I'm not usually in the habit of referring to other people's stuff here, but if you don't think this story is funny, you don't fit in my conception of who reads my journal. From Amanda's livejournal:

I had to take this retarded driver safety course because I got too many speeding tickets. Toward the beginning of the course they mentioned that people are caught (speeding, accident, DUI, etc) once on average for every 200 times they actually commit that act. (I have no idea where they get these statistics... they probably just make them up because they sound impressive.)

Later in the driver safety course, they talked about goals and whether or not our behaviors were effective in achieving those goals. They specifically mentioned speeding, with the obvious goal to get where you're going quickly. They did some math and figured out that speeding in a certain situation would get you to your destination 2 minutes faster than would driving at the speed limit. Then they brought up all the time you spend on the side of the road with the cop + the cost of the speeding ticket + the insurance rate increases + the time in the driver safety course, etc, etc, and asked smugly "Did you achieve your goal? Did you get there two minutes early? Hmmmm?"

Wise ass that I am, I piped up, "I achieved my goal the other 199 times, and it was most definitely worth it. Do the math: 2 minutes * 199 incidents = 398 minutes. Multiply that by 5 because you only have to take this class if you get 5 speeding tickets within a 3 year window. 398 minutes * 5 = 1990 minutes, which is a little over 33 hours. I'd say 33 hours of my time was worth a night in this class." The rest of the class roared in laughter, and the teachers asked me what I did for a living. Just to confuse the hell out of them and to have a little fun, I told them I was a firearms instructor and a domestic abuse counselor. Heh. (Bet they thought I was an accountant or something.)

(Note for the anal: Amanda admits in a comment that the above cost-benefit analysis is incomplete, but says she gave the shortened version for comedic reasons, and believes that if you do all the math she still comes out ahead).

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