Fifty-Five

"Go on and write me up for 125, post my face wanted dead or alive, take my license and all the jive, but I can't drive fifty-five!"



At seventeen, this was the credo for my life. Back then, I truly agreed with every word of Hagar's song. I would climb into my car, turn the radio up, lean the seat back, and cruise. Most of the time, my "cruising" was upwards of ninety miles an hour. Basically, it's hard to drive a Firebird slow, and Daddy's little gift screamed for speed!



My parents were divorced when I was ten. Most of the time, I didn't see my father. As a rule, he didn't buy me birthday gifts either. So, it was not a big surprise on my sixteenth birthday that I didn't hear from him. When I was closer to seventeen than sixteen, he surprised me with a belated sixteenth birthday gift. My father bought me a Pontiac Firebird. He didn't do this for me though. He did this to truly and without a doubt tick my mother off. The two of them had an agreement that I didn't know about. He would buy my car, and she would pay my insurance. Of course, insurance for a sixteen year old is pricey enough, but to add a sports car into the mix, well Mom's premiums skyrocketed. But, I didn't care. I loved my car! It was sleek, satin white finish with blue interior, and an engine you could hear coming around the corner. I was afraid of it at first. Its get-up-and-go scared the hell out of me! That first week, I can't even begin to tell how many times it got away from me. My mother was sure that it was a death trap and that I was going to die in a big steamy pile of twisted metal in the center of the freeway. Oh man did she cuss out my father for buying it! The way she screamed at him was downright inspirational! Anyway, needless to say, I was never home. I spent all of my money on gas because I drove everywhere. Heck, I even started carpooling at school just so I could spend more time on the road.



Well, back to the point, I could not drive the speed limit. It was almost a physical impossibility for me to stay under the limit. I attended an alternative high school in another town that was thirty miles away from where we lived. I had to take the interstate everyday to school which was an absolute thrill ride every morning! Nothing wakes you up faster than hundred mile an hour speeds! It was supposed to take roughly about twenty minutes to get to school, but I could make it in less than ten. I got so good at driving at high speeds, I would freak my friends out when they rode with me. Sometimes, they would beg me to let them drive. I'm convinced that the reason was so they could have the chance to fly, but I never let anyone drive my car. No way was anyone going to go faster than I did in my car! But sadly, for every up, there is always a down.



My friend Tonia and I were out with our boyfriends, in my car of course, for a double date one Friday night. We had gone into another town to a concert and were about to start back towards home. It was getting late and I was beginning to feel worried that we were not going to make it back by my curfew time of 1:00 am. Punishment for being late was a loss of my car and I couldn't have that! So, I fell into my old routine. I hopped onto the interstate and flew. I was really flying! I zigged and zagged between eighteen wheelers and family cars at the speed of light, well maybe the speed of sound. I was moving so fast that at first, I didn't notice the car behind me. It stayed right with me. I mean it was really on me, basically tailgating me! I didn't know what to think, so I sped up. That car was still with me as we zoomed across county lines.



And that was the moment...



The moment when I realized that my pre-NASCAR days were over. The second the car behind me crossed the county line, red and blue lights came on. The police siren started wailing and so did I. I slowly pulled over and waited in fear for the policeman to arrest me. He was nice enough about the whole deal. He was pretty surprised to see a girl behind the wheel though! I was told that he had tagged me doing almost one hundred and twenty miles an hour. He wrote me out a ticket which I though might as well have been a death sentence. I knew that I would have to tell my mother because, after looking at the ticket, I knew I couldn't pay for it. I was positive that she was going to kill me. The policeman followed me the rest of the way home to make sure that I was not going to try to race the wind again.



The next morning, I prepared myself to die. The way that my mom had yelled at my dad was nothing compared to how she yelled at me. That ticket was close to being $500. To say that I was grounded would be a gross understatement. She took all of my privileges away. Then, to make matters worse, she enrolled me in defensive driving. Uh! It was the long version too! For three days, eight hours a day, I sat and watched video of horrendous car accidents. I was taken to school and picked up everyday like a grade-schooler. If I wanted to go anywhere, I had to walk. It was horrible! She made me apologize in court to the judge and the policeman who gave me the ticket. I had thought that, that would have been enough, but nope, Mom's demonic. She made me watch all eight of my little cousins for free while she and my aunts went for a girl's night out. Six full hours of screaming children and no one to blame for it but me.



But, it all worked. I don't speed anymore. Even now, in my forties, I resist the urge to speed. That ticket has been the only ticket that I have ever gotten and because my mom turned it into such a traumatic event, I don't ever foresee myself receiving another one.