The city thought it would be hilarious to put one address on the citation, but have court take place at a different location. Oh, those wacky cops.

My guess is that they had a camera mounted to get everyone’s reactions after they had circled the city for an hour trying to find a parking place, walked a half mile to a courthouse they didn’t want to be at in the first place, and found a piece of paper taped to the door with instructions on how to find the REAL courthouse. I reacted by flipping off the sign with both hands, but I’d guess others did different things.

When I got into the courtroom, there were thirty or so other people there for similar reasons. I decided to try and warm up the room by doing the things I am driven to do when I think I have an audience, and was met with a terse “sir, please take your seat.” from a largish woman with a sidearm.

When the judge asks you to describe the accident, it is a bad idea to start off with, “Okay, I was really super wasted, so half of this might be wrong, but…” even if you are joking, because no one will laugh and you’ll have to come up with a recovery joke, which will also be met with silence. Pretty much anything that may be funny elsewhere else on earth is not funny in court.

Except farting. That one never fails. I highly recommend it…just don’t try to follow it up by high-fiving the judge.

I plead “no contest” in hopes of not getting any points on my driver’s license, as did the guy behind me. We were both denied, but given no explanation. Then the guy after us (same offense) pleads no contest and the judge accepts it. Don’t scream “the judge is a sexist” in response to this sort of thing if you should ever be faced with the same situation. Partly because you can be held in contempt, but mostly because it just doesn’t make sense when everyone is of the same sex.

So my trip downtown cost me $135.00, plus $8.00 to park my car. I could have gone to jail and been less raped than that. Oh well. At least I know not to run into other peoples’ cars anymore. Let’s hope it sticks this time.

On the way back to work I stopped to put air in my tire. The passenger side rear one was looking a bit floppy. I stopped at the only gas station in town that doesn’t charge 50 cents to run an air pump, and got out to see how broken it was. Those things are always hammered because people are stupid and leave them where they get run over and stuff. Maybe that’s why most of them charge you to use them. There were two very similar looking nozzles sticking out of the apparatus, so I pushed the button and grabbed the one that looked like the air one. Any time you give me a 50/50 chance to choose correctly, I will lose. The air hose was the one on the left. I grabbed the one on the right, which was the “soak your crotch with warm water” nozzle. As soon as I touched it, it launched about 40 gallons of water in a tight stream right into the cash and prizes area of my slacks.
After I stopped trying to control the loose end of the hose and had gotten everyone’s attention within the sound of my screams, I examined both hoses to see exactly what differentiated them. The air hose had a little pin in the middle to open the valve on your tire. Other than that, they were identical. I had a feeling I was not the first to have fallen prey to this.

So anyway, I tried to fill my tire and the fucking valve fell off where someone had run over it or something, causing the hose to whip around madly. Having already soaked my pants with water, I had no interest in trying to fight this latest problem. I just let the hose freak out next to my car, turned to notice that everyone on the block was staring at my wet crotch, got in my car and drove on.

By now I’m thinking, “I’m on a roll. I think I’ll stop and get some lunch.”

If you ever want a little extra fun out of your next trip to Chick-Fil-A (great chicken with a stupid name), pour a cup of water on the front of your pants before you go in. Then make a big point to tell everyone that you didn’t really wet your pants.

There were somewhere between 2 and 3 trillion people at Chick-Fil-A when I got there. The lines were long and no one wanted to stand very close to me. When I finally got to the front, this obviously agitated woman came up to the counter and demanded the attention of the cashier who was helping me. I interrupted her and said “Hey, know what? You could wait your turn. That’d be SWELL!” Her eyes dropped to the front of my pants in exactly the way thousands of other women’s eyes in the past had not, and she sort of stopped bitching for a minute. Then a manger asked if he could help her.

She was PISSED. “This is ridiculous. I waited in line for ten minutes and they totally messed up my order. Blah blah. Bitchety bitchety bitch.”

You know what she was upset about? Someone didn’t put a lemon in her iced tea. I wish it was legal to punch people square in the mouth in certain situations. Then I thought about how miserable it must be to have that kind of attitude. I had just spent three hours and $143 to wait for a judge to tell me something I already knew, my crotch was soaked with water, I have a low tire, I have to go back to work, and I couldn’t be happier. Here was a person who let a lemon wedge ruin her lunch. It reminded me of an old adage.

The manager was trying to hand her two lemon pieces with the tongs, but she didn’t have her drink with her and didn’t want lemon stickiness on her hands. She said “what am I supposed to do with these!?”

I responded, “Make lemonade.” In full wet-crotch glory. Sometimes the stars just line up.

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