I saw myself in a movie recently.

No, I didn't go off and become a Hollywood star without telling anyone.  Nor am I talking about a home video.  Properly speaking, I don't really even mean a movie.  I'm referring to the experience you have when, in real time, you actually can see yourself talking or doing whatever it is you're doing, as if on-screen.

These are almost never positive experiences.  Chances are if you ever have a true "movie star" moment, your brain's recording system will freeze, and you won't even be able to remember it, much less appreciate it as it happens.  Maybe that's why people always bring up their greatest accomplishments - because they can't remember them and didn't even get to enjoy them when they occurred.  

But when you're at your worst, such as when you actually trip into a fish tank at a fancy restaurant or audibly fart as you introduce yourself to the CEO, you'll no doubt be acutely aware of the experience and able to relive it for the rest of your life, probably without even trying.

Everyone makes mistakes.  And we've all looked back upon a conversation or event with regret, wishing we had said or done something differently.  What's special about a personal cinematic experience, though, is that you actually regret things as they happen.  Your brain is screaming at you to shut up, to say something different, but you helplessly watch yourself bumble on.

So there I was recently, having pulled out of my driveway without fastening my seat belt.  Normally, I buckle it right away, before even starting the car, but on this day I was in a hurry and carrying coffee.  I couldn't afford the nearly three seconds it would take to buckle up, and I figured I could do it before I got to the highway, after leaving my bumpy drive.  It was just as I balanced my coffee and began the dangerous maneuver of steering with my knees as I pulled my seatbelt on that I saw the highway patrolman, who was keeping our country road secure in the war on terror.  Funny how when you're breaking the law you can think of a million better ways the police could be spending your tax dollars.  Makes you a little snarky, too.

Philosophically speaking, my approach to traffic infractions is to shut up and take the ticket.  And I think that police officers should give everyone a ticket when they pull them over for a violation.  Let judges decide to let people off the hook because they were, in fact, having a baby at the time they rolled through a stop sign.  My theory is that the reason people get angry about getting a ticket is not because they weren't guilty, but because they believed they might be given a warning.  The whole idea of police giving warnings puts everyone back in junior high.  Getting a ticket is like being told "no" by a cheerleader when you finally mustered the courage to ask for a dance.

So, when the officer came to my window, the functional portion of my brain had already decided I was getting a ticket, and the main thing was to get it over with as quickly as possible.  Remember, I was in a hurry.

But therein lay the problem.  It was a Sunday morning, and the reason I was rushing was because I was supposed to make an announcement at early Mass.  So even though I had already decided I was getting a ticket, and even though I knew that every single person who has ever been pulled over on a Sunday morning in all of motorized history has told the cop that they were on their way to church, as if that somehow excuses them for having run a busload of orphans off the road, I could not remotely stop myself from babbling to the policeman my ludicrous explanation.

Even as I spoke I was telling myself to shut up!  There was no valid reason I could possibly have for not taking a couple seconds to fasten my seat belt.  "The President of the United States is meeting me for coffee at the truck stop, and he asked that I not use my vehicle safety restraints for national security reasons, plus I was being chased by killer bees," would work just as well as, "I didn't want to wrinkle my shirt." 

Of course he looked it me with the sad expression of a man who wishes, just once, someone would just say, "You got me."  But he patiently listened as I produced my license and registration, barely glancing in the backseat.  It probably took every ounce of his will power not to reply, "And so you believe that God is using His omnipotence to protect you from flying through your windshield this morning, seeing as how you're on a holy mission?  Maybe if you would buckle up, He could focus on the Middle East?"

His glance reminded me that I hadn't bothered to take my golf clubs out of the car since playing the previous Monday.  And so the film progressed, and I watched myself explain that I really was going to church, and not golfing or anything like that.  I never wear pants to golf.  

It was like watching the dumb blonde girl going into the basement in a horror flick.  "Why are you going into the basement?  Didn't you hear the screams?  Will you at least take off the high heels?" - you scream, but on she goes.

Oh well, at least I gave him another story to tell back at HQ.