Poor Mr. Zippy

I've actually been meaning to post this for a while now but keep forgetting!

Around the end of January, I left work around 2:00 for my dentist appointment. On this particular day, it was a major snow storm that came through. Let's just say it was coming down so thick and the roads hadn't been plowed yet - so I had skid into a curb before I was even off the Cargill property. Ug.

So I drive at turtle speed the rest of the way there, constantly watching the clock and hoping I wouldn't be late for my dentist appointment that I was over a year overdue for. Passed a car sitting backwards on the shoulder of the freeway...yeah, it was a nervewracking ride.

I get to the street where my dentist is and I pass the turn entrance because with all the snow I couldn't tell if there was a break in the median or not. So I have to go down to the next light, turn on that street, then go back down and turn. Well as I have TWO entrances away from my dentist appt, I see flashing lights in my mirror - yep, it was a cop. So I'm instantly replaying what I did in my mind - I knew I wasn't speeding, thought my right on red was legal, what could be the problem?? So with my nervous shaky self, I roll down the window about half way and snow is flying in and slapping me in my face. The cop then informs me that he pulled me over for THE LEVEL OF TINT ON MY WINDOWS. ?!?!?!?!?!?! ARe you kidding me?! Do you really have nothing better to do in the middle of snowstorm?

He quizzed me on whether I had ever been warned of it before and I told him this is the first I ever heard of it. Apparently the dealerships in TX don't double check legal limits of tint in MN before they tint cars. I almost said to the cop "Well the last time yall pulled me over they didn't say anything!" but figured that probably wouldn't be good to remind them. :) (and don't worry, that was the time when it was for our expired reg tags when we first moved here and didn't have our MN stickers yet) So he tells me I have 3 weeks to get the tint removed or I will get a ticket. So I put Michael on the mission.

He was able to just pull right off the tint on the windows - but the back window is another story. It was coming off in tiny pieces and was near impossible. I tried to talk Michael into just taking it somewhere to get new tint, but he was hesitant on spending the $ because visions of a new car are starting to pop in our head. So I took my car in the day of the deadline to have it looked at by the police station and pleaded my case that we tried SO hard to get it off and that we were going to keep working on it. The cop agreed to ok it (as we stood in 5 degree weather)!

Unfortunately, we haven't really made any efforts yet to finish the back windshield. Yes, we're lazy. We're hoping though that now that it's finally warming up that we will be able to get it done soon. In the meantime, you should see Zippy! He looks so naked! He looks like he just got vandalized and is all stripped down without his sexy little tinted windows! Oh well - I still love my Zippy, even if I do look totally ghetto now driving around in a car with one tinted glass. :)