We were living right outside of St. Louis, and my husband and I were stationed at Scott Air Force Base. It was about three weeks after the birth of our third child, and it was a Saturday morning. My husband, Dave, had gone back to work, and he had to work that morning. Two things needed to happen that morning. My mother, who had been staying with us for the last two weeks, needed to get to the airport to go back home to New Jersey, and my two older children needed to get to a birthday party at the St. Louis Science Center—because as every good child-rearing psychology book will tell you, if you neglect your older children right after the birth of a baby, your family will fall apart! So this was a pretty crucial mission and logistically, on paper, could totally work out. The airport and the science center were not far apart, and this was in fact such a long time ago that it was actually on paper. We got out a paper map and drew on that where I needed to go, and then Dave carefully wrote out the directions on a white index card. The only major obstacle to this plan working out, besides the fact that half the journey I would be alone with three small children, was that I had never actually been the one who had driven to the airport before. The first part of the mission went well: we made it to the airport and everyone was fairly composed as my mother left me alone for the first time with three small children, one of them only 3 weeks old. But when we started the second phase of our mission, I was driving away from the airport. I looked up at the highway sign, and I looked back at my index card, and looked back at the highway sign, and I was inexplicably on 64 West when my index card was clear that I needed to be on 64 East. My 2-year-old Sarah, still the most sensitive of my children, said, “Mommy, are we lost?”
“No,“ I replied, “we are not lost–we are just going the wrong way on this road.”
So my 5-year-old Adam, in what I now recognize as his sarcastic teenager voice said, “Well, that sounds like we are lost to me!”
“No, no,” I explained, “Lost is when you don’t know where you are, and you don’t know where you are going. I know where I am, and I know where I want to go.“
In fact, it was right there. The only thing that separated me on 64 West from where I wanted to be on 64 East was a small concrete barrier. I looked at my index card. GPS was not even beginning to be a thing yet, but I had this feeling like my directions should have been able to do something. But index cards? They just do not “re-route.”
I had not chosen my companions well either; all of them were at least a decade away from driving. None of them could read and only Adam could consistently recognize his numbers, so I started to panic. Thankfully there was really no one else around me on the road, because I was going quite slowly, but there was no shoulder to pull over and regroup on either, and suddenly, out of nowhere, like a beacon shining in the night, there is a break in the concrete barrier. I could not believe my good luck. I did not see any other cars either way. I did not see any “No U-turn” signs, and I just went for it. I made a U-turn right there on 64! We started going and immediately we met a 64 West sign, my little index card a glowing affirmation–we were on the right road, going the right way, and we were so happy. When you are very happy and with small children in a minivan, what you do is turn up the CD player and blare the Wiggles singing “Yummy, Yummy Fruit Salad” and sing along as loud as you can. It was apparently loud enough to block out not just the sound of one police siren but actually the sound of the two sets of sirens that were now chasing me. They actually had to pull up alongside the car and wave me over before they got my attention. “Uh-oh,” I heard from Adam in the back seat. Uh-oh, indeed. So I was sitting in my car and I rolled down the window, and the police officer that came to my window, looked at me in pure bewilderment. I don’t know what he was expecting to find in this minivan making U-turns outside of an international airport, but it was not a mom and three kids singing “Yummy, Yummy Fruit Salad.” He stared for a moment before spitting out, “You just ran a red light and made a U-turn–right in front of me.” As he glanced around the car, he noticed the Military Scott Air Force Base sticker on the front windshield and said, “Is your husband in the military?” So what I thought immediately was, “What is this, the 1800s? Is my husband in the military?” But I remained calm. I remembered there is some comradery between the police and the military; possibly this was an opening that could help me. I replied kindly, “ Actually, officer, my husband and I are both officers stationed at Scott Air Force Base.” Well, this was not helpful. It was clearly not remotely credible in his book that a military officer would pull a U-turn at a red light in front of a policeman. He said, “What? Show me your license and your military ID.” So I gave him both of those documents and he studied them very carefully. And then he looked me right in the eyes and he said—and if you ever want to totally emotionally unhinge a woman three weeks postpartum who has just dropped her mother at the airport, this is what you say: “How much do you weigh?”
I was horrified! “Right now?” I said.
“Of course right now,” he said.
“135 pounds,” I said. This was a lie, and as he kept staring at me, I sniffled just a little and blurted out, “I just had a baby!” And then a light of recognition flashed across his face, and his stance softened, and he took his hand off of his holster.
His experience with female military officers was very small, but clearly he had come across quite a few slightly crazed new mothers.
So after a short lecture that I sorely deserved, and a ticket for significantly less than I deserved, he let me go.
I sat back in my seat really wanting to curl up in my bed and cry, but I glanced in the rearview mirror and remembered the future of my family was at stake. And as we carefully got back on the road to the Science Center birthday party, I heard Adam whisper to Sarah, “Wait until we tell Daddy that we met a real police officer today.” And I said, “You’d better let mommy tell this story.”
See more stories like this live in person at Lancaster Story Slam the fourth Tuesday of each month at Zoetropolis. In York, Story Slam takes place third Tuesdays at Holy Hound Taproom. Visit lancasterstoryslam.com or yorkstoryslam.com for more info.
