As part of running his business, Dad had to drive around Toronto to various clients and sites. He made sure that he knew about traffic conditions so that he wasted as little time as possible stuck in traffic. When the powers that be decided to rearrange the way that the one-way streets worked downtown,  Dad knew about it and planned accordingly.

Shortly after the one-way streets were rearranged, Dad found that by force of habit, he’d turned what was now the wrong way of a one-way street. Of course, a member of Toronto’s finest (“To serve and protect”) saw this and pulled Dad over.

The officer asked Dad why he was driving the wrong way of a one-way street.

Dad considered explaining that he’d known about the new arrangement of one-way streets but because of a momentary distraction allowed his habits to send him the wrong way. This seemed unnecessarily long, drawn out, and unlikely to help anyone. Instead, Dad used a more concise answer: “Utter stupidity.”

If nothing else, this answer should at least speed up the process of getting the ticket so that Dad could get wherever he as going.

Instead, the officer laughed, closed his ticket pad and went away. This isn’t what Dad was trying for but it did get him on his way faster than he’d hoped.