Wednesday, January 14, 2009

No, its a cardigan but thanks for noticing...

Today is my day off. I usually spend Wednesday sleeping in and pretty much dong nothing productive till about 3 pm. Unfortunately, I had to be up at 6:30 this morning. Why you may ask? Because I had to go to court to fight a speeding ticket. Heres the quick background.

It was the end of September on a Sunday. I had spent the weekend in Boston and was about to head home but my car had other plans. I was heading back into the North End to get some pizza and pastries to bring home when my car decided to die on a small side street in the middle of the North End which is perfect cause we all know how big the streets are in the North End. Nope.  So I wait for AAA to come and tow the car to a mechanic. This is all in about an hours worth of time which isn't too bad. Now its a Sunday remember, so no mechanic will look at which means I need to find a way home and wait to hear from the guy the next day. Enter my dad. He agrees to drive down and pick me up. I can always rely on Big Poppa.

My dad arrives and I take over control of the car. You see with my dad, you cant be a passenger in his car. If you ever are for some ridiculous reason, you will most likely soil yourself or come damn close while also finding God along the way. My father likes to wait till the last second to stop behind a car. Its like hes playing "lets see how close we can get before we hit it". Anyway, I decided to drive. Im better in the city and I knew how to get out and to the highway quickly.

Were cruising along fine on 93. We come up on the border of NH where as many of you know, the speed limit drops from 65 to 55. I know this because of the hundreds if not thousands of times I drove on it commuting to school. There were cars passing us and some going slower. As I approached the exit 1 overpass, out from behind a barrier on the left comes a state trooper walking into the passing lane, pointing fingers at people to pull over. Naturally I was ecstatic when he pointed in my direction. Oh! Oh! He picked me! He picked me! Many of you will say "you should have just kept driving" cause yeah, Im sure many of you would have just sped off with the knowledge that he has the right to chase you down and pull you over. 

So I pull over and come to a stop rather easily. Another car was going so fast it had to back up to the cruisers cause it had passed them so fast. I think this is good to bring up when you read how fast he said I was going. I grab by license and the registration for my dads car. He comes up and asks me all the same shit. Did I know how fast I was going, blah, blah. I wait for about 10 minutes when he comes back up. He informs me that he clocked me on laser going 91 in a 55 which was also at the time a construction zone. Bullshit. So much bullshit. Im able to stop a car going 91 mph in the matter of maybe 30 yards? He tells me he's lowering it to 88 in a 65 so that I don't have to go to court. This doesn't sound too bad to me. $150 maybe? I get the ticket and look. $350. Yes thats right $350. "Im fighting it" were the first words out of my mouth to my dad. Actually it was "are you fucking kidding me?" but you get the idea.

Thats what brings us to today. I was planning on fighting it on the grounds that I was with the flow of traffic and there's no way to tell if I was the right car and a bunch of other bullshit. I went hoping he wouldn't show but of course he did. He actually informed me that NH state troopers get in trouble for not going to the hearings so if a state trooper gets you, chances are he'll be in court. We go over my ticket before court and he tells me how he already dropped it and what not and that the judge could up it since it was in a construction zone. Bigger fine, loss of license, blah, blah you wont win. Thats what it came down to. I talked the talk but didn't walk the walk. I told him I'd just pay it so I didn't have to even go before the judge. 

So Im out some money and my car insurance will probably go up and I learned a state trooper will always show up (he had another 4 people fighting tickets too). But in the end, the real moral of this story is this. You don't always need to go back for cannolis. Thats right. Had I not gone to get pastries, none of this would have happened. Damn you sweet deliciousness that is a cannoli.

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