I remember this story like it was yesterday. It felt like the longest day of my life. It was a muggy November’s day. The sun was nowhere to be found and the sky was filled with grey clouds. I was just chilling in my little house in Chicago watching television.

It just so happens that our football team was in the state championship that night.

I wasn’t planning on going to the game. My friend texts me and asked if I was going. I told him I wasn’t planning on it, and then he asked if I wanted to tag along with them. I thought, why not, because when will our team ever be in the championship again and it’s a good experience. It was all set and we would be leaving in a couple of hours. An hour passes and he says that his parents wouldn’t let him drive.

The nice guy I am, I volunteer to be the driver for the lengthy trip.

I ask my Dad and he says sure. But, only under one condition. He says,”NO SPEEDING, NO SPEEDING, NO SPEEDING!” I wasn’t really worried about it because I’ve had my licence for a little under a year, and never gotten a ticket before, so I don’t pay attention towards what he was saying. That was a bad decision that I later would regret. I asked my Dad what car I should take. He said the Jeep because it’s safer than driving my truck. Now, this isn't any average Jeep. It is a Jeep Cherokee SRT edition with a 6.4 L HEMI. It has a V8 engine that produces 475 horsepower. If none of that makes sense to you, let me put it in perspective. It’s really really fast, trust me, I later found out.

I pull out of the long driveway, and head towards my friends homes. I pick all five of them up, and we are on the way. I have the passenger plug in directions into his phone before we leave. 145 miles, 2 hours and 19 minutes to go.

I hop on highway 94-E and start our journey.

On the way there, our testosterone was at an all time high because we couldn’t wait to get there. We were bumping rap music on the maximum volume the whole way. My ears were bleeding. The trip felt like I was driving forever. I’ve never driven that far before, so it was exhausting.

We finally arrive and enter the college town.

As I get off the highway, there was an eerie feeling I got that I can’t describe. It just felt really weird being so far away from home and I didn’t like it. I just went with the flow though. There were police officers everywhere directing traffic. The cop leads me into the parking lot. It costed $5 to park, so since I drove, I didn’t feel obligated to pay. My friends all split the difference and pay the man there. I pull into the spot and we get out of the car. My back was so stiff, I felt like a board. I stretched though, and felt better. We enter the gates as our adrenaline was pumping as if we had just jumped out of an airplane without parachute.

I don’t remember much from the actual game besides the fact that I was freezing my ass off. It was a pretty fun game to witness. We ended up winning the championship too so that was pretty cool. Especially since we played our rival team too.

After the game ended we were pumped up, but also very starving. We went down the road to find something to eat. We stumbled upon a local Denny’s. We all agreed upon eating there, so that’s what we ended up doing. We all ate breakfast for dinner. It was mediocre. Well, from the standards down there, I guess it was good. After dinner I checked my fuel, and noticed I was close to E, so I filled up the tank at a local gas station.  I now got back on I-55 highway.

My destiny would come soon. I got on the highway, and there was nothing. Not a car in sight, no street lights, just complete darkness. Since there was literally nothing on the road, I decided to be a “cool” guy, and punch it. The gas pedal went through the floor. We all jerked back as I accelerated. 60, 80, 100, 120, 140, 152. In the back of my mind, I can still hear my Dad telling me,”NO SPEEDING, NO SPEEDING, NO SPEEDING.” I didn’t listen to him. I didn't realize how fast I was going until I cracked the window a little bit. The wind was extremely loud, I immediately rolled the window back up. I started to decelerate. I passed a bridge, and I s*** you not, 10 seconds later, a random car comes out of nowhere, and is riding my rear bumper. I immediately knew what was happening. It was a cop.

I was being pulled over.

My car gets lit up. Blue and red flashing lights are covering my mirrors. My stomach drops and I get really hot. I pull over and park the car. Everyone in the car was panicking, but not nearly as much as I was. Words can not describe how dumb and embarrassed I felt. I see the cop approaching my car. At first, he looked very surprised to see a bunch of 16 year olds. Then he started talking, He first says,”What the f*** are you doing going that fast.” I reply with,”I don’t know officer, I wasn’t thinking.” With a disappointed face he then asks for my license and I give it to him. He goes back to his cruiser and he’s in there for what seemed like an eternity. He comes back. He tells me to step out of the car to talk in his car in private. He told me he clocked me at 128. I told him that our football team just won the championship and we were really pumped up and I wasn’t thinking straight. He told me that we all could have died, and that what I dad was really stupid. He then told me the consequences of my actions. He said that I’m a nice kid, so that he only was going to write me for the speeding ticket. He could have written me for curfew, reckless driving, and too many kids in the car and my car could have been impounded. For a state trooper he was a pretty cool guy.

Oh and I forgot the worst part about it. My Father got a call at 1 in the morning from the copper. I’m not going to get into too much details about it because it was really bad, trust me. He wouldn’t talk to me for 2 whole days. Then when he did talk to me, I wished that he wasn’t talking to me because he was pissed off. I got my car taken away for a month and had to ride my Huffy everywhere. I also had to pay $3,000 in lawyer and court fees. I am now on 12 month supervision, and if I get a moving violation, I lose my license.

If you can gain anything from my stupidity, never ever ever speed because in the end, you lose and it’s not worth it at all. From that day on, I never speed when I’m driving anymore. I’ve also matured a lot and learned from my costly mistakes.