sheep into the first available parking lot. The young officer, overseen by a much more senior officer riding shotgun, already had my license and registration in his hand by the time he drooled the words "liiiisnce 'n' rej'strayshin pleez." Confusion as to why I had been pulled had led me to act quickly in procuring the documents; confusion as to where he was, and what day it was, had caused him to black out the basic functions of his job.

"Ma'am," he drawled, losing points instantly for calling me ma'am when the license trapped in his sweaty palm clearly indicated that I'm all of 25. "We cawt ya on the lay-zah doin' sixty-two in a fawty-fahv. This's a fawty-fahv, heeyuh."

"What??!?!" I practically shrieked, losing all sense of manners in the heat of the moment. I am normally unreasonably nice to people I don't know, particularly anyone in a uniform. But apparently, when I feel my life and dignity are at stake, I'm a complete asshole. "Officer, I know I wasn't going that fast. Where was this?!?!?!?"

"Under th' overpass, ma'am. Th' lay-zah cawt ya at sixty-two. This's a fawty-fahv, heeyuh." Thank you, Officer Rainman. Speed limit is 45. Roger.

Several frustrated syllables that cannot be expressed within the confines of the English language hiccuped out of my mouth before I could finally sputter, "Officer, I hit the underpass right after a STOP LIGHT! This car will not get up to sixty-two that fast! It just can't! I was not going that fast!!!" And would you like one of the cookies I have in the back?

Officer Rainman shrugged noncommittally. At this point LB, ever the peoples' advocate, stepped in. "Officer, is there a chance your laser caught someone else, and you pulled my wife by mistake? I know she couldn't go that fast, right there." I noticed his Virginia Bar card casually protruding behind his driver's license.

Officer Rainman paused. I guess he was thinking; he was staring off into the distance and either counting gnats or considering LB's question. Either way, his eventual answer did not exude decisiveness. "Naw. I'be raht bayck." And off he ambled to write the first speeding ticket of my life. Do you hear me? Exactly one month, to the day, before I would have hit my ten-year anniversary of being a licensed driver with a perfect record, Officer Rainman breaks my streak. Oh, the wrath. Ohhhh, the fury!

A few minutes later, having written my ticket and eaten six chicken fingers, Rainman wandered back. He bumbled through the standard assignment-of-blame language, then decided to try small talk.

"Y'all headed to th' beach th'sweekend?" No, Officer, scenic East Jesus was our destination.

"Yes, Officer," I replied.

"Well," he drawled, visibly fighting the urge to spit. "I hope I din' ruin y'all's weeken'." No, you didn't. I just hope your wife cheats on you with Jon Gosselin, is all.

"No, Officer," I said calmly. "You're just doing your job."

"Y'all have a sayfe trip. Drahv slow!" he called out in farewell. I used my most ferocious ESP skills to beam rays of Jon Gosselin into his wife's head.

Thoroughly incensed and more ready than ever to burn the road to the beach, LB and I got back on the road. Not two miles of monitoring speed limit signs like ravenous hawks later, I saw something glistening and black in the road. It looked like a plastic bag blowing across the asphalt. All too late, I realized the plastic bag was a thick black snake, stretched so long across the road that it had sealed its own slithery fate.

"OMIGAAAAAAAAOOOOODDD!!!" I shrieked as I felt the almost undetectable bump of my wheels flattening the snake's tail. "I KILLED HIM I KILLED HIM OOOOHHHH NOOOO!!!!" I saw the poor snake's body curled up in the middle of the road, slithering no more.

I carried on like this for five minutes, thoroughly disturbed that I had killed something so violently, while LB tried unsuccessfully to convince me that the snake had felt no pain, and that if the snake had met me personally, he probably would have bitten me on the face. Hell, the way I was carrying on, I would have bitten me on the face, too.

Four hours later, we finally made it to the beach, and had a fantastic time. I'm not worried about the speeding ticket, because I'm married to Lawyer Boy. Have I mentioned he's a lawyer?

Have I mentioned he's a real estate lawyer?

Have I mentioned the fact that the only crime he could really defend me for is if I were charged with painting my house too fast?

Maybe I'll get off on a technicality. Maybe the officer won't show due to severe emotional trauma. He just found out his wife was having an affair with Jon Gosselin, is all.

*Complete with its own personal sign sporting a peach painted like a smiling woman's face, which they had to send back after it was first painted because the cleft in the peach looked indisputably like a big beachy buttcrack.
**They were only discovered when Raylene, the perennial pie-server, asked after their mamas. Rather than answering, they went back to their pie and coffee, causing Raylene to yank them straight up by their ears, at which point she realized they weren't the Jenkins boys. Ain't nobody go'n ignore Raylene, y'all.