I could feel my heart pounding inside my chest.  Every beat felt as if it would jump out of my body and run away.  I had never felt that way before.  When the policeman flipped on his lights, I thought we all were going to jail, thought our lives were ruined.  Everything I had worked so hard for was gone, but then he pulled around us.  We were free! Or so we thought.  Turns out running from the cops is never a good idea.

It  was just a normal day in the life of a high school kid.  I just couldn’t wait until the bell would ring to let me out of this place.  That single moment was the highlight of my day.  Today though I was going to hang out with my brother and my best friend, Matt.  Matt had just gotten his license about a month or so ago and I was admittedly pretty jealous. That day after school our plans was to get a pizza and go to my house after school to hang out, play some video games, maybe watch some tv and definitely NOT do my homework.  So when the bell finally rang to let me out of school, we hustled to the parking lot to leave in a hurry.  That cheesy, greasy, yet so tasty Casey’s pizza was calling our name.  Best part about it was I didn’t even have to pay for the it!

After we got our delicious pizza bought, we all agreed that we would wait until we got to our house to eat the pizza so we didn't get the car dirty; there was no doubt in my mind that I would sure drop a piece and end up having to clean it up later.  Off we were back past the high school headed to Turney. 

As we rounded the corner past the high school on A highway, we all noticed one of our other friends, Nate, coming up behind us really fast in his car.  As quick as we saw him behind us, he was passing us on the highway.  Matt, just getting his license and wanting to be cool, thought it would be a great idea to try to race Nate.  I’ll admit that I thought it would be fun and wasn’t about to tell Matt to slow down or we’ll get caught. 
The race was on.  I wasn’t driving, but I’m pretty sure that Matt about put the gas pedal through the floor of the car because when I glanced at the speedometer, it was over 100 mph.  I thought to myself, Dang, this is fun! I’ve never gone this fast before!  This race resembled a NASCAR race I had seen on one of my favorite movies of all time, Talladega Nights.  I could hear the fans yelling and screaming in the back of my mind, cheering us on to win.  I felt as if I was in Ricky Bobby’s Wonder Bread car and there was nobody that was going to stop us from winning.  The adrenaline rushing through my body had to be more than anybody had ever experienced before.  Nate was in the right lane, then when we would go to the left lane for a pass, he would cut back in front of us, then he would be in the center, then back in the right and there was just no way around him!  We would back off a little bit right before a hill, gain a bunch of speed, hoping that when we both popped the hill and saw that there were no cars that we could hit, we would be able to slingshot past Nate, just like Ricky Bobby slingshotted past John Jerrard in Talladega Nights.  Well, turns out that didn’t work either.We just could not get past him.  Believe it or not, we even thought about trying to use the shoulder to pass, but then realized that was an even worse idea than doing this ridiculous race.

By this point in the race I was pretty sketched out by this car that I could see in the distance in front of us.  I had fixated my eyes on it from the minute I saw it, for I was on cop watch.  Turns out it's pretty hard to distinguish between a regular vehicle and a patrol car from a mile away.  I told matt to slow down just in case it was a cop.  Now when I said slow down, I meant about 70 mph, but I guess that matt had a different idea of what slowing down was.  To him, slowing down was going about 90.

As we get closer to this mysterious car, I still just couldn’t tell if it was a regular car or a patrol car yet; the heat coming off the blacktop was blurring the true identity of the mysterious vehicle.  The closer and closer we get, the more nervous I get.  My body was getting warmer and warmer, my upper body starting to tingle.    We got about a quarter mile away from the mystery car when I saw it.  It was a police car; my stomach dropped, I couldn't breath for a second and I almost choked before I could get the words out.. “Cop!”I screamed, but it was too late. No sooner than the words “cop” came out of my mouth did the police car’s lights turn on  Matt slammed on his brakes, “S***!” he exclaimed,  and that's when I knew it was over. “Bro we are so screwed,” Tristan said.
“God damnit!” I yelled.  My life was over, I was going to jail, and I would never be let out of the house ever again. My heart was pounding as we all hurried to put on our seatbelts, which in retrospect probably should have been on the whole time we were racing. 

The cop pulled over onto the shoulder of the road just before the Turney city limits sign. We slowed way down and pulled over in front of the cop.  Nate was still in front of us, so he pulled over to the shoulder too.  When we both pulled our racecars to the side of the road, the cop pulled around, passed us and pulled up right behind Nate.  My brother, Matt, and I all sighed with relief as we thought that we were off the hook.  We were all still paranoid, so we did the most idiotic thing that we could have done, ran from the cop.  Matt pulled our car off onto a gravel road nearby and sped off dangerously fast.  We wanted to get as far away from that cop as we could and get back to our house.  We took 5 miles of backroads to get to our house just so we could avoid the cop.  My heart felt as if it were going to jump out of my chest.  As we pulled into my driveway, we all could finally let out our breath and stop freaking out.

Through all of this we all completely forgot about that delicious Casey’s pizza sitting in the back seat.  When we opened the box and set it on the counter, the pizza was cold.  I can’t believe that we ruined a completely good pizza over a stupid race.  We stuck the pizza in the microwave, but it still didn’t compare to the fresh version that we could’ve had if we weren't too stupid to race and waste a whole bunch of time running from the cop.

A few minutes after we dig into our pizza, Matt gets a call from his grandfather.  Matt tells us that he has to call the sheriff's office.  He said confusingly, “They must have ran my plates and called my grandpa.”
“But I thought he wasn’t pulling us over,” I said. 

Matt exclaimed, “Me too!  I thought we were off the hook!”  I guess we weren't though.  Matt called the Clinton County Sheriff's Office and tells them what was going on and then tells them my address so the sherrif’s deputy can come to my house. I choked. Come to my house? That scared the hell out of me!  Again, that burning, hot sensation came over me as I once again nervous. I was going to have the cop at my house that we ran from.  There’s no way this is going to turn out good, I thought. 

We waited patiently until the deputy pulled into my driveway, right behind the our “racecar” (a.k.a. Laura Sparling’s Ford Edge).  We met the deputy at the walk in door in the garage.  Again, my heart was pounding because at this point, I knew there was no getting out of it.  We had screwed up and I knew that we would have to pay the consequences.  As Matt talked to the officer, Tristan and I kept our mouths shut.  Matt told the cop everything.  How we were racing our friend, how we thought we were off the hook and dipped out onto back roads and ran from the officer. 

This deputy had to be the coolest police officer in the history of police officers.  He told us that he was a kid once and probably did the same dumb things that we did.  Our biggest break came when he told us that he wasn’t even going to write us a ticket.  Wasn’t even going to write us a ticket.  I couldn't believe what I was hearing.
The officer then asked to talk to my dad.  Oh no.  This can’t happen.  My dad can’t find out about this, my dad will beat my ass!  I told the officer my dad was at work, and could call him.  The cop agreed to that.  I called my dad and again, unlucky for me, my dad was minutes away from home and told the officer they could talk when he got home.  As we waited on my dad we actually had a casual conversation with the officer about school and sports.  This cop is seriously the coolest cop ever! No other cop would ever act that way if we had just ran from him.  When my dad got home he told my brother, Matt, and I to go in the house and wait while he and the officer talked outside.  They talked for about five minutes.  That five minutes seemed like an eternity to us as we waited patiently inside, waiting for the ass whoopin that was for sure coming our way. After what felt like an hour, my dad walked into the house and said to all three of us, “Well, sounds like you guys screwed up.  Better not do it again.”  That was it, no scolding, no whooping, no nothing.  He didn’t even say he was disappointed in us, which would have been even worse.  Nothing.

That day had to have been the luckiest day in my life to that point.  We got caught going 90mph in a 60mph zone, ran from the cop, and got off free.  I never would have thought that I would get off so easy for such an illegal act.  But I did, and I couldn’t have been any happier.  One lesson that stuck out to me the most is that if you’re going to race your buddy and get caught doing so, you better at least win.  Losing the race was the most disappointing part of the whole deal, because as Ricky Bobby once said, “If you ain’t first, you’re last!”