Hey, I forget.. Were you in for this? Or not?

Variety is the spice a life... what an awesome way to say that life can be a neon pink roller coaster of joy, uncertainty, anger, happiness, humility, and pride (and if you're a gal, usually a combination of many within a very short period of time). Some seek their own flavor of variety by attacking life in the face with a full on assault and others choose have the variety of life smack them in the face when they're sitting on the front porch drinking a glass of tea.  I am a card-carrying member of the latter group of life, but I must say that I have been developing a sense of vivacious-non-tolerance-for-bs. It may be due to a number of factors, but recently it has lead me to do something I never thought I would do in my entire life...

I yelled in the face of a police officer (and I can honestly say that I am not sorry about it)

My Mom and I were driving in downtown Dallas because both of our workplaces had volunteer booths at the Pride Parade this past weekend. So I had to stop by one of my company's retail stores to pick up my t-shirt and bracelet to get into the park. Neither my Mom nor I were 100% sure where the store was so as we approached it on the right, we missed the first entrance.. No problem right? We'll just turn the corner and go in through the side. So we make the right turn and see that the side entrance is blocked off...

Oh No! What to do?!?! How will we ever fi... BAM BAM BAM BAM

All of the sudden someone had started banging on the trunk of my Mom's car. Now let me say, that my initial reaction when someone scares me is one of the following:

• Wet my pants
• Scream like a banshee
• Fly into an irreversible fit of insane rage

To the dismay of my Mom, and most likely the police officer as well, this was a rare occasion where the fit of rage came on pretty strong. We realized that there was a police officer who had banged on the back of the car, and before my Mom had a chance to roll down the window this female cop was yelling at us. Apparently we had turned the wrong way on a one way road (which was, by the way the same way that traffic was being directed to line up floats for the parade). Before the window was all the way down and without a second thought "YOU DON'T HAVE TO BE RUDE!" exploded out of my mouth at a decibel I haven't used since I taught colorguard.

This cop and I had a brief exchange of yelling back and forth, words were said, things happened, it's kind of a haze. I just remember snapping.. the thought of someone yelling at my Mom in the face sent me over the edge and I let her have it. All things considered she probably should have asked me to step out of the car. But she didn't. The more I thought about it the more I realized that I wasn't sorry and that she really deserved it. I have a very stong conviction that it doesn't matter if you're the president of the United States or the person standing next to you in line at the convenience store, everyone deserves respect. However, if you decide to be an [expletive eleted] prepare to be met with an equal lack of respect that you came to the table with.

It's pretty liberating to be able to say.. "Hey, guess what, you don't get to talk to me like that" and you know what... it stops..

I suppose its not quite as crazy of a story that I could have told my kid later in my life. "Yeah, when I was pregnant with you I got into a scuffle with a cop and went to jail for the night. Technically you've been to jail already, ain't you proud?!?" but I'll just have to settle for the less impressive "I Stood up for myself, and it worked" maybe not as rough and tumble, but a pretty good lesson all the same.

Just a fun story and some food for thought... Missed y'all :)