Here's to you, Founding Fathers

I'd like to think that I'm not a superstitious person. I don't knock on wood or run from black cats. I might even open an umbrella indoors from time to time. I definitely don't concern myself with these silly worries.

However, I do maintain one superstition of my own. Under no circumstances will I ever press the "Door Close" button in an elevator. I have this terrible fear that pressing that horrible button is like asking to get stuck.

I would be so mad if I were to press the button and end up trapped for hours. Why couldn't I have waited the extra three seconds? I would have written my own claustrophobic death.

It's kind of like speeding. The one day that you go 12 m.p.h. over the speed limit instead of 8 is the one day you get pulled over, of course.

As you're sitting in your car, waiting 20 minutes for the officer to tally up the points on your license, you are cursing yourself for going 12 over. In the end, you only would have gained an extra four miles per hour, and now you lost a half hour.

If there is one day of the year that cops are ready to ticket for a mere four extra miles per hour, it's the Fourth of July (OK, and New Year's). Yesterday, I even saw a police officer that was so excited for the big day, he was warming up with extra fervor.

He was standing on the corner shooting his radar gun at passing vehicles and his motorcycle was hidden behind a nearby telephone pole. Now that is a sneaky maneuver.

I kind of wonder if police officers have a competition to see who can get more law breakers on big holidays. Unbuckled drivers are one point, tailgaters are two and speeders are three. (Bonus points for broken taillights!)

I think Thomas Jefferson and Benjamin Franklin might be offended if they knew America's birthday was being celebrated by police officers so terribly. The guys worked so hard to get us away from the mean queen and now the cops are being just as power hungry.

They might be too distracted by the invention of the car to notice the police officers, though. All I know is that we wouldn't' be quite so technologically advanced today if Benji hadn't run outside with his kite and key. America might not be here without those guys, either. So, on the fabulous holiday that is the Fourth of July, take a moment to think of our Founding Fathers.

Fly a kite, grill out, and light some sparklers. Here's to you, Ben Franklin.