About 6 weeks ago I got a ticket right in front of San Francisco's City
Hall for answering my cell phone while driving. I was going about 2
miles an hour and had been on the phone for about 38 seconds when I saw
Smokey's motorcycle pull up next to me, but that was 38 seconds too
long. I felt that drop in my stomach as I pulled over.
My kids promptly asked the police man if I was going to jail, and with
a smile and some police star stickers he assured them that I was not.
He patiently listened to me explain about the 38 seconds, cheerfully
denied my request for a warning, then handed over $130 ticket. To
compound the bad-luck timing of the day, he had apparently heard a
radio show earlier where the hosts were joking that everyone is still
illegally talking on their phones while driving. Isn't it sweet to be
the example.
As a sort of concession for not giving me a warning, he told me that if
I wanted to do "some leg work" that he wouldn't fight the ticket. That
sounded better than forking over $130, so that very same day I went
down to the police station to protest the ticket.
Well.
In addition to the $10 that I had to pay to park, I waited in the line
to declare that I wanted to protest the ticket for about 45 minutes.
Not as fun as you might think, especially with 2 toddlers in tow.
The 45 minute wait got me the privilege of a hearing scheduled for this
past Friday, May 22, at 1:30 p.m. One line on the piece of paper with
the scheduled hearing date and time really got my attention: no
rescheduling and if you miss the hearing for any reason whatsoever it's
$300 on top of the ticket you already got. For 6 weeks I worried that
either me or one of my kids would get sick or that some freak accident
or flat tire or something would otherwise make it impossible for me to
make it to the hearing. The day and time of the hearing became burned
in my brain, and I expended a certain amount of energy worrying about
things that might possibly keep me from the 1:30 hearing.
On Friday May 22 THE HEARING was at the forefront of my brain. I drove
across town with plenty of time to spare so that I could avoid to the
extent possible stressing over some obstacle keeping me from the stupid
hearing. Usually I don't have that luxury, but Fridays are my day
without kids so I was feeling pretty good about my situation and my
ability to get there on time. After giving up $10 more dollars to park,
I walked confidently into the police station.
I arrived at the courtroom with 20 minutes to spare, but my glee soon
turned to anxiety. My @#$%^&* name was not on either list of
people who had hearings that day– I checked 3 times each. After
frantically asking around, I learned that the only possible place to
resolve this particular problem was the same Room 145 where I'd waited
in line for 45 minutes 6 weeks before. I dashed down there. Of course
there was a line.
I fretted and ran through various scenarios of asking the people in
front of me if I could please cut in line in order to make it to the
hearing on time. The man behind me loudly smacked and sucked and
licked his nauseating lollipop and kept invading my space (both
smell-wise and crowding-wise), fueling what already was an internal
fire. The experience of standing in front of him reminded me of that
scene in Thelma and Louise where the trucker is making lewd gestures at
Susan and Geena.
Finally it was my turn... and the next available attendant was at the
station that's designed for someone in a wheelchair. I bent and
twisted my mouth towards the small round hole in the bullet-proof glass
so that the guy behind the counter had a prayer of hearing me, but I
still had to pretty much yell. Turns out, my name was
on the list, but erroneously under my first name rather than last.
Great. I tore back down the hall toward the courtroom with 3 minutes
to spare.
I breathlessly arrived at the lists again, re-confirming that my name
did indeed appear under the Ks, when the lady in front of me looked
around wild-eyed and said "what if your name isn't on the list?!" She
looked like someone who I might be friends with, and I found myself
reassuring her and dispensing the bad news that she'd never make it on
time.
We quickly exchanged phone numbers and I told her that I'd do what I
could in the courtroom and that she should head down to dreaded Room
145 to try to sort it out.
The courtroom experience seems designed to make you feel like a
criminal. You're in a room with about 50 other traffic offenders and
nobody is allowed to talk to anyone, chew gum or read or write
anything. The humorless, monotone policeman at the front announced that
if your cell phone rings while you're in the courtroom you'll go last.
Before he called out people's names, he also declared that he would
mispronounce names and that he wasn't to be corrected. No questions
whatsoever allowed. Period. No questions or you'd be asked to leave.
Sure enough, my new friend's name was called. I decided to go ahead
and ask a question anyway when I got to the front and faced the
policeman. I tried to be as brief as possible and explained that I
needed to call this woman. To my surprise he said that I could leave
the courtroom to call her.
She was so delighted and grateful when I called her that it totally
made up for all of the hassle of the day. She even called me an
angel. I was so pleased with myself and the situation that my eyes
welled up with tears and I had to take a minute before heading back
into the courtroom. As it turns out, they'd misspelled her name
(replacing the first letter of her last name "C" with a "G"). I'm not
an angel most of the time but I did genuinely feel like this lady's
angel on Friday.
The hassle factor still isn't over. On Friday all I got to do was plead "innocent" and now I have to go back
to court again in late August. I hope that I can keep myself from
worrying for the next 3 months that I might get locked in a room or
called away on business or something to keep me from paying the parking
guy another $10 and getting to court.
At this point, the threat of $130 fine diminishes against the massive
hassle of fighting the ticket. Had I known that I'd have to drive
across town on 3 separate occasions and over a period of 5 months,
paying $30 in parking fees, however much in gas and spending hours of
time dealing and worring about it and rolling the dice on whether I
could make it there at the appointed moment... I don't know. I might
have just paid the darn thing.
Then again, I never would have gotten to play the glowy role of angel.
I loved being an angel. Made me feel like there was some sort of
reason behind the bad-luck and hassle of it all. I wonder what that
lady's story was and why she was there.
She
told me that one of the questions that they asked her in her interview
was how nicely she kept up her hands. Then then asked to inspect her
hands, which she cheerfully showed off to them, never thinking for a
moment that there was anything wrong whatsoever with the question.
Being
a stewardess in the 60s was a fun and glamorous lifestyle, which was
perfect for my fun and glamorous mom. Here she is with a bunch of other
stewardesses in Okinawa on a layover in 1968.
then she got fired because she got pregnant with me.
but
for her it wasn't as dramatic or horrifying as it sounds now standing
here in 2009. In fact, she had been trying for a while to get pregnant
and she 100% planned to get fired and wanted to stay home with her
baby. She was happy to get fired.
and our whole family got free passes to travel the world together
the
all-red Fulton family ensemble was all Nancy's idea, incidentally. And
yes, all day the locals were good-naturedly laughing at the white
family uniformly dressed in red shirts. My brother didn't want to use
the photo as a Christmas card because he said it looked like he had a
plastic arm.
It
was a huge bonus for our family that my mom had that job. Eventually
she retired, but even when TWA was bought by American the gravy train
kept rolling... she and my dad still get fabulous deals (e.g., 90% off)
on airline tickets, and often travel first class internationally. Here she is at a flight attendant's reunion in 1997:
that
gold dress she has on over the top of her clothes is something the
flight attendants actually wore in flight in the 1960s. I think it was
some sort of holiday thing. I once wore it for Halloween.
