When Life Gives Tammy Lemons (Traffic Fines), She Makes Lemonade (Friends)

Photo Credit: Sunshine Simplicities

Take this page from Tammy’s book about how to turn a stressful situation into a happy one!

Grahamstown, Eastern Cape (10 September 2025) – Getting pulled over is rarely anyone’s idea of fun. For SA blogger and ultra-marathon runner Tammy (Sunshine Simplicities), it could’ve been a rotten morning.

Instead, she turned a stressful stop into one of those small anecdotes that leave everyone feeling a little bit lighter.

It started with that universal feeling. ‘Please not me.’ With a missing licence disk, it was in all likeliness, going to be her.

“Please don’t let me be the one, please don’t let me be the one… I am the one. The chosen one,” writes Tammy, recounting the ordeal.

Smiling her biggest smile, she knew what was coming. Still, she stayed calm, stayed kind and kept her sense of humour. Fine issued, Tammy then tried something most of us wouldn’t. She asked the officer who had hastily written her up for a photo.

The officer did a slow blink.

“But we’re fighting,” came the incredulous reply.

“Are we?” grinned Tammy.

The mood instantly shifted. They laughed, snapped the pic, and for good measure Tammy tossed in her final quip.

“Wait, aren’t you even going to check my boot? Stolen goods?”

More laughter. A stressful moment lifted. Now they were both smiling their biggest smiles.

As one commenter said: “It takes less muscles to smile than to frown.”

That’s very Tammy. Earlier this year, we wrote about her finishing the Gqeberha 50km ultra-marathon last over the line, but refusing to quit, and about her Cango Marathon, where she missed the Two Oceans qualifying time and still found joy in the sunrise, the strangers cheering, and the stubbornness it takes to keep moving.

She doesn’t sugar-coat the hard parts, she simply chooses sunshine over stress.

We can’t control everything that happens in life (like traffic fines), but we can meet it with grace. Admin is admin, accountability is part of the deal. But a little warmth goes a long way for the person writing the ticket and the person receiving it.

“And that’s how you make lemonade,” says Tammy.

Sources: Linked above

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