The Ticket (Written as it Happened from Beginning to End)

The Ticket (From Beginning to the End)

Thursday April 3

I was leaving work to relieve the stress I have had after having a Tina Turner kind of day (her version of the song Proud Mary where she mentions right before he starts the saying that some folks like it nice and rough?) I don’t know about the nice, but the day was the most definitely rough. I turned on the street en route to the gym, as I do every Thursday, when, not even a minute later there were flashing A close encounter of the worst kind #@*&,!

This short man dressed in black who was no taller than me walks up to my car and ask for my license and my proof of insurance. He looks like my picture, and then it’s me, and then at the picture again. He ask if the address was correct as listed and I responded to him in the affirmative. He proceeds store in his car, gets in, and does that thing they do so well, & I ain’t just whistling Dixie…

10 minutes or so have passed and he returns with a damn ticket with my name on it; mentioning when i had to go to court, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. As I had to “John-Hancocked” the ticket, I asked about the fine. The man proceed to correct me( or so he thought) by saying ” please, this is not a ticket… We prefer to use the word citation.”

Call it whatever the hell you want; any piece of paper that has a date and time as well as the name of a judge is not a citation but a @%¥*#×; ticket, period.

Ha ha, I’d been punked. Not so funny.

But not so fast, either. I was already feeling very crappy over this and felt my appetite slipping away. I reach my destination and sat inside my car for at least a good 30 minutes, debating whether to go home or go inside and work out. I decided to go ahead and go work out, nobody was going to take my exercise time away….especially not a …yeah, who just literally slapped me with a ticket…my bad; it is a citation. Yeah, whatever.

Friday April 4
Getting ready for my workday; looked at ….yeah, again.
Noticed something thing that was not quite right…The date written was 4/13/2014….which yesterday was so not….and that day would be Palm Sunday, the start of Holy Week…my take is with great power comes great responsibility, and if you are going to write a ticket, you better make damn sure you get the correct date right …not a date that will occur in ten days.

I called the station and explain the scenario. The information(as in the tickets issued) had not been received yet, and I was asked to call back at 11 am, which I did. She(the dispatcher) stated that is was an administrative error and it was out of their control, and the only date that should matter is the date and time to appear in court…and I need to reach out to the judge if I had a problem. ..no, these were not her exact words, but you read between the lines, what was really being said was, “yeah, the date is incorrect, so what? ”
“You still did it.”

It’s not so much trying to get out paying the ticket as it is filling it out correctly. I am almost certain if the roles were reversed, he would the same thing. But I’m not gonna lie; if an opportunity does present itself in getting it dismissed, I will gladly jump on it.

Sunday, April 20
It is Easter Sunday, about 830pm. I ate quite a bit more than usual (but far less than previous Easter Sundays), but rather going home and stay there, I decided to go and work out to keep the extra calories at bay. I went to the gym; turn on the street I normally go on; drove at the posted speed limit (in the event there was “fuzz” present), and no sooner I turned the corner, than one of their cars turned on their high beams…too bad, I was doing below the speed limit; so sorry, you dirty little @×^*#€&#!

There were at least three of them (three cars) lying in wait like a fat cat ready to swallow a bird whole…

Ten days and not necessarily counting.

Monday, April 28
Called JP Court today(I am requesting to speak with the judge, so I did not want to wait at the last minute), the clerk came on after an eight minute wait and explained that when I show up, to speak with the clerk, who will go about submitting the request.

I don’t feel any better about this….

Wednesday, April 30
1117 AM
My stomach right now is in knots. I won’t lie that there is some apprehension involved here. I need to prepare what I am going to say to the judge once I get there, other than saying ” Yes, Your Honor” or ” No, Your Honor”. It is not so much going there; it is the outcome I am concerned about.

Like on Let’s Make a Deal, you can keep what you have, or you can take your chance and go for the box or the curtain.

But what are my choices behind Door #1? Door #2 ? Door #3?

I could either. ..
1) Pay the fine in full 😦
2) make payment arrangements
3) take defensive driving to get the ticket dismissed so as to not affect your insurance (which is too high to begin with) :-\

Jesus take this wheel, please!

135PM
I arrive at court, went through the metal detectors and went to the first available clerk. I handed her the copy of the citation that I received, and waited…and waited…waited some more…and then…

I don’t have to worry about those three doors! The clerk handed me a piece of paper attached to my citation. I asked is this what I present to the judge; and she said no because they were unable to find my citation in their system; it appears the ticket was never filed; or got lost in the somewhere in ticket purgatory. So the paper she handed me says I came in to settle my ticket (which I did) but for whatever reason, it cannot be found. The copy is for my records. The clerk did advise me if (and only if) the ticket is found, I would have to be notified via registered mail,

203PM
” Because I’m happy I’m giving thanks to Jesus for taking this wheel for me….because I’m happy…” 🙂
(OK, so I’m not Pharrell; but you have to admit it works) 🙂

Thank you, thank you, thank you!!!

I don’t look a gift horse in the mouth, but I am very thankful and extremely grateful for the outcome; as it could have gone the other way.

Again, thank you.