I just got my first speeding ticket in over 8 years.

It seems like most guys who drive cars tend to drive them fast. When that happens, it’s inevitable that you’ll eventually get pulled over.

Personally, I used to speed pretty often in college, and I wasn’t super smart about it. I never put any lives at risk but got a few tickets for going 10 to 20 over the limit in my day. But then somehow I either slowed down or started to get lucky. My luck ran out today though.

Let’s start with what led up to it though. Last night, my wife and I were up until 3:20am baking for a co-worker’s wedding. We’re actually in the process of starting our own bakery and have it about 95% official. We have our name registered, business licenses, and all the legal documents except for one that is taking slightly longer than we expected. But still, even though we’re not “officially” open we’ve been getting requests from friends and family members and we’ve been having fun with it.

Last night was a pretty late night though. We were exhausted and had to go to sleep, only to wake up at 7am and finish the order. Then it was up to me to take them to the bride’s parents.

I loaded everything into The Mushroom and took off. A couple minutes in to the trip I got a call from the people I was meeting saying that they’d be there in 5 minutes. I was still 40 minutes away. Shoot. So, in a hurry to try and make up some time and keep them from sitting in a parking lot for a half hour, I sped up.

I know what you’re thinking, but this is NOT how I got pulled over. And in fact, the whole time I was thinking “PLEASE do not get pulled over on the way to deliver this order. That would be the worst thing that could happen.”

I got off the interstate and got onto the main road. “Watch for cops and drive the speed limit” I said to myself, as I knew that last week there were quite a few patrol cars out. I was going at a reasonable 50 mph in a 45 mph zone, and going any faster wasn’t going to make much of a difference anyway. Except it wasn’t a 45 mph zone, it was a 35, and I was driving right into a speed trap.

I saw the police car on the side street and instinctively slowed down. As I went past I even though “oh whew, I’m safe.” There were a few cars pulled over on the side of the road. Sucks to be them, I thought. Then the car in front of me slowed down, and I saw an officer blocking all traffic. He pointed to two other cars to pull over, and as soon as he did I realized my fate. Aw, crap. He pointed at me and there was nothing I could do but accept my fate.

They clocked me going 51 in a 35, which carried a fine of a whopping $175. I looked at the ticket and my heart sank. We had just done all that work and spent all night baking this order, and the money we made from it was pretty much gone before they were even delivered. And it was completely my fault. Ugh.

This meant that I was also even more late to deliver, plus I had to call and tell my wife the news. She was more than understanding, of course, but I still felt like I let her down big time.

I was speeding and I got caught. But it’s still a huge annoyance to have a speed trap like that on a road where you’d almost be a hazard to drive 35 mph when everyone else is going 50 to 60. They literally gave every car going through a ticket.

There’s not much I can do about it though other to accept it and drive slower next time. And hopefully I can make it another 8 years without a ticket.