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Imaginary Conversations with Absent Police Officers


Haven’t written much for a while. Sometimes that means there’s nothing going on. Sometimes it means there’s too much going on. First it was the first one. Mostly now it’s the second. But I have a feeling there’s a lot of writing to come.

One great/terrible thing about being a family doctor is that there’s very little in terms of routine. When you think you’re settling in is when the fun begins. Which is also known as all hell breaking loose.

In times like these I take comfort in truly predictable things.

Like how every time I’m on call my husband receives a speeding ticket in the mail two weeks later.

We have those awesome photo enforcement cars parked around town, generally directly between me and the hospital at the exact moment a baby wants to be born. The speedometer, as previously mentioned, works roughly 10% of the time so I pretend I’m in Montana circa 1999 and drive as fast as “reasonable and prudent.” Also it’s a lot safer to drive while looking at the road rather than the speedometer, so I’m a better driver than most folks out there. And then the automaton snaps a photo of me.

I wish an officer would just pull me over instead.
I often think of what I would say to them when they ask “Do you have any idea how fast you were going, young lady?”

“Yes. Roughly just fast enough to deliver excellent health care.”
“Truly, speed is relative, sir. The earth was going just as fast in the opposite direction.”
“Which units of measure do you mean?”
“No, dude. This meter is broken. And a baby just fell onto a bed because of you.”

But I have no opportunity to use the above excellent defenses.

Instead the robots think that GB has been speeding again because I drive his car every day. And they send him a ticket. And I call them to tell them to send it to me instead but it falls on deaf ears. And then I forget about it for a month and GB gets a default notice.

It’s nice to know you can count on such a reliable system of nonsense.  It’s almost as good as our health-care system.

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