On May 10th, 2011, as a sophomore, I got my drivers license. I’ll always remember the excitement I had and thinking how awesome driving was. I got it right before summer came. I felt a sense of maturity, and I had my own car that my godparents bought for me. I could not have been any more thrilled. The weather was warm and I felt cool.
I assumed I would end up just like my grandmother who had never gotten a ticket or in trouble with the law before.
Unfortunately, May 1st, 2013 proved to me that I would not hold the legacy my grandmother held.
I drove down Fairview right after school slightly speeding, not really paying attention to how fast I was going. To my right I saw a parked grey car open up the driver’s side door. I slowed down so I would not scare the people getting out of the car and once I looked up, I saw a cop. I had made a complete stop at the stop sign and continued driving. To my surprise I looked in my rearview mirror and saw the cop car whip around and turn on his lights. I was terrified. What did I do? Was I seriously going that fast? I hoped I would not get a ticket.
I saw the officer get out of his car, pull up his pants and head over to me.
“Hi, I’m officer Tom Novack with the Mount Prospect Police Department, and is there any reason why you were speeding today?” he said like he had ultimate authority over me.
I’ll never forget his condescending smirk and the embarrassment I felt as I saw the other Prospect students drive by and slow down in their cars to see who it was that had just gotten pulled over.
I felt enraged, but still kind of sad for some reason. I was not afraid to tell my mom but still I did not want to disappoint her. I texted her while Tom Novack finished filing out the ticket.

I felt humiliated. Seeing students from Prospect slowly drive by to see who got pulled over. Not only was it embarrassing, it was annoying.
He walked back to give me my ticket.
“Alright Ariana here you go and please be sure not to speed again” he said just as I was about to pull away. I didn’t care so I sped away. The sun was blazing hot and I just wanted to go home.
I arrived home to nice cool of the air conditioning. I panicked. My mom still had not texted me back and I didn’t want to wait till she got home to tell her, so I called her work number.
“Hey mom! Did you see my text!?” I said nervously.
“Oh, you got a ticket!” she said not even mad. “Okay we’ll go over what you have to do when I’m home.”
“No!” I yelled. “I want to talk about it now. I’m angry. The cop was mean and it was an accident. He should have let me off with a...hello?”
Silence was all I heard. My mom hung up on me. She obviously did not care but it seemed like no one was picking up my calls that day.
Eventually I cooled down and later laughed about it with some of my friends. It’s about time you got a ticket, some of my friends said.
In the end, I was more upset about the fact I had to pay for the ticket than actually being pulled over.