I wouldn't describe what I have as writer's block. I think it's more a case of exhaustion-at-the-end-of-the-day block. I actually have a lot of things I'd like to write about but it's difficult to focus during the day when Bear is awake and usually by the time he goes to bed at 7:00 or so I'm not capable of any higher functioning than is required to empty the dishwasher and pick up the house. Luckily the other day I had an experience that not only begged to be blogged about, it was also absurd enough that I knew the words would flow from my fingers freely and with great ease.
Not all good stories start at the very beginning but this one will. In October I was driving into work and not paying much attention. I got pulled over for speeding. I was going 60 in a 45. Oops. Although in my defense I thought the speed limit was 55. Anyway, I was sad. In all my years of driving I've never before even been pulled over, let alone gotten a ticket. I decided not to argue with the officer and just take whatever punishment he doled out. The officer asked for my license and registration and I handed them right over. As I was pulling my registration out of the glovebox I realized with a sinking heart that my new, current insurance card was conveniently sitting at home, on the counter, waiting to be put in the car. Waiting for the last three weeks, in fact, because the walk from the counter to the car is all of twenty feet and we only make it two or three times a day. Needless to say when he asked to see my insurance I didn't have a current card to give him, so I gave him my expired one and explained my situation. I've heard (but I don't know if it's true) that if you don't have current proof of insurance your car can be impounded and, given the circumstances I think that the officer was extremely charitable. He took me at my word that my insurance was current even though I didn't have proof and gave me a summons to appear in court rather than impounding my car and forcing me to walk the twelve miles back to my house. He also did not give me a speeding ticket. How I lucked out of that I'll never know but I think my lack of arguing might have swayed his decision.
My summons was to appear in court in January which, in October, might as well be a million months away. He told me that it was likely that I could just take my insurance card into the county court to prove that I had current insurance when I was pulled over and that I wouldn't have to appear. Several weeks later I decided to try and tackle it and I called the court. The clerk I spoke to verified what the officer told me. There was no need to wait for my appearance. She also made the process sound pretty simple. Since it did sound so simple I decided to procrastinate. I did this for a couple reasons: first, no matter how simple any outing that necessitates me taking Bear is inevitably ten times more a pain in the ass than one I do alone. Second, I'm lazy.
The months went by and on a weekly basis I would think, "Hm, I really need to take care of this," but I didn't because I had loads of time. Well, as with everything, time does eventually catch up to you. Last week I realized that the axe was about to fall in very short order and I had NO desire to sit in court, so I better get in and take care of the summons. I talked to Kent about it and he was convinced that there was some way I could fax in my summons along with a copy of my insurance which would prove my insurance was current at the time of my stop. That was clearly the most efficient way to handle a situation that is probably pretty common. I was pretty sure that wasn't an option but I agreed to call the court again to verify. This time I spoke to a nasty piece of work masquerading as a woman. According to her, I not only couldn't fax anything to them, I also couldn't just go in with my insurance card. My summons was for a mandatory appearance: THE END. By the time I was off the phone I was totally fuming. Instead of procrastinating one more day, I was going to pretend the whole unpleasant phone call hadn't happened and go in once and for all. I was pretty sure that fifteen minutes would clear up the whole annoying situation.
I loaded up Bear with (tragically) very few provisions and set off. After parking two miles from the entrance I loaded him up in his stroller and got my purse. We were greeted by the most humorless group of men I've ever had the misfortune to encounter. I had to send my purse, shoes, sweater and so forth through an x-ray and walk through a metal detector with Bear and the stroller. After wanding me and the bump housing my two pound fetus I was deemed safe. Then an officer asked if he could search my purse. I could tell this was no time to lecture him about my Fourth Amendment rights so I agreed. He immediately honed in a two inch flashlight that weighs approximately four ounces.
"You aren't allowed to have flashlights. Do you want to take it back to your car or have it confiscated?" Well, I wanted to do neither. What am I going to do with that flashlight? For god's sake, my stroller is more of a weapon. I asked if he could just hold on to it. Nope. Trash or car.
"This is ridiculous. This is the stupidest thing I've ever heard!" I cried shrilly. I snatched the flashlight from him, gathered up my stuff and realized why people bring bombs to court houses or attempt to blind judges with mini-flashlights. I made the trek back to my car, dumped out everything that was a non-essential (including a baggie of Goldfish crackers. This would prove to make everyone very sad later.) and returned to the building where I went through the whole tedious process again.
**NOTE: There is no list of what is and is not allowed inside the courthouse, at least not that I was ever able to discern. So it's not like I willfully ignored and obviously forbidden item.
Once through security I tried to figure out where I needed to go. Lucky for me I was aided by a large sign just to my left that said TRAFFIC. Of course, that was also the line with about forty-three people in it. Sighing, I queued up and cursed my stupidity for not bringing my insurance card the single time I needed it. I felt confident though that once I got to the window the matter would be very quickly resolved and I would have wasted only a half hour or so. When I finally got to the window, I smiled my winningest smile and started to explain my situation. I was interrupted: "Let me see your summons." I handed it over and resigned myself to the fact that everyone I was going to deal with here had given up on life and was therefore bitter. The clerk got up, pulled my file and handed me a piece of paper.
"Read and sign this. Next." Basically I was being read my Miranda rights. This started to worry me. Color me stupid but this was my first inkling that this process might not be over in the next three minutes. I reminded myself I had nothing to worry about, that I hadn't even broken a law (well, except the speeding but I didn't have a ticket for that) and that I would not end up in Canon City pulling twenty-five to life. I gave her the paper and she handed me a pager. Sadly, it was not the type that ends up in a medium-priced meal.
"Have a seat there." She motioned with her hand. "Wait for the DA. Next." She was great. I can say my life was utterly enriched by the brief time she was in it. I sat down and explained to Bear how lucky he is that our tax dollars are being spent on pagers and wasting the time of people that have forgotten to carry current insurance cards in their car. I don't think my words had much impact but the pager did. He wanted nothing more than to put the filthy thing in his mouth and pitched a fit when I wouldn't give it to him. This just kept getting better and better.
As it turned out, the pagers didn't work and the DAs were forced to watch ten feet to fetch us. Person after person was called while Bearr became increasingly irate. I grew more irritated, both with the wait and my own naivete for thinking that this process would be simple. At long last a young woman called my name. I explained the situation to her. She was the only nice person I encountered and I assume it was because she was a law student who'd only been there a few weeks and that she knew that she would soon be done and could get a real job where she'd be able to bill $400 an hour and have someone to fetch her coffee. She looked at my insurance card, dismissed the ticket and told me to have a nice day and that I had a cute baby. Maybe there were traces of Stockholm Syndrome but I sort of loved her.
So there you go boys and girls, I had to wait for two hours for something that ended up taking about seventy seconds. Good times.
