News

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"I'm really not that different, you just made me think so."

What's up?

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mood:
now playing: john denver-country road
vocabulary:

My yesterdays....

• Que paso? - 2006-09-10

OK. I got my 10th traffic ticket on the way to traffic court for my 9th. Consequently, I never made it to court. I will be expecting a letter in the mail telling me they are taking my license and/or fining me up the yin yang.

So I was supposed to be in court at 8:30 am. No biggie. Yahoo maps said 6 and a half hours so I left at 1 thinking it wouldn't hurt to get there an hour early. Wrong! An hour into my trip I recalled the difference between EST and CST. This put a certain sense of urgency into my drive. I could not, however, speed to court for a speeding ticket. Everything might have worked out ok if Yahoo! Maps did not send me on US 23 North instead of US 23 South. I went 30 miles out of my way, which meant another 30 miles to come back to where I was supposed to be. I was 60 miles behind. I was distraught. I just resigned myself to the fact that I would get there late and then maybe I could call on my way and explain the situation.

About the time when the place might be open I picked up my phone to call and saw the gorgeous banner of, "No service" across my screen, so I decided to just check it periodically and see when I had a bar or two.

Every once in a while when you're driving on long stretches of road sometimes you tend to veer off the road and then you quickly realize after the bump bump bump that you might want to swing back onto the road. Such a thing happened to me when I glanced down at my phone to see if I had service yet. I glanced back up and I was heading toward the left shoulder, which was really just the line and then 6 inches and then a curb to a grass median, where the dirt had eroded away and thus the curb stuck out of the ground. As soon as my left front tire hit the curb it triggered the sensor behind the bumper and my air bags deployed. My arms flew in every which direction, and so did my car. By the time the air bags started to deflate so I could see where I was going, I was driving on the median. I slammed on my brakes and swerved off and on the curb for the oncoming traffic's side of the road. Finally I stopped with my two left flat tires on the road in the lane of oncoming traffic and my right tires fine, but propped on the median. Since my air bags were deployed, my ignition would not start.

Some people in a trailer up on the hill yelled down to me(where I stood crying hysterically) that they had called the police for me. A nurse was driving by and she stopped to make sure I was ok. There was blood on my palms and I had no idea where it came from(later figured it must have come from my bleeding elbow) and my right hand had a huge, swollen red mark and so did my left wrist(I surmised they must have come from the impact of the air bag). I said I was ok.

No fewer than 5 various officers of the law(several policeman and a sheriff) were there at some point. One cop set up road flares so that the oncoming traffic would not hit my inconveniently placed car. I called my mom crying. I called AAA crying. They sent a wrecker. The policemen were all really nice. They started to leave one by one until it was a cop left and the sheriff who'd set up his car with flashing lights and road flares. Then this new cop pulled up. He told me to sit in his car. He asked me what happened and crying I explained I had no idea and it happened so fast. My mind was literally all jumbled. Then he proceeded to write me a ticket for reckless driving. He asked me how fast I was going. I said I was going the speed limit(and I was, who speeds on their way to traffic court?). He asked me to sign the ticket. I was horrified. I was like, "What is this for?" "Reckless driving." "Yes, I see that, but why?" "I have to do this, ma'am." "No, no you don't. That's funny because they don't do this in Tennessee." "You can try to get the offense lowered, but you must show up in court, now sign here."

I was livid. I could have just called AAA and had it towed and not involved the police who were supposed to be friendly, helpful guardians. Instead, the man will probably be responsible for the loss of my license and the removal of one Jennifer K. King from her parents' insurance policy.

On top of that, there is a chance that they may total out my car, in which case I would be royally messed over. As it stands, I won't have a car for at least a few weeks because fixing deployed air bags is an involved activity. If they don't total it out then all is well. We pay a 250$ deductible and everything gets fixed, but my insurance probably will drop me. If everything were to work out perfectly then it'd be $250 and I'd still have insurance in the end. We will see.

The wrecker guys took me back to the shop. At this point I had been up for over 24 hours and I was a little loopy. After crying myself into dehydration I slept on the tower's couch in a house on the premises of the wrecker service. I can't really call it sleep as it was interrupted by a loud phone ringing every ten minutes or so, but it served at least the purpose of occupying my time until my mommy came and picked me up.

I still don't know what to do about my no-show at court. This has been perhaps the worst day of my life.

I officially hate Virginia.