Lack of Attention

Once upon a time... back in 2009, late at night (11:56 pm), before Christmas, I wasn't paying attention. I was reaching down into the bag of cough drops on my passenger seat. Innocent enough, right? Not when everything matters. Not when all lights are green except your.. red arrow. I know I could have hit somebody, but I didn't. There was no one around. No one. Except, a camera.

It seemed like forever went by before I ever got my ticket in the mail, but eventually I did. It was now after Christmas and I tried to keep it on the DL. I didn't want my mom to freak out and my girlfriend to say anything. I didn't want anyone to draw attention to my lack of attention when driving.

Looking at that ticket can seem a little daunting and the dollar amount due, $410. YIKES! Well, thankfully I had a friend that just got some tickets and he loosely walked me through the process and how to do community service and traffic school instead of paying the ticket and this all ending up on my driving record.

A couple of weeks passed and now I'm armed with some info and a little fear and on my way to my court date. I'm dressed a little nice and getting there super early. I find out two things: 1) you don't need to dress nice, you pretty much just have to have clothes on. 2) and even though I'm early, I'm billiontyith in line. However, this line begins to move rather quickly. I go through the metal detectors, find my court room and play the "nervously waiting" game. Before too long, they begin to call role and make sure we're all there, and in some cases, they aren't all there, physically or mentally, but some make up for it by bringing their kids.

Eventually they call my name and I join a group of people that started off as a line, but now is too long and is just a group of people hanging out by a doorway and a wall. I'm probably 8th in line on my side and theres just as many of us in the other aisle.

Eventually I get called up by the bailiff and the judge is really nice to me and asks me how I'd like to plead and I say guilty, but I'd like to do community service, and she says I'm elligible for traffic school. I accept and then I'm done. All of that for 30 seconds in court. I'm told to exit the court and stand in this line outside the court room and wait for my papers.

This is where the fun begins... 1) I'm already like 20th in line (all of the people before me in court are in this line), 2) This line won't even think about moving until all court rooms have gone through all of their people, 3) I will stand in place for almost 90 minutes. 4) After those 90 minutes I will move 5 ft/15 mins.

I eventually get my paperwork and then instructed to go to the community service office that day. I think not as that line looks mighty long too. I head off to work instead.

Stay tuned for the cool part of this whole experience... really. Now, I'm not being sarcastic.