In honor of April Fool’s Day, I’ve been reflecting on situations in which I or members of my family have recently found ourselves. April first isn’t the only day of the year to be foolish as is evidenced with us!
A while back, my daughter was teaching an adult tap class at a local dance studio. I decided to enroll because I thought it would be fun for us to spend the extra time together. She was a great dance teacher, and class was always fun.
On one particular night, I was following her home after class. We had both stopped at a red traffic light. I’m not sure exactly what I was thinking, but as soon as I saw my daughter start through the light, I followed. As I was passing the light, I glanced up and saw that it was still red! Shocked that we had both run a red light, I grabbed my cell phone and called my daughter.
“Did you realize that we both just ran a red light?” I asked her. “Are you serious?” was her shocked response. We talked about it and came to the conclusion that she had seen the green arrow light in the next lane change and just figured our light had changed. We giggled about it, and I confessed to her that I had done the same thing a few years back.
I hung up and we continued on our drive home. We were on Route 340 heading west when I noticed out of my rearview mirror three police cars flying down the highway. They were obviously in hot pursuit of something.
The next thing I knew one of those cars had gone past me and in front of my daughter’s car. The second was in the lane next to us, and the third was right behind me. They were in hot pursuit of US! My daughter and I quickly pulled over to the side of the road.
The officer from the rear car approached my vehicle and said that we had been seen running a red light in Frederick. “It’s true!” I said. “My daughter’s dumb and I’m dumber!” I then explained what had happened. The officer went to confer with the other two police officers. I sat in my car trying to figure out what on earth was going on!
The officer returned to my car and told me that they were pursuing a drug ring operation and the two vehicles running the red light was seen as suspicious. But since my daughter had the same story about the traffic incident, they decided to let us go…with the warning that we not run any red lights in the future.
Now whenever I am following anyone I always check the traffic light first before following in pursuit. Being caught in this foolish situation taught me a lesson!
This blog ran as my column, "The Empty Nest" in the Frederick News Post on Sunday April 1, 2012.
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