Murphy's Law

I received my very first traffic ticket (well, first real ticket, not the parking kind) sometime before last Thanksgiving. I'm pretty sure that when I got the ticket I really had stopped fully at the stop sign, but I realize there have been a million other times when I certainly have not....and I'm willing to bet there is a whole group of folks out there who would argue that I have never actually stopped at a stop sign once in my life. "California Roll"..... right? So I'm not horribly appalled at the idea of receiving this particular ticket. I did the traffic school (finally after having to ask for an extension of the due date. 100% correct on the test though...I am an awesome driver) and sent in the "bail money" (a.k.a. fine), decided to be more careful next time and completely forgot about the whole thing.

About a month later, I get a notice in the mail thanking me for the timely return of the bail money and completion of traffic school, however I have neglected to pay the "bribe money" (as I like to call it) which is a separate fee paid to the city in addition to the bail and the fee paid to the traffic school in order for the City of San Diego (America's Finest City, of course) to ALLOW you to take traffic school. The amount of this fee was apparently alluded to in the small print, which, surprise surprise, I hadn't seen. So I dutifully and without comment sent in the extra $28 for which I was asked.

Again I managed to forget about my ticket that I had gotten, two months ago at this point, when I get ANOTHER notice saying that the city never received this second payment and since it was overdue, I would be charged an extra $250 in late fees if not "remitted IMMEDIATELY." (I had also sent a check to Jolene at the same time and she never got hers either, so it must have been the mail carrier's fault.) This time I call into traffic court to pay my fee over the phone by credit card. Their phone hours are exactly those that I am at work as a receptionist and while I make every effort not to make personal calls during working hours, this was on the verge of a financial emergency. When I finally get up enough courage to call (my boss walks by my desk regularly all day). The conversation went something like this:

"I need to pay my bribe money...er, I mean balance of my traffic ticket."

"What is the due date on the violation?"

"It doesn't have a due date. It just says 'IMMEDIATELY on the due date line."

"What's the due date?"

"There isn't one, it's just 'IMMEDIATELY'."

"There's no due date? Are you sure?"

"Yep, just says 'IMMEDIATELY'."

"Ok, what is your card number?"

"1234-5678-9012-3456. Can you repeat that back?"

"5634-5904-2956-2563."

"No, that's comepletely wrong."

"What was your due date for the violation again?"

You get the idea.

The best part was that as I was talking, I also had also been leafing though a Mrs. Fields cookie catalogue that the office had been sent, don't ask me why. So my boss walks by, sees me looking at a cookie catalogue, on the phone with my credit card out. Obviously I was ordering cookies on company time. Rats.

ANOTHER MONTH LATER (see the pattern?), I get ANOTHER notice in the mail that my credit card had been declined owing to it being past the expiration date of the card. Enclosed was a confirmation of my card info with the correct number but the expiration date recorded as April 2003. Now, first of all my expiration date is in 2006, but much more importantly, if you are taking down the expiration date of a card and someone tells you that it is in 2003...wouldn't you immediately tell them that it OBVIOUSLY won't work instead of consciously writing down "April 2003" and just being ok with it? She never said anything to me about my card supposedly expiring in 2003. It was cool with her, I guess. So now I am no longer permitted to pay with a credit card owing to the fact that it is "expired", and must go into the court to pay my fine. The hours to pay fines end up to being 9:56-10:02 AM, but only on certain Tuesdays every other month during a full moon. Oh and since my card was declined, I will need to obtain a "cashier's check or money order only. No cash or personal checks will be accepted."

Now I'm mad.

And I am not often mad. But I am now. So I call them again. And demand that I be able to use my credit card that is NOT expired because there is no possible way while working full time to be able to drive over there. Again I must call from my desk at work. Remembering what happened last time, I made sure to have all catalogs of any kind completely put away. Turns out, I must have called on the BUSIEST DAY EVER IN THE HISTORY OF THE WORLD and the line was busy on my first ten attemps. Eventually I got through, but hung up the phone out of nervousness every time I imagined footsteps coming down the hallway, effectively sending me to the back of the hold queue every time I had to call back. I was told repeatedly that the current wait time to hold was about 20 minutes, which seems fine if you're a receptionist and planning to be on the phone all day anyway, but it took me about five hang-ups before I figured out how to answer calls on the other line without losing my place on hold. Finally I decided I would just have to remain on the line NO MATTER WHAT. Bosses walked by and I just smiled at them from the phone, UPS guys came and I signed for packages on the phone, I was able to juuuust reach across the office to fax papers I was given while still on the phone. I vowed that nothing was going to make me hang up. NOTHING. This of course, was when the phone guy showed up unexpectedly and told me hw was here to REPLACE THE PHONE. I am so compeletely not kidding. I (half) jokingly asked whether I actually needed to hang up in order for him to replace it and sadly he nodded yes.

I asked myself what else could possibly go wrong that day and was answered by a missing hubcab on the back wheel of my car when I left work.

To make a long story less long, I have successfully paid my bribe money to the city...or at least haven't heard from them in awhile....but yesterday I got a notice from the library that I have an overdue book.