Did You Have A Meeting With Officer Wood?

The Birthday Girl & Her Momma - she's an 8 year old now!

Saturday night the family converged upon Beth & Brennan's house in the country.  We had a yummy pitch in dinner to celebrate Madison's 8th birthday.  I brought the baked macaroni (just like my mother-in-law makes it); I was the most popular kid at the party.  Just teasing...kinda.

Anyway, we had a great time eating & celebrating Maddie.  She was so excited she could hardly be still enough to snap a pic.  I'm sure all the sugar in the cake & ice cream didn't help matters much.

Since it was Saturday night & we all needed to be up early for church the party broke up around 9 p.m.  Beth & Brennan's driveway looked like a parking lot & we were at the end of one of the lines so we were one of the first to leave.  Mike had been fielding some calls & texts from his brother during the last hour or so we were there.  He had a virus on his laptop & he needed some help dealing with it so Mike was trying to assist him.  As we were leaving the highway & exiting to the bypass Mike was just putting his phone down & we saw the flashing lights in our rear view.  Ought-o.

A state police officer came to the window & Mike started confessing almost before the officer said a word.  "I'm sorry...I was probably going too fast...I was just hanging up the phone..."  I almost laughed right out loud.  Mike is so honest; when he gets caught doing something wrong he has to clear his conscience immediately.  The officer asked us where we had been & we answered that we were coming home from our niece's birthday party.  He asked if we had been drinking & for Mike's license & the car's registration.  I started digging in the glove box & handed him the first registration I found - it was expired & didn't even have my married name on it.  He said that it was ok because he would just run the plate anyway.  Note to self - clean out the glove box!

The officer went back to his car & I was kind of cracking up because I figured that all of our family that was heading home right after us was going to see us pulled over & we were never going to hear the end of the teasing.  The officer was very gracious & just gave Mike a warning.  He asked us to please be careful, not to speed or talk on the phone while we were driving.  We sat up straight all the way home thanking God that Mike had avoided a ticket.

A few minutes after we got home my cell phone rang.  It was my mom.  "So, did you guys have a meeting with Officer Wood on the way home?" 
I thought, Huh?  How does she know the officer's name?
"Umm...yeah.  Mike got pulled over.  Why?  How did you know the officer's name?"
"Because he pulled your dad over!"  *crazy laughter*
Evidently my dad got pulled over for not making a complete stop when he exited the bypass.  After Officer Wood reviewed my dad's license & registration he went back to my parents & asked them if by any chance they were related to Mike.  My dad was flabbergasted.  He said yes that Mike was his son-in-law.  Then the officer told my parents that he had pulled Mike over, too.  He figured it out when we both said we were coming home from a birthday party & he matched my dad's last name & my maiden name from the expired registration I had given him.  Pretty smart guy, huh?  And gracious because he gave Dad a warning, too. 
We all got a good laugh from what could have been a stinky, expensive situation!