My bad, Officer

I just had a TOTAL Jen moment, and I had to share it with you immediately (yes, at 2 am).

So I hung out with a friend tonight, and I was on my way home (stone cold sober...thank God, as you'll see in a moment). As I approached the major intersection leading to my place, I saw cop cars with flashing lights at almost every corner of the intersection. In the right turn lane--where I needed to be--there were 2 bright flashing hot-pink lights in the road, at the top (front? head?) of the lane. I had never seen those before, and I wasn't sure exactly what they were or what they meant. I just figured I wasn't supposed to drive IN the lane--I honestly didn't realize that they meant "don't turn right." So I kind of pulled into the next lane over (which would have been the go-straight lane) and THEN turned right....

...and immediately realized why those lights had been there. There was a major accident and all lanes in that direction were completely closed and blocked off by every type of emergency vehicle known to man--including several more cop cars.

And there was no where for me to back up and/or turn around.

Shit.

So I'm sitting there, with roughly 10 (no exaggeration) police, fire and rescue vehicles sitting in front of me, and roughly 6 other squad cars behind me....one of which promptly made the "beep-beep" noise with his siren and headed towards me.

Shit.

He pulled up on my passenger side (since I was in the left lane) and got out of the car. I rolled down my window.

"Ma'am, are you aware that you just completely disregarded two emergency police flares?" he asked, rather irritatedly.

"Oh, is that what those pink flashy lights were?" I asked. (Yes, I actually said "pink flashy lights.") "I'm so sorry. I've never seen those before and didn't know what they were."

"Well, what did you THINK they were there for?" he asked--and he wasn't even rude or mad now, just genuinely curious and a bit dumb-founded.

"I just figured we weren't supposed to drive in that lane," I meekly answered.

"Yes," he replied. "Don't drive in that lane because we didn't want you to go IN THIS DIRECTION."

To which I answered:

"My bad, Officer."

To which I tacked on:

"I'm really, REALLY sorry."

Now mind you, it was a Friday night at 1:30 am, and he never once asked to see my license--or even whether or not I had been drinking. I think it quickly became obvious that I wasn't drunk--just really, really stupid.

"Well," he said. "I don't know what to tell you. We're going to get this cleared up as quickly as possible--it could be 2 minutes, it could be 45."

Just then, one of the fire trucks pulled away, opening up the entrace to a corner plaza.

"Oooh!" I said, helpfully pointing it out. "Could I maybe just pull in where that guy did and just get out of your way?"

(Yes, "that guy.")

He looked at me for a moment before blowing out a big breath of air. "Yeah, whatever," he answered. (LOL. "Whatever.") "Go. And ma'am? The next time you see a whole bunch of police cars and 'pink flashy lights,' you MAY want to pay some attention."

"Yes, sir," I told him. "I'm sorry. Thank you."

By this time, he was already walking away. I distinctly heard a "Jesus Christ."

I very conscientously put on my turn signal, pulled into the far right lane and got the hell out of there.

Lesson learned.