Traffic Stopper

Damon has a tradition of taking our kids to breakfast and then to his work on their birthday. So this morning Damon took Harrison (who turns 6 tomorrow!) out for his birthday breakfast. While they were gone I took Jackson and Lucy and my niece and nephew Dylan and Victoria, who are visiting for spring break, to buy Harrison's birthday gift. Then we got on the I10 freeway to pick Harrison up from Damon's work. While driving along I had the radio up and I was singing and dancing when all of a sudden I felt my car kind of studder. I'm ashamed to admit it was the familiar feeling of a car running out of gas. I looked at my fuel gauge to confirm my fear. I quickly pulled over before I came to a complete stop in the middle of the freeway. I called Damon so he could come rescue me with a couple gallons of fuel and the kids and I had a good laugh. How embarrassing to run our of gas and on the free way of all places! There was nothing else to do but sit and wait so I cranked the music up and continued singing and dancing when I noticed a car pull up behind me. Yep, it was a police car. He came to my window and asked, "What's the problem Ma'am?" "I ran out of gas," I sheepishly explained. To which he responded, "Are you serious?!" Then he went on to explain that what he needed to do was get me to the right side of the freeway. I was in the left lane when I felt my car tugging, I was not willing to have my car die in the middle of traffic so I just pulled over. "Here's what's going to happen," he explained, "you will put your car in neutral and I am going to push you across the freeway. It will take a few minutes because I have to call for backup." So we continued to wait, this time with much more anticipation. We kept asking each other, "What are they going to do? Close down the freeway?" That's exactly what happened. When cars were no longer sailing past the officer told me to put my car into neutral then slowly started pushing me. I looked in my mirror to see a wall of traffic about a half mile behind us. A single police car was swerving between all the lanes in front of this wall, stopping freeway traffic so a single car full of woman and children could make it safely to the other side of the freeway. There was nothing to do but laugh at how ridiculous we (I) were (am)!