So you know how I post often about TED talks and This American Life? I spend an hour a day or more, driving around in my car listening to podcasts. When the kids are in the car, we don't listen to podcasts though. We listen to fairy tales. And they kill me. I mean, they are horrible. I have some solutions lined up for this problem, but believe me when I tell you it is a problem. (Lizzie is painting right now, and as it happens she's painting me, and she just said, "Do you like your hair, Mom? It's falling like golden rain." Guess why? Because that's how Rapunzel's hair is described in the story we turned off an hour ago to come into the house.)
So yesterday, I got Lizzie into her carseat, plugged in the fairytales, and set off. My drive home from school is much shorter than my ride to school because of how the roads work here and the shortcuts I'm able to use, but the last 75% of the ride has only one stoplight and if I don't hit it, then I go for about 20 minutes without stopping. This is of course something to celebrate, except for the rare occasions that my preschooler has fallen asleep and the damn fairy tales are still on. In these situations, twenty minutes feels very very long.
Because I NEVER touch my phone when I'm driving. NEVER. So I don't turn them off.
Except that yesterday, Lizzie had fallen asleep and I was in the middle of a really interesting TED radio hour so guess what I did? I picked up my phone, put it right in the center of my steering wheel and started to change the fairy tales back to the TED talk. And the police drove right by and saw me.
I noticed them drive by and thought, "I'm lucky I'm not in Seattle; I'd have a ticket for sure!" And not thirty seconds later, the same police car was behind me flashing their headlights. I had no idea he wanted me to pull over from the headlight flashing, so it took him driving beside the car and gesturing to the side of the road to get me to stop.
I know. Great beginning of my interaction with the ROP (Royal Omani Police).
He came back and demanded the title to the car and my driving license, and of course I gave them to him. He spoke NO English, which is of course fair, but made the interaction a bit more difficult. He went to his car, wrote out a ticket and came back and handed the pad to me along with a pen.
The document was entirely in Arabic and you guys I am a lawyer. I don't sign stuff if I don't know what it says - but when I reached for the phone to call Eli so that one of his Arabic speaking coworkers could speak to the officer, the policeman became irritated and so I stopped. And then I signed it.
I'd love to tell you how much the ticket is for, but here tickets are paid when you renew your car registration each year. For us this happens in August and I will be sure to let you know. Speeding tickets are 10 OR ($26) so I'm not too worried about it and anyway, as I told Eli, I deserve it and I'll pay it.
Don't anybody send me an email about how I shouldn't use my phone while I drive. That's the infuriating part of this. SO MANY people here drive around texting and talking and I am not one of them.
Should I add that this is the very first time I've been pulled over by police, ever? Sigh.
So yesterday, I got Lizzie into her carseat, plugged in the fairytales, and set off. My drive home from school is much shorter than my ride to school because of how the roads work here and the shortcuts I'm able to use, but the last 75% of the ride has only one stoplight and if I don't hit it, then I go for about 20 minutes without stopping. This is of course something to celebrate, except for the rare occasions that my preschooler has fallen asleep and the damn fairy tales are still on. In these situations, twenty minutes feels very very long.
Because I NEVER touch my phone when I'm driving. NEVER. So I don't turn them off.
Except that yesterday, Lizzie had fallen asleep and I was in the middle of a really interesting TED radio hour so guess what I did? I picked up my phone, put it right in the center of my steering wheel and started to change the fairy tales back to the TED talk. And the police drove right by and saw me.
I noticed them drive by and thought, "I'm lucky I'm not in Seattle; I'd have a ticket for sure!" And not thirty seconds later, the same police car was behind me flashing their headlights. I had no idea he wanted me to pull over from the headlight flashing, so it took him driving beside the car and gesturing to the side of the road to get me to stop.
I know. Great beginning of my interaction with the ROP (Royal Omani Police).
He came back and demanded the title to the car and my driving license, and of course I gave them to him. He spoke NO English, which is of course fair, but made the interaction a bit more difficult. He went to his car, wrote out a ticket and came back and handed the pad to me along with a pen.
The document was entirely in Arabic and you guys I am a lawyer. I don't sign stuff if I don't know what it says - but when I reached for the phone to call Eli so that one of his Arabic speaking coworkers could speak to the officer, the policeman became irritated and so I stopped. And then I signed it.
I'd love to tell you how much the ticket is for, but here tickets are paid when you renew your car registration each year. For us this happens in August and I will be sure to let you know. Speeding tickets are 10 OR ($26) so I'm not too worried about it and anyway, as I told Eli, I deserve it and I'll pay it.
Don't anybody send me an email about how I shouldn't use my phone while I drive. That's the infuriating part of this. SO MANY people here drive around texting and talking and I am not one of them.
Should I add that this is the very first time I've been pulled over by police, ever? Sigh.
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