Back in December of Aught-Nine, when I was only two months into this West Coast experiment, I was pulled over by the LAPD while cruising around town with my friend Wam.
This is an accurate transcript of the events that followed, at least as best as I can recall them:
CHiPs: Do you know why I pulled you over, punk?
Me: No, Sir. I was driving safely and at a reasonable speed.
CHiPs: Don't back-sass me. What you were doing is driving while talking into your fancy-schmanz portable phone box.
Me: Oh? I'm sorry officer; I didn't realize I was breaking any laws. I know ignorance is not a valid defense but I just moved to California and I still have an out-of-state license, that's why I don't know all of the traffic laws. Otherwise I never would have accepted a collect call from my Grandmother in the hospital. Please have mercy on my soul.
CHiPs: Warnings are for women and retards. Here's a ticket. Suck it up like the man you'll never be.
Just like that, I became indentured to the state of California. At least when you owe Tony Soprano money, he gives you the option of breaking some legs to shave points off your debt.
Yes, I broke the law and I should have paid my $50 ticket. I knew that at the time; it's not like I considered fighting it in court. Sometimes you just get sidetracked by life. I put the ticket in with some other bills and tickets, not fully understanding the qualitative difference between parking tickets and moving violations. When I finally paid those parking tickets off and I could type in my DL number and no infractions came up, I thought I was in the free and clear.
Nope. Apparently moving violations are paid from a completely separate website.
I was looking into finally getting a California driver license yesterday and that's when I found out I was trekking through Feces Canyon without shoes. You can probably guess that the ticket was never paid and interest accrued. A lot of interest. I let an earlier parking ticket get out of control before paying it and it went from $45 to $135 -- so if this moving violation was also going to triple, I would have to scrounge up $150 buckaroos to switch over my license.
I typed my driver's license number into the new website, it gave me the old citation number to type in the next field. That's when the waiter served me a warm bowl of steaming dogshit and forgot to bring the napkins.
I owed $875 dollars. On a $50 cell phone ticket. What the motherfucking fuckity fuck?!?!??
Worse yet, I was docked for a failure to appear in court and my CA driving record was in a "hold" status. I don't know what that means exactly, especially since I was still using my (seemingly?) valid CO license, but it reminded me of having a financial stop on my university account preventing me of registering for classes until I paid the bill.
There was a big difference, however; the University of Colorado never sought to arrest me for a failure to pay. I suspect that, in the past four or five months, had I been pulled over by the police for any reason at all, I would have been arrested for driving with a suspended license and/or failure to appear in court.
That would have sucked a great big uncircumcised monkey cock.
I found all this out last night right before I was about to drive for work. The reason I was looking into all this is because I was trying to fix my registration. I (hopefully) took care of re-registering the vehicle in Florida but I don't anticipate the stickers arriving for a few days. I was fully prepared to get pulled over with expired tags, show the officers the receipts and such and hope they let me be on my way or, at the very worst, receive a fix-it ticket that I could easily take care of once the registration paperwork was processed.
Suddenly I was faced with driving to work with expired tags, a suspended license, and a possible bench warrant. That changed everything, of course. I've been known to do some dumb shit, but I wasn't going to drive into West Hollywood with expired tags at night hoping one of the 28,313 on-duty cops in the area wasn't going to notice me and haul me into the Big House.
This mental math was done at about 9:40 p.m. My shift starts at 10:00. Since buses take all fucking night to get anywhere, my only real options were begging for a ride or take a cab. I don't have any friends so I called a cabbie.
The dude was quick, actually. No one at work noticed my slight tardiness. But that was $35 ($10 for a quick-ride tip) I'll never get back.
This also left me stranded at work but, mercifully, one of my coworkers was sweet enough to hang around the bar for an extra hour after she got cut to drive my car-less ass home.
My girlfriend was pissed off at me for a whole assortment of reasons. The chief one I can empathize with is this: I've been borrowing her car 5 times a week for the past month. There's a good chance that, if I would have been pulled over, I would have not only been thrown in the slammer but her car may have been impounded. She trusted me with her car and now she thinks perhaps she shouldn't have.
I don't think that's what pissed her off the most, though. She's mad because it's yet another entry in the "Immature and Unreliable BF" database. I'm sure that's disappointing for her and I hate that but sometimes I wish she'd be a little more supportive of me in my failures.
When she fucks up, I feel like I'm unconditionally supportive. "You drove home drunk and ran over an Oriental family? Don't worry boo, they were probably asking for it anyway. I'll help you hide the bodies." Whereas when I fuck up sometimes I feel like she piles on.
I fuck up thrice as often as her. And I'm probably succumbing to some psychological fallacy here wherein I think I'm always magnanimous, regardless of the truth. I might be way off here, but that is how I feel.
When I talked to her this morning, however, she sounded more optimistic. That helped.
Today's plan was to call the collection agency that was now handling my ticket and try and negotiate a settlement. That didn't go over so well.
The lady flat out told me that no one in her office was authorized to settle. She said I must pay the amount in full but that she was allowed to structure different payment plans. I asked her if she was authorized to allow me to pay one dollar every ten years. She did not laugh.
Her manager told me the same thing. "But I don't have $825!" I told him. He suggested I reschedule a court appointment. He transferred me to a clerk that was supposed to help me out.
Now I'm rescheduled to appear in court. If I ever live that long. The next available court date was April 4, 2010. Fuck L.A. Just fuck it.
God know how I'll remember to attend court next April, but at least that is taken care of for now. But what about my license? Is it still suspended? Is there a warrant out for my arrest? The clerk gave me a new number to call. The lady who answered that number was actually nice and surprisingly helpful. (I forgot to ask for her name or else I would include it here.)
She directed me to the Superior Court on Hill Street. I could walk-in, pay $10.00 and all the holds/warrants will be erased and that I wouldn't be hassled about payment until the court date next April.
So I took her advice. Being unable to drive a car, I took the metro. I had to transfer once but it actually did a good job of transporting me to where I needed to go (rarely is that the case with Los Angeles public transportation).
I passed through the metal detectors and entered the court house at around noon. I was peckish, and thirsty, but I decided to take care of all that later. Fuck Maslow, he don't know my hierarchy.
The line snaked around the entire building. Every single person there was miserable. Much like any bank or the Ralph's near the lady friend's house, there were a ton of different cashier windows where employees could help these wayward citizens but only a few of them were actually open for business.
I was in line for about two hours before making my way to one of the surly cashiers. The transaction itself was quite easy. I paid $10 to "buy an abstract" -- I'm not at all sure what that means -- and the holds/warrants will supposedly be taken off my record by the end of the business day.
We will see.
It wasn't the most terrible experience in the world but it sure was mildly soul-crushing. I felt like an extra from one of those working-class rage movies (Dog Day Afternoon, Falling Down).
I'll keep you posted on what happens next but the lesson here today is stay on top of your shit, kiddies. Only 20% of problems go away on their own. The rest will grow exponentially and eat your fucking brain.
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