Friday morning, I got a call from a friend who needed a right home from the airport.  Her ride had fallen through at the last minute.  I called my boss to explain the situation and then headed out to fight traffic to the airport.

After I dropped my friend off, I steered the car toward the office and…flashing lights behind me.  UGH.  I had just turned right, so I know I wasn’t speeding.  I hadn’t run a red light.  WTF?

OH YEAH MY REGISTRATION WAS EXPIRED.  To be honest, I thought they had mailed me the sticker and I had just forgotten to put it on my car.  In reality, I had forgotten to mail the check.  Oops.

So the cop pulls me over and tells me what’s what.  He gave me a ticket (I deserved it.  My registration had been expired since July), and sent me on my way.  So I called my boss AGAIN, to explain and see if it was okay if I just went to take care of it right then.

Surprisingly, there’s a tax office pretty close to my apartment.  I found a meter and fed it some change and went in…to find the BIGGEST LINE EVER.  The best part?  They put the line on the far side of the room, and down the side, but you can’t really see it from the door.  So everyone walking in thinks there is no line and just walks up to one of the windows.  Then the people in the line get angry and snap.  I offered to tackle someone.

Once I had gotten my registration updated, I realized I was only about a mile from the municipal court.  I figured it would be easiest to just walk up there and take care of my ticket, too.  I didn’t realize this would involve an hour wait, a court appointment, a judge, and a bitchy lady.

I walk in to the door that has the proper address and I’m immediately told that I’m “not at the entrance.”  The entrance, you see, isn’t on the same street as the ADDRESS.  Maybe I’m just being picky here, but if you’re going to bother to have an address, why don’t you make it on the street where people actually need to ENTER THE BUILDING?  I finally find the right door and it’s covered with signs for all the things I’m not allowed to bring into the court building.  No guns, knives, alcohol, sporting equiment…wait, sporting equipment?!?  I guess someone beat a judge with a bat or something.

It just so happens that I have a carabiner with an ATC belay device clipped to my pants because I wanted to make sure that I put it with my climbing equipment (in my car…which was a mile away).  The security guard immediately looks at it and says, “What on earth is that?”  I explained that it was just a device used for rock climbing, and she held out a tray for me to put it on so she could inspect it.  I put my purse on another tray and walked through the security screening.  No beeps!  Then she says to me, “You got a pocket knife in that purse?”  I started looking through my bag and found a pair of nail clippers.  She asked to see them and then let me go through.

Later, I discovered that in addition to the pair of nail clippers, I did indeed have a pocket knife.  AND a corkscrew with a little knife on it.  And I got through that security screening THREE TIMES with three separate guards.  Way to be on the ball, boys (and lady).

I finally managed to find the right person and plead my case.  She said that the next court appointment was in an hour and could I just wait for that?  What choice did I have?  It did hit me that my meter was going to run out, so I needed to move my car.  No problem!  I had an hour to kill anyway!

Back to the car.  Move the car.  Park it at a meter in front of the courthouse.  Realize that I just used all my change at the last meter.  Except for one nickel.  Which gave me four minutes.  FREAK OUT.

Don’t worry, there was a change machine on the other side of security.  This part of the story had a happy ending.

As I piled into the courtroom for my appointment with fifty other people, I felt my heart sink a little.  How could this NOT take forever?  But somehow, because of the way they do the alphabet in this courtroom, I got called as the first person on the left side!  The woman who spoke to me was incredibly rude.  Especially when I dared to ask her what would happen next.

The judge saw the person who went first, then the next person, then the person after me, then a couple more people.  I noticed the woman on the right asking people to hand stuff to the bailiff.  So I walked over to her and asked if I was supposed to give her something.  The woman I had spoken with told me to sit down, that I would be seen when the judge called my name.  I said that I didn’t mind waiting, but he had called five people who had gone after me and I just wanted to make sure that I didn’t have some paperwork or something.

What happened was this:  The woman who spoke to me didn’t bother to hand my paperwork off to the bailiff, like she was supposed to.  Instead, she held on to it and attached it to the paperwork of the next person.  When his name was called, he was handed both my paperwork and his.  He went to the clerk to pay his fine.  He also paid mine.  It took over an hour to figure this out, so I was stuck in a courtroom all that time.

The rules in the courtroom:

  1. Cell phones must be turn OFF.  Not just on silent.
  2. No food.
  3. No drinks.
  4. No talking.
  5. NO READING.

Seriously.  You are not allowed to READ in the courtroom.  Is it any wonder the youth of today can barely speak English?

I didn’t make it to work until 4:00 pm.  Ugh.