Periods, Condoms, Road Trips, and Truck Stops

The family traveled up to my mom's for Veteran's Day weekend. We left early Friday. Whenever we go visit Mom (a 3 hour trip), we always stop at Laval Road West on the north side of the Grapevine on I-5. It's about halfway between our house and Mom's. With food, gas, and clean bathrooms, it's a good place to stop, stretch the legs, and powder the nose. After two hours or so in the car, Lily and I are always ready to powder our noses. We pull in and park. Lily and I do the usual and make a beeline for the bathroom.

Now, mind you, this place started as a truck stop, and despite all of the new fast food joints (McD's, Panda Express, In-N-Out, Chipotle, Starbucks, Subway, Wendy's, etc.) being built there to service all of the travelers, it's still a favorite stop for truckers too. There's even a coffee shop in the original building with a little convenient store.

We always go to this building with the coffee shop because this is where the bathrooms not attached to any restaurant are. When you walk in, the coffee shop is to your right. If you turn left, you'll get Wendy's. Just past the coffee shop is a tiny Baskin-Robbins, and just beyond that are the bathrooms. If you walk a little further down past the bathrooms, there are showers and other amenities. Across from the bathroom is the convenient store.

Lily and I ignore everything before the bathroom. Mother Nature is calling, after all.

I'm feeling great and then I notice it. Crap! I've started my period. I shouldn't have started my period, but I have. And, of course, I have nothing with me because, well, I shouldn't have.

So, I take care of business and stroll across the hall to the convenient store in search of pads. I wander through the store, scanning the shelves, until I see some toiletries. If they are going to have anything for females, it should be in this area. But as I scan the shelves, I can't find anything. I'm about to turn away when I see condoms on the top shelf. Several different kinds of condoms. Probably about eight different types of condoms to choose from. From Trojan to Durex to some other brands. From ultra thin to "ribbed for her pleasure" to who knows what else (maybe even the vibrating kind I've heard so much about). If they were going to have pads, they had to be around this area somewhere.

Aha! There, buried two shelves down, were my choices: Tampax tampons and Stayfree Maxipads. Wow! That's some selection! o.O Tampons (not unless I'm swimming) or throwback pads from the 80s. Yay! Lucky me! Then I look at the price. $5.69.

Holy smackerole! Five dollars and sixty-nine cents for--I pull the package out--six pads. Ooookkkkaaayyy.

Out of options, I took my booty over to the register and paid, even as I chuckled about the condoms. So many options for condoms, but only two, very hard to find options for women in dire need.

HAHAHAHAHAHA

We know the audience they cater to. (grin) I guess I should just count myself lucky I was able to find pads at all. Heaven forbid women should actually have periods and men should happen to accidentally see sanitary napkins. If they do, maybe they'll be turned off and not need the condoms anymore.

The Blue Light Special

Trust me. I'm not talking about K-Mart and that mobile light thingy that they roll around the store with a blue strobe light alerting shoppers to a fast sale on some odd little item. Hell, does K-Mart even do that anymore? I haven't been inside a K-Mart in years. But when we had one locally years ago, I'd see that blue strobe start flashing and watch people run toward the light. Guess they didn't equate it with a near-death experience. But to me it was nothing more than several mini Black Fridays. Dangerous.

But what I'm talking about here is something far more dangerous AND COSTLY!

Yep, I'm pissed off. I've been trying really hard not to be, though. I've let this issue simmer since late August--August 25th actually. And then two weeks ago it hit just way too close to home. And STILL, I tried to wait out the pissed off feeling. But every morning and then afternoon, it gets stirred up again. I'm constantly reminded of just how pissed off I am and that makes me even more pissed off. It's like a wound that won't heal--just sits there festering. Oh, it's pussy all right. And no, I don't mean female genitalia--I mean pussy as in Pus-E. Having a pus-like appearance.

Now I have respect for the law in general. Although, I do think there are good laws and bad laws. I especially have issues with laws that try to dictate morality. But morality isn't at stake in this particular situation.

A new charter school was built last year about a half a mile from my house. Wonderful, no problem. Love it. Thought about sending my kid there but the NO SPORTS, little socialization thing turns me off so he remains where he's been. It's a good school and this is not the school's fault. But with that school came a school zone. You have to reduce your speed limit--and you should. I don't even have a problem with that.

My problem is this:

I live out in the country on a main highway. A very busy highway in which my house is set back from the road a pretty good ways in the middle of fifteen acres. People driving on this road are heading to work each morning and home in the afternoon just like everywhere else. But these people are going sixty miles an hour and have been making this trek daily for years and years--coming from other towns going to other towns. This road is also well-traveled by those going to other states even. So not everyone is familiar with the new speed zone, plus it's kind of hard to get used to a new speed limit when you've been traveling this road forever. LIKE ME. No. I didn't get a ticket--yet.

So they have the signs up. Check. They have part of the signs in bright neon green too. Check. And the zone is very very short--like maybe four or five hundred feet only--hardly seems worth it. And this charter school doesn't have a buttload of students so not a lot of in and out there to start with. But there's a golf course across the street and the addition of the school makes for a lot of slow downs. And I really don't mind slowing down. I don't want to hit a parent going in and out of the school with their kids for sure.

So what pisses me off? Every damn day since August 25th, every morning and every afternoon as I am taking my kid to school then coming home, then trudging back up the road that afternoon to pick up and back home again, I see two patrol cars on the side of the road with their blue lights flashing as they are giving someone a ticket. Now this occurs FIVE, count 'em, FIVE days a damn week. I guess we'll get a little relief over Thanksgiving and Christmas break. HA!

The fine for this ticket is $100. The court costs which you have to pay whether you go to court or not are a $150. So that's $250. And I only see two in the morning and two in the afternoon, but more people are pulled over than that. So let's do the math. A minimum of four people are pulled over daily (just what I see). That's $400 a day in fines that goes to the little dip shit town that is getting the money from these tickets. Not to mention the court costs--and what all that is for is beyond me.
So $400 a day times five days a week is $2,000 a week. And this has been going on for ten weeks. So that means those fines are now up to $20,000.00. That's twenty thousand dollars. A whole boatload of money if you ask me.

The officers in the patrol cars hide in this old lady's driveway. She is now a resident in a care facility--she's ninety--so she's not there to protest. And they also hide next to the golf course's entrance. Now if it were MY driveway, they would NOT be there. Nothing the old lady can do and it's obvious her family doesn't know or doesn't care--no skin off their teeth, of course. The golf course? Well, they can't say too much since the town piped water all the way out there to them for free so they could sell homes between half a million and a million bucks each.

What I want to know is this: HAVEN'T THEY MADE ENOUGH EFFING MONEY YET TO INSTALL SOME DAMN FLASHING LIGHTS TO WARN PEOPLE THE FREAKING SCHOOL ZONE IS THERE YET????? OTHER SCHOOL ZONES HAVE FLASHING LIGHTS--WHY NOT THIS ONE?????

IT'S A FREAKING SPEED TRAP. A HONEY POT FOR THAT LITTLE DIP SHIT TOWN. Everyone talks about it--we all know it. So WTF can we do about it? Not much it seems. You argue with the town about it and they'll come down harder. I thought about calling the newspaper and telling them to just go out there and sit and watch and take pics, but I haven't done it. YET.

In the meantime, you can see me slamming on brakes just as I remember that sign each morning and afternoon. I pray a lot when I do that because I'm terrified some unsuspecting motorist is tailgating me and I'm about to get rear-ended. I DID see something a week ago that made me laugh like hell. Seven big rigs--eighteen-wheelers--slowed down like a mile or so before the zone and crawled all the say through it---I KNOW that was their little message to those boys in blue laying in wait--"HEY, WE KNOW YOU'RE HERE MR. BEARS!" (I think bear is trucker jargon for cop.)

So why am I so ultra pissed off all of sudden and feel the need to blog about this? My oldest got a ticket. Yep, she did. Between fines and getting her an attorney? I'm about to be out $700 smackers. I honestly believe that was all the nudge I'll need to call the newspaper. God I need a bubble bath. Whiskey would be nice too.