Opinion : Sometimes ya gotta get pulled over so you don't run out of gas

I give up. 

Honest, I don't intentionally try to speed, I just have places to go, and people to see, and pictures to take and video to shoot and my mind is running 100 miles an hour, and the next thing I know there's a friendly cop saying, "Hey lady!"

It happened to me on Saturday. 

I had taken my pictures of the cutest trick or treaters in town and thought to myself, I need a break from "work." So I hopped in the car and went for a ride. Something I like to do. I set my cruise on 55 and enjoyed the leaves. Arriving at one of my favorite stores, and my phone rang.

"Hello?" I said.

It was a newly discovered, I'm sure she's gonna be, best friend. 

"I need a hug," she said.

Immediately thinking something terrible had happened, I found out we just needed to talk, again, because our late-night talk a few nights before wasn't enough. 

I told her where I was, so she drove half an hour to catch up with me, and we met for lunch. 

5 hours later, head spinning, I forgot to stop at another store that I wanted to go to and headed home. 

I was pondering all of the many rabbit trails we took, trying to figure out some of the topics we discussed when I met one of those dreaded SUV's that looked like it had lights on it. I pulled my foot off the gas instinctively and looked down at the speedometer just as the lights went on. 

I immediately pulled over and waited for him to turn around and pull up behind me, reliving this same spot a few years ago, and hoping he was chuckling like the last trooper was. 

"You were kind of in a hurry..." he said. 

I told him where I was going, and why and he said, "I'll try to hurry..." which made me laugh. I mean come on I was trying to hurry too, and look where it got me!

He returned with my ticket and explained what I did, how much it was going to cost and if I wanted to go to court, when and where I needed to appear. I think I chuckled at this point thinking, "I don't have time for that either, I'm just going to pay it!"

He graciously let me go, when I looked down at my dashboard.

I was sitting on empty, miles from a gas station.

I opened the door and walked back to his car asking which gas station was closest and told him what the deal was. 

I turned the car around and headed to the gas station, while my car told me I had 0 miles left on the tank.

As I drove off I thought, "Now this is just going to be embarrassing if he has to come and bring me some gas too!" 

I coasted into the station just as my car gave a hiccup. Grinning and shaking my head as I filled the tank, I realized that if I HADN'T been stopped I would have been in the middle of nowhere, in the opposite direction with no gas and calling one of the kids to come and bail me out, again.

So, $119 later, plus a tank of gas, I was on my way. 

I guess the moral of the story is, if you see my putting down the road, I'm having a leisurely thought day. If I'm going fast, I'm thinking about a TON of stuff and I have to hurry and either get the stories on the website or I'm sorting through all the details. 

But if I'm speeding, honest, I didn't mean to, I just forgot to set my cruise control.

Now to invent an alarm that says, "What would you like me to set your cruise control on..." I mean come on it's the 21st century, why don't cars automatically know where you are and set it for you and give you the option to change it if you want to?

Not that it would matter. I'd then have to get a car from THIS century for the feature. 

Oh, this all reminds me that it's time for an oil change...this is why they put lights on the dashboard, for drivers like me that don't have time or the brain power left to remember to put gas in the tank, and fresh oil in the engine...off to call the mechanic...