Friday, November 7, 2008

Guess what I brought into the courtroom

I had my court appearance for my traffic ticket this week. At the entrance I put my bag on the security belt. When I walked through the metal detector, the buzzer went off. The guard looked at my shoes and declared, "You've got a metal buckle on your fancy slippers."

FANCY SLIPPERS!! I will never look at those flats the same way again.

Anyway, I walked up to the courtroom, sat down, and searched for the cheat sheet Bryce made me. I'm pretty sure it said things like Plead Not Guilty, Call Him Your Honor, Compliment His Robe. But I couldn't be sure, because I couldn't find that little paper in my giant bag. But guess what I did find. A wool sock stuffed with not one, not two, but THREE super-sharp PARING KNIVES, left over from our Mutual pumpkin-carving activity the week before.

Take note. Metal on your footwear: red flag. Three deadly weapons that could stab, maim, or kill at any time: no problem!

Knives, people.

Well, I neatly wrapped my little secret back up and stopped looking for the paper. I didn't want anyone to get, you know, suspicious. All that digging around might have meant I was trying to cover something, or maybe I was just foraging for graham cracker crumbs--but you just can't be too careful.

Finally it was my turn. I told the judge he looked very handsome. I think he was impressed by my shoes. I pleaded Not Guilty and we parted ways.

A bored-looking city attorney with a pack of Marlboros in his shirt pocket met me in the hallway. I turned on my sad-but-charming face, which I have used before. I explained, boo hoo, that I hadn't had a ticket for over 10 years, I didn't mean to ignore the sign, etc. He looked like he wanted to say, "Yeah, yeah, yeah, Not Guilty. Seriously, I went to law school for THIS?" but he said, "I can reduce your ticket by $100 and send you to traffic school. Here, take this paperwork and go pay at the window. I need a smoke."

Oh, I can work it when I need to.

Yes, I can.

3 comments:

Tracey said...

That is so funny, it reminds me of right after 911, Joe and i went to Hawaii with another couple and we went through secuity at Mcarren and LA,(this is just on the way there)got through just fine and then at our final stop, our friend beeped while we were getiing on to our flight. They looked in his bag and found a gun clip. He had had it in his bag from hunting and never took it out and forgot all about it. The look on all of our faces, I'm sure was priceless.I'm almost wondering if maybe their really not looking for the most obvious deadly weapons. Their more concerned about buckles on shoes and wires on our bras.

The Hardy's said...

It couldn't have happened to a nicer person. Hilarious. I also loved your analogy of going to traffic school at YWIE the other night.

jessenpetty said...

That is soooo FUNNY! I would be mortified! Your a sweet person and I am sure they wouldn't have seen you as a serial killer! Cool vacation! Wish we could get one in here by the end of the year but it doesn't look like it's gonna happen...bummer! Good to hear from you! we miss you!