Last weekend I mentioned that Corey came home on emergency leave. On Sunday, I had to drive him back to Camp Shelby. It is 2.5 hours and is almost completely two interstates: I-12 East and I-59 North. It's country and boring, but oddly, there are five Targets between my house and Camp Shelby.
I spent the entire car ride to Camp Shelby willing myself not to be sad. I prepared the night before by loading an audiobook by a funny Southern writer I like (Celia Rivenbark) in the iPod to distract me on the way home. Apparently it's important for you not to have meltdowns on your soldier. It makes them feel guilty and distracts them from more important things, like training to stay alive. So I dropped him off with a big smile and a big kiss and started on down the road. From the time I pulled away, I was choked up. (I mean, there's just so much going on, or about to go on here at home that I am going to be alone to manage, and that is so sad and depressing.) But, I wasn't crying.
I was, however, completely zoned out. Speed limit was 70. I'm doing 79-ish. Cruise control. Audiobook. Deep breathing. I noticed about 30 minutes out of Shelby that I was in a construction zone, and the speed limit was 60. I checked my speedometer, which declared I was going 80. Damn. I look up in my mirror and see the familiar flashing lights of a police car behind me, and I think "SHIT! How long has he been back there?!" So, I pull over.
Here begins the part that will make this particular officer think twice before pulling over a vehicle with a Blue Star sticker.
I still don't have the plates on my new car, and I looked behind me to see that the temporary paper plate has become partially untape and is not visible at all. I get all the papers that came from the sale of the car out of the glove box to start going through them to determine what I should hand the man when he comes for my registration. And he appears, and says "Good afternoon ma'am. Do you know why I pulled you over?"
And I begin to cry.
I wish I was one of those Demi-Moore-in-Ghost criers, but I am not. Even when I'm crying a little bit, I have The Scrunchy Face. So when I threw my head back and started wailing and sobbing at this old fat trooper, it doesn't look like this:
It looks like this.
And between the waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaailing sobs, I was trying to make words. To me I was telling him that I had just dropped my husband off at Camp Shelby and he was deploying to Iraq and I was trying not to cry and not paying attention. I delivered "aboo dobada caca sheeshee......"
I should mention that since he was standing on the driver's side of my car, between my car and the ones whirring by on I-59, he was standing very close to my car. So I exploded with this sobbing, unexpected meltdown IN THIS MAN'S FACE.
After what was surely two minutes if not five, he asked me for my driver's license which I provided. He walked behind the car and I blew my nose and wiped my face (different tissues) and prepared for his return with my bigass ticket. Instead he came back to the car and said "Ma'am, I stopped you for going 80 in a 60 and I was behind you for more than two miles before you pulled over."
I exploded in tears and wails and babyspeak AGAIN. And he patted me on my arm and told me he saw my Blue Star sticker. I managed to eek out that I had just dropped my deploying husband off at Camp Shelby, and I think I got it out that time, because he nodded and said he figured. He told me to slow down and pay attention, to hang in there and tell my husband thanks for his service.
However, what I saved with the cost of a big speeding ticket, I lost in dignity on the side of the damn road in Poplarville, Mississippi.
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