There is one golden rule in parenting that supersedes all others, including the laws of physics and the laws of man. You never, under any circumstances, wake a sleeping baby. It is the kind of peace treaty you do not violate unless the house is literally on fire. But one dad on Reddit just admitted to breaking this sacred covenant for the most petty reason imaginable, and he did it with a level of calculated villainy that would make a Bond villain blush.
The OP (Original Poster) starts his confession by trying to paint himself as the hero of the narrative. He took his five-month-old daughter to his parents’ house for the evening to give his wife a much-needed break. It sounds like a dream scenario. Mom gets a nap, grandparents get baby snuggles, and Dad earns major brownie points. It was the perfect crime, until the drive home at 10 PM when the OP decided that traffic laws were merely suggestions.
In an effort to save ten minutes on the drive, the OP made an illegal left turn. He justifies it by saying the street was quiet and he wasn’t endangering anyone, which is exactly what everyone says right before they see the flashing red and blue lights in their rearview mirror. Sure enough, a cop was lurking nearby, and the OP was pulled over. In Ontario, disobeying a sign comes with a hefty $100 fine and demerits, a fact the OP apparently knows from painful experience.
This is where the story takes a turn into pure psychological warfare. The baby was fast asleep in her car seat in the back. Most parents in this situation would be praying to the traffic gods that the stop doesn’t wake the child. Not this guy. As the officer approached the window, the OP turned the radio on fairly loud to a static channel. He literally blasted white noise chaos to startle his own infant awake.
Naturally, the baby woke up screaming. When the OP rolled down the window, the officer was hit with the wall of sound that is a crying five-month-old. The cop, likely terrifyingly aware that he didn’t want to deal with a stressed-out dad and a screaming infant on the side of the road, took pity on him and sent him on his way without a ticket. The “exhausted parent” card is a powerful one, but manufacturing the exhaustion is a level of manipulation we almost have to respect.
The OP claims the baby was perfectly fine and fell back asleep the moment the car started moving again. He essentially used his child’s distress as a “Get Out of Jail Free” card. He admits he felt a little guilty about the stunt, so he took the $100 he would have spent on the ticket and deposited it into the kid’s university fund. It is a nice gesture, but it feels a bit like money laundering for his conscience.
The kicker is the final line where he admits he hasn’t told his wife. He knows perfectly well that if she found out he intentionally woke the baby she spent all day caring for just to save a few bucks, he would be sleeping on the couch until that kid goes to college. He calls himself a genius for the hack, but keeping it a secret proves he knows exactly how shady it was.
We are torn. On one hand, saving $100 is great, and the kid got a deposit in her savings account out of the deal. On the other hand, intentionally blasting static at a sleeping baby is the kind of chaotic evil that usually requires a monocle and a white cat. He saved his wallet, but he definitely sold a piece of his soul to the traffic gods that night.
So, is the OP the ahole? Technically, yes. You don’t use your children as human shields against the consequences of your bad driving. But since the baby went right back to sleep and is $100 richer, it might be the victimless crime of the century. Just don’t let the wife find out.
What would you do if you were in the passenger seat? Would you have high-fived him for the quick thinking, or would you have made him pay the fine just for waking the baby? Let us know in the comments if you think this was a genius hack or bad parenting!