Stop!

A gray and misty day yesterday afternoon and we were going to lunch. Mark was driving us over to Popeye's Chicken for some of that delicious ghetto food, when all of a sudden traffic came to a complete stop. The light was green but everybody had stopped for a police car that came racing into the intersection with lights flashing. The cop stopped directly in the middle of the intersection, jumped out of his car, and threw up his hands like he was Diana Ross. Who was he stopping traffic for? Some VIP, an ambulance racing to the hospital with a seriously injured patient, maybe the President? The answer is none of the above. It was a funeral procession. We got stopped to allow a bunch of people who couldn't find the cemetery on their own, to run through the red light. I don't think the dead person was in a hurry. It's not like that corpse was late for Saint Peter, and if that cop hadn't allowed the hearse to run the red light, he wasn't going to let the poor soul in. I think this custom of funeral processions taking precedence over the living is insane. Many cars now have GPS units, or Sat/Nav, and if the bereaved are doing it old school, let the funeral parlor print everybody a map to the cemetery. For krissakes, the dead are dead, I'm hungry, Popeye's Chicken is so damn good, and I'm in a hurry.