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.
Comments