Courtney. The Hardened Criminal.
This is kind of like that.
Maybe worse?
Read on.
Ruh roh I thought to myself. But really, I wasn’t speeding much(about 5ish over) and there were lots of other cars around. Still though, he seemed to be on a mission, so I changed lanes and weaseled in between some other cars. We all ended up stopped at a red light bunched up together and I thought triumphantly to myself “whew! crisis averted!”
Not so much.
Crap.
So, I pull over to a side road and the officer comes up to talk to me (But first- lemme take a sorta selfie- I’m going to be blogging about this later)
He asks me, “Did you realize that you are driving with expired tags?”
SAY WHAT NOW.
I’ve hardly had this car for a year. How could my tags be expired? Well, sure enough they were. (I lay this massive oversight at the feet of my husband who is in charge of all vehicular issues)
I get the things out of my wallet and my heart sinks in my chest.
I told him that we still had the same insurance and the same agent and everything, just the outdated card. He looked at me kind of skeptically, then he started to walk back to his car.
Then he stopped and walked back over and said, “Is that how you always wear your seat belt?”
And, I stupidly told the truth and said, “Yep!” (I was wearing it under my armpit)
He walks away for a bit and comes back with a ticket for me. He tells me to get my tags taken care of annnnnnd that I have a court date to show my proof of insurance and to pay my seat belt fine.
Womp womp.
But wait!
That was the short part of the story.
Annnnd I’m at the wrong courthouse.
He says, “Do you know where the municipal court is?”
Um. NO.
“Do you know where the police station is?”
Um. NO.
I give them my name and wait to be granted entrance into the courtroom. Except they can’t find my file. I give them my ticket and they kindly point out to me that my court date is scheduled for THE NEXT DAY.
Y’all.
They told me I could go to the window to the left and get things “taken care of”
I go talk to the lovely(ha) woman at the window who proceeds to basically yell at me that I have a MANDATORY COURT DATE AND SHE CAN’T JUST TAKE CARE OF ANYTHING FOR ME.
Um. YES.
The courtroom that is packed. P-a-c-k-e-d.
They called my name 4th to last.
I sat there for almost two hours before they finally called me up. (oh, don’t let me forget to mention the video we watched before that told everyone to plead not guilty regardless of what you did or didn’t do and that they could provide you with a lawyer and a later courtdate and HEY LET ME JUST TELL YOU RIGHT NOW HOW TO CIRCUMVENT THE SYSTEM)
I had to plead “guilty” or “not guilty” to my charges lol. Uh, not guilty.
THEN they had to take my insurance card and “verify” that I was telling the truth. Because the dates on them weren’t good enough evidence.
The judge calls me back up and tells me that my insurance was “NOT VALID”
Come again? Excuse me, what?
The lady who was assisting then got all flustered and said, OH! I forgot to send that one back to be verified.
Sit back down.
Wait wait wait.
It gets verified(duh).
THEN I have to wait to be called up to pay my $10 seat belt fine.
WHILE I’M SITTING THERE WAITING TO PAY TEN DOLLARS.
You can’t make this stuff up.
I watched a few of them go through before they finally called my name. The lady was gracious on me and said, “Hey, let’s go across the hall to take care of this.”
Um, you think???
She proceeds to tell me what a great day it was that I came on because it was just NOT BUSY AT ALL and everyone got in and out so fast. I laughed and told her I wasn’t even here on the right day and she said how lucky I was for that.
Oh, and can I just say that I got stuck sitting next to a guy for a while who told me that he always just tells the police officers to write him up the ticket for not wearing his seat belt because “it isn’t any points on your license.” I was sitting next to a man who knew about how many points you can accrue on your license.
Who wants to sign me up for a reality show?
Laughing so hard over here! (Sorry!) im glad everything worked out but sorry you had to go through all of that!!! I'm blown away by the whole insurance card thing! In Texas, an officer can look up your insurance if you get pulled over…if you have an expired card, no problem or if you have no card at all, they can verify everything by entering your drivers license info into their computer! Just another reason why I love this state!
Baha ha! Oh man. Great start to the birthday week huh? Well, at least it could only get better from there, right?!
Oh how funny! And not funny at the same time…but we've all been there huh? Hope the rest of the week goes well!
Hahahaha. Oh my. I'm sad to say that I've been in those courtrooms full of criminals (like you 😉 ) to pay for tickets. Maybe they're trying to scare me into being a better driver? 😉
I don't even know where to start.
No really.
I can't stop laughing enough to form any sort of comment besides "LOL".
What a crazy ordeal!!!
Only you, my dear. Only you.
Hahaha.
Lol! Sounds like a day straight out of my own life 😉
Oh my gosh. I have no words. That is an EXPERIENCE, I tell you what!
Hahaha!! You're not the only one. I confirmed Ellie doctor appt THREE times and each time I swear to you they said Monday. So I showed up on Monday (early even!) and would you believe I was a day early!! So I had to make the trek back over there the following day!
Also you got lucky with only $10 for a seatbelt. It's over $50 in Washington!!!
Geez! Even I didn't have to go to court for my $160 seat belt ticket lol
Oh lady!! Life doesn't get better than this. It's these moments of what the what that make for a good laugh then you have encounter a tough time.
Well if you are gonna do it do it big! I hate 'the system', they just never are helpful. When we got married Chris was in the middle of a name change (back to the traditional before it was americanized). The person at the court said it would be no problem to get mine changed to his new one after the fact. And we believed her. So basically I don't legally get to have my husband's name unless we do a court name change process. Those people, never know what the heck they are doing!!!!
oh goodness. That is ridiculous. How horrible. ugh. I'm impressed you even thought to take a selfie. ha. 🙂
Oh my goodness, that's just too much! I'm glad you got it taken care of but, really, I would be going crazy if I were you!
Ahhhhh! this is the most amazing story! Totally reality TV worthy! So crazy that all those three different random, so lame, things happened at once!
Oh girl!!! I'm so sorry! I feel super bad saying this but seriously, you have the BEST stories. If you sign up for a reality show, let me know! I'd so watch and vote for you 🙂