TGI Friday

One red Honda.
A grand 106 000 miles.
Three years of commuting 90 miles one-way each day.
Two snowstorms.
One near-spin out.
And as of today:
One ticket.

My first ticket. My first ticket ever.

I cried. In fact, I can still cry if I think about it long enough. I had a perfect record. And that is quite the miracle, considering the family I come from. Both my father, my brother, and sister-in-law like to collect speeding tickets. Sixteen euros here, twenty euros there, and an occasional hundred-and-eighty euros when my brother doesn't realize he's speeding in a work zone. I guess you can say I get my driving habits from my mother, who has received one ticket in over forty years of driving.

But now my perfect record is shattered. Shattered. And all because I didn't pay attention, saw an empty intersection, missed the cop, and performed a beautiful rolling stop. Just gorgeous. Had there been a yield sign, it would have been perfect. Only there wasn't. There was a stop sign instead. At first I didn't believe all the flashing lights were for me, but they were. An absolutely adorable cop gave me my citation, and told me I had to call the court, or show up to court, to find out the fine.

And that's when I freaked out. Well, I joked with the cop, put my license away, and drove off, and then started to freak out. I mean, court?! Call a court?! Or worse, go to court?! Somehow I associate court with, well, you know, criminals. And I'm not a criminal. I am a nice, law-abiding citizen, one who won't even secretly stick some of her recycling in the regular trash, or drive down a one-way street because it's faster. I am about as criminal as your grandmother. At least, I think I am. I mean, am I?

Let me tell you that thoughts like that make 90 miles last forever. Especially if you're too scared to drive anything but two miles below the speed limit, don't want to use your phone, in case you miss another sign, and are on the lookout for cops constantly.

Of course, husband-dear did not quite know how to handle a freaked out Dixiechick. I mean, you call the court, find out what the fine is, and then decide if you want to contest it or not. Easy, right? Well, not according to the blubbering woman on his couch who kept repeating, "But I'm a good person! I shouldn't have to go to court! And now what will this do for my citizenship application/ job/ your security clearance?!"

But you see, he calls it freaky, I call it a cultural difference. And not just because it sounds nicer, but also because it's really true. You see, in Europe you don't go to court, unless you've really truly messed up. Most of the time when you've violated some trafic law, you don't realize it until a fine arrives in the mail, accompanied by a beautiful black-and-white photograph of you committing the offense. And even if you get pulled over, the police will usually happily tell you that "the fine is in the mail". Or so my brother has told me anyway. The only time you go to court is if you have been really bad. Like driven after having consumed a six-pack of beer. Or killed someone. Or driven really ridiculously fast (like 100 miles over the speedlimit). So in my mind, I'm like all those people now. And no matter what husband-dear says, I have a hard time believing I'm really not considered a hardened criminal now.

And you want to know something else? I just realized the date on my citation reads 2008. (See! I knew that Georgia was behind!) Now excuse me while I go find a reason to freak out about the date being two years off.