Car Wars: The Empire Strikes Back
So I get home from work tonight after pulling a nine-hour shift in a commission pay sales job, where I'm a productive member of society, and finally sit down to relax at my PC. I have a drink and begin to unwind as I turn on some music and kick my shoes off. I grab the remote to my TV and as I'm about to turn on ESPN to check some NBA scores, there's a hard knock on the door.
Somewhat rattled and pissed off by the fact that my state of relaxation had been disrupted, I respond to the rather rude knock by simply asking, 'What the fuck do you want?'
Through the door, I hear my sister say, 'The police are here looking for you.'
Realizing that I'm not famous enough to be on Punk'd and that none of my friends are clever enough to pull such a prank, I got up and began to head to the front door. In any other instance like this, I'd run like a Kenyan in a marathon, but due to the fact that I hadn't done anything illegal in a couple of days, I thought I would actually face the music out of curiosity to see what I would be in trouble for.
Before I can even get to the door to see what brought the cops away from their typical late night meal at Digger's and made them actually do their fucking job for once, my mom comes up and hands me a tri-folded piece of white paper that looked like it was older than Jesus.
I open it up to see a court summon over a parking ticket that looked more like a seventh grade guided reading homework assignment than a legal document typed by a secretary at a county courthouse. Whoever wrote this out had to fill in blanks and cross out lines as opposed to, say, type a paragraph on Microsoft Word. I shit you not... the front of the pamphlet even read:
SUMMONS
MONTGOMERY SUPERIOR CIRCUIT COUNTY COURT
After opening the packet and realizing this was all about the fact that I completely spaced paying my infamous parking ticket, I just stumbled across the newest reason why Crawfordsville fucking sucks: this town can hire someone who can leave a parking ticket on a car within seven minutes of the meter expiring but can't hire someone to actually type out a court summon, opting instead to use the traditional and extremely unprofessional fill-in-the-blank method.
As I bowed my head in shame and began weeping for humanity after reading my summon, I started to reflect on the situation when it dawned on me that while growing up I had heard countless stories about how many people could get out of paying serious legal fines and balances, namely child support, without many legal ramifications... yet, I'm metaphorically anally-raped with the prospect of being sent to jail and literally anally-raped over leaving my car parked downtown without the meter running for seven goddamn minutes.
Fuck, with the economy as it is and all the businesses going bankrupt in downtown, the powers that be should've been thrilled that someone was even there in the first place.
Damn the citation, I should've gotten a coupon and my picture in the paper.
Allow me to reemphasize this point, someone who has a job where he's actually sold digital scanners to firefighters to help them do their job on top of several other electronics to different beneficial figures in society is being nailed for an 'offense' somewhere between littering and ripping the 'do not tear' tag off of a mattress while countless deadbeats continually manage to dodge having to provide support for their illegitimate children, not to mention the countless fucks around here that continue to elude paying taxes.
I swear to God, the county overlooking people like that and coming after me for a parking ticket is like someone holding up a Seven Eleven, getting into the register and not taking any big bills opting only to take a roll of pennies.
This whole thing is just depressing, no matter how you slice it. Hell, I just got the document tonight and it was filed in the courthouse on October 24th. In other words, it took our highly trained local police force three weeks to serve me with a document that the post office could've delivered in just under 24 hours. Fuck, even Fed Ex works faster than those fat bastard pigs.
I'm so pissed off about this I'm half tempted just to be an asshole and fight it all the way and make as much of a mess out of this as I can, but since I really care about my job and the new apartment, I'm just going to own up to this.
So, before I close this, let's compare the police hit rate here...
Things I've been cited/arrested for
Trespassing in the old hospital
Hitting someone with a whiffle bat
Driving the same make/model of a car as someone who did a gas drive-off
'Breaking in to' my own house
Forgetting to pay a three dollar parking ticket
Illegal things I've done in the last week without consequence
Underage drinking
Smoking marijuana
Selling marijuana
Driving under the influence
Driving without insurance (paid now though)
Music piracy
Movie piracy
Speeding
Obviously, anyone who glances over that list should be stunned by how pathetic the comparison is. It says a lot about the town when I can get away with driving without insurance or with alcohol in my system, though I wasn't drunk, but yet it's a legal matter when I forget to pay a three dollar parking ticket. It just disturbs me that I'm subject to laws instilled by people who would rather nail someone on such a trivial charge instead of finally catching the countless parents around here who don't support their children or the many who dodge the local taxes that the courts depend on.
In conclusion...
Fuck the police...
and fuck the Montgomery Superior Circuit County Court too...