The water gun

While driving (well, actually speeding) home from work after a long Tuesday, I got pulled over on 81 going 84 in a 55. Needless to say, I got a ticket. For the rest of the ride home I thought about my driving record and how many times I have actually gotten pulled over, and some of them I just had to laugh about. I am to the point where I don’t even get nervous when I see those sirens behind me, and sometimes (like on Tuesday), I just pulled myself over.

Circa 2002: The first year that the great state of Pa. allowed me to drive, something that probably could have waited a few more years. Nevertheless, it allowed me to get all of my “first” traffic violations out of the way….or so I thought.

The first time I ever got pulled over was on a hot summer night after a long game of basketball. One of my friends had taken his little brothers Super Soaker so that we could soak people walking down Main Avenue. “Water Wars” as we called it, was something everyone at my high school did, whether is was water balloons or buckets. But this was no ordinary water gun. It was the biggest water gun you could ever imagine. It had three separate containers to put water in and actually hurt when you got hit with it.

We were driving along down Main Avenue in Taylor when we saw our first victim. It was one our friend’s little sister, so she was the perfect target. My friend aimed the water gun, almost having a hard time fitting it out the window, and it was a direct hit! She was drenched, and we couldn’t wait to find our next victim. What we didn’t know was that this was going to be our last few moments with our precious water gun. I probably should have checked the rear view mirror, where I would have seen a cop right on my bumper. Within seconds, I was being pulled over. It was my first time, but I kept my cool. Once we explained to the cop that we had known the victim, he actually laughed at how huge the water gun was. Since he was a man of the law, he had no choice but to confiscate our weapon and ruin our fun for the night.

I still wonder about that gun today, and I also can’t help but wonder how much joy that water gun brought to the Old Forge Police Department, because we all know that it definitely wasn’t thrown away.