Then the Cops Showed Up

This past weekend, Jordan and I drove to Texas to celebrate my sister's 18th birthday. Don't even get me started on the fact that my little sister is graduating high school. 

At my mother's request, I brought my camera so Sarah and I could go take some senior pictures. I am by no means a professional photographer, nor do I pretend to be, but I do enjoy taking pictures of people for special occasions if they want some nice pictures from someone who won't charge them very much. (Or, if it's your mother, charge her nothing but home-baked goods.)

My sister and I browsed Pinterest for inspiration, and we decided to drive around and look for an open field to take pictures in. We spent about 20 minutes looking but were met with the following obstacles:

1) Barbed wire fences. Not optimal for obvious reasons.

2) Fields with horses and/or other large, four-legged animals. I'll let you figure that one out for yourself.

3) Fields with houses in the background. Not the wide-open nature look we were going for.

Finally we came across an open field with no animals, barbed wire, or houses. There was a fence, but it wasn't hard to hop over. And by hop, I mean climb over slowly and carefully. Because, you know, nearly 23 weeks pregnant and all.

We had spent probably 15 minutes taking pictures in the field before my sister looked over my shoulder and said, "Uh oh."

I turned around to see a three cop cars huddled around my Ford Focus and three Texas cops climbing over the fence and heading our direction. "Someone called and said there were people hopping fences over here," the first one said, frowning at me. "You realize you're trespassing, don't you?"

I immediately began apologizing profusely. 

"I'm so sorry. I'm visiting from Oklahoma" (<-- I figured it was a good idea to play the confused out-of-towner card as soon as possible) "and I just came down this weekend to take some senior pictures of my sister."

"Well you can't just jump a fence."

"I didn't see any signs," I said.

"But you hopped a fence."
I figured I shouldn't argue with him about the technicalities of hopping vs. climbing slowly.

"You're right," I said. "I did. And I'm so sorry. We'll leave right now."
"A farmer will shoot you for hopping fences in Texas," he said. "And we don't like Okies," he added. Then he laughed. "Just kidding."

Comforting. I DON'T BELIEVE YOU.

He walked us back to my car, took both our licenses, and spent a good five minutes looking us up in the system. Because apparently I look like some kind of criminal. My sister hadn't renewed her license since turing 18 five days before, so they gave her a hard time about that too.

After they so kindly informed us that the owner of the field was not going to press charges (to which I say, get a life, sir), they gave us directions to a field where we could "legally" take pictures. They gave us our licenses back, and we headed on our merry way.

First we took a picture, obviously. As we all know, if it isn't on the Internet, it never happened.

We were too stressed out to even think about going anywhere else, so we just hightailed it home. I was pretty sure I was about to go into labor.

On the way, I called my dad. He put us on speaker phone and made us repeat our sordid tale to my entire family, who gave us no sympathy and merely laughed at us the rest of the night.

I will have you know that I have had two run-ins with cops in my entire life, and BOTH OF THEM WERE IN TEXAS. There's a lesson here, I think.

Oh yeah, maybe it's this: don't go to Texas. Ever. It's scary.

The end.

Oh wait. Okay a few more pictures of my sister, just for kicks.
She got all the photogenic genes in the family, I tell you.

Can.Not.Handle.It. Someone bring me tissues.

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