Never Better

So here's a funny story: I was pulled over today for a burned out brake light, which resulted in my license being revoked.

For those of you who don't drive and aren't privy to the pleasures of automotive culture, I'll break this down for you. I was on my way to work, driving as I always do, my sad little white Toyota which needs around $1200 in repairs to make it inspection-worthy. The repair is needed in order to make my "Check Engine" light, which is permanently on, go off.

The Check Engine light creates all sorts of problems for Toyota owners. Diagnosing the issue is not always straightforward. After various tests and tinkerings administered by my boyfriend and a local automotive genius, it was discovered that my valve seals are faulty. This causes oil to basically burn out my tailpipe and spatter all over the back of my car. As a result, there is a huge black mess all over the back end of my white Toyota. This sort of thing always looks suspicious to the police, who are always looking for suspicious things so that they'll have something to do with their time.

So there I am driving my suspicious-looking sad Toyota to work when I see flashing blue lights in my rear view mirror. Oh Hell, I thought. I must have been speeding.

I pull over on Holden, right near the Bicentennial Gardens. The police officer approaches me and asks me to pull into the parking lot at the park. I missed my opportunity to initiate an action-packed chase sequence in this story and simply did as I was told.

I waited with a great deal of dread for the police officer to approach me. He seemed to be taking his time. Finally he came over - and for the record: is there something in the police officer's manual that states all cops must wear reflective sunglasses? Why is this stereotype perpetuated? At any rate, the cop comes over and tells me that he's pulled me because my right brake light is out. And my license has been suspended.

Insert sound of needle dragging across vinyl record here.

"Suspended!? Why!!?"

"I'm not sure. Do you have any outstanding traffic violations?"

I search through my internal catalog of various violations that might be related to having my license suspended. It seemed to me I'd taken care of almost all of them. But maybe not.

The nice cop took my license and registration and disappeared into his car for a very long time. During this very long time, I called my place of employment and told them I would be late.

"Big surprise."

"No. Really late. More than 10 minutes late. I have no idea how late. I've been pulled over by the cops and they may not let me drive away from here."

So of course at this point I had to try and explain the situation to my supervisor and I began to cry. And moments after I hung up, one of the managers of Planet Care called me and said not to stress about it. Once I was free to go, just call and they would pick me up and bring another employee with them to pick up my car. That was very nice.

I continued to wait. I'm sure he's going to discover all kinds of great stuff about me. I wonder how far back his records go.

Most likely he'll find out about a recent incident in which my boyfriend and I were detained for looking at a meteor shower. I guess two people standing by the side of the road in the middle of the night is suspicious. But we waited a good half hour for them to run background checks on both of us. In the November cold. With our hands removed from our pockets as requested by the police. Who hadn't heard about a meteor shower happening that night. "The Leonids?" I said. "It's been in the news." They seemed doubtful. We were released with the warning, "Y'all shouldn't be standing by the side of the road in the middle of the night. It's dangerous."

No shit.

Then there was the time I was pulled over for not wearing a seat belt. And I was wearing a seat belt. But because he pulled me over, the cop had to check my license and registration. And that was my first experience with the old "failure to appear in court" gag.

A year prior to this incident, I had received a speeding ticket. For speeding. And I hired a lawyer whom I was told was terrific at getting this sort of thing taken care of so that insurance wouldn't go up and no points would go on my record. So I'm driving along after paying this lawyer thinking everything's hunky dorey. But through the miracle of the DMV, there was a failure to appear in court. My license was taken away on the spot. I was told not to drive.

I called the lawyer the next morning and he said, "Well that shouldn't have happened. I can take care of it with a 15 minute phone call." Of course I had to pay him $45 for that 15 minute phone call. And I had to pay the DMV $125 to have my license reinstated. I was pissed. The photo on my license says it all. The license that was taken away from me today. But I'm jumping ahead of myself.

There was another instance which this lovely police officer most likely will find out about. I was arrested for a failure to appear in court. This was a semi-legitimate response to a bizarre situation. Apparently on several occasions, attempts were made to serve me with a summons to appear in court. My offense? I bounced a child support check. I'm a terrible bookkeeper, I admit. So I thought it had cleared. I mean, why else would I not have that money in my account?

The attempts to serve me with a summons to appear in court were made at an address that was no longer valid. After several attempts, a warrant for my arrest was issued. Funnily enough, the police came to the right address to arrest me. I wondered why they hadn't been able to find the correct address to serve me my summons.

The arresting officer was very nice. Probably because he felt sorry for me because I was so clueless. And he'd awakened me. It was 8:30 in the morning, for God's sake. That was back in the day when I worked at a music venue and got home around 4 a.m. He let me brush my teeth and get dressed. He didn't handcuff me. He let me use my cell phone on the way downtown.

And there I was, in this sort of holding zone for criminals. The officer asked me lots of questions, the answers to which he wrote down in his pile of paper. One question was, "Do you have any tattoos?" I laughed. "No, but now might be a good time to get one." He laughed, too.

My gut hurt. I saw people being led to jail cells and I thought, This is it. I fought the law and the law won.

The nice police officer spoke to the magistrate, who let me go on a written promise to appear in court. The court in which I had to appear was in Raleigh. The date was Valentine's Day. It was a busy day for the judge as he was performing lots of weddings. After I paid all the money required to make the situation right, the judge wrote "Happy Valentine's Day!" on my paperwork.

Then there was the time I spent the night in jail after being arrested for drunken and disorderly behavior in a public place. This was a legitimate excuse for an arrest, I suppose. There were seven of us in a tree outside of Bill Stanley's Bluegrass and BBQ in Asheville. Bill Stanley's Bluegrass and BBQ sat right next to the police department - a fact that would have been better to know prior to climbing the tree and doing my Tarzan yell with six of my friends. This was during my stay at Brevard College. One of the Philosophy/Religion professors was with us. We came to be known as The Brevard Seven. We made t-shirts saying, "Free The Brevard Seven." But the Philosophy/Religion professor didn't wear his.

We all pooled our money and hired a lawyer. His name was Bob Silly. I kid you not. And Bob Silly was able to get the charges dropped pretty easily. The arresting officer had written down a non-existing statute number on the arrest form. And all Bob Silly really needed to do was point this out immediately to the judge. But he decided to have some fun. He put the arresting officer on the stand to describe the scene. Officer Warren was his name. Officer Warren described hearing a wild ruckus and discovering several people up in a tree breaking off limbs and throwing them onto the cars down below. We were all dressed very nicely and did not look like the usual riff-raff, I'm sure. The judge seemed annoyed by officer Warren, especially when Bob Silly asked him to look up the statute number listed on the arrest forms. When the judge discovered it wasn't in the book, he hammered his gavel in aggravation and dismissed the case. As we walked out of the courtroom, the usual riff-raff smiled broadly, even laughed and gave us the thumbs up.

I thought this had been purged from my record, but apparently not. My sister dated an asshole reporter for a while. When they first started going out, he ran a background check on our family. One day he asked, "Is your sister the same Kathy Clark who was arrested in Asheville a few years ago?" In my opinion, that should have been a significant warning that this relationship was doomed. Sadly my sister continued to date the asshole reporter for a few years after that.

Back to the present. The officer who pulled me over informed me that I have two failures to appear in court on my record: one in Forsyth County (land of the speeding ticket) and one in Guilford. I asked why I had a failure to appear in court in Guilford. He didn't know. But, he said, he had to keep my license and he could not see me attempt to drive away. I guess that would have landed me in the slammer for sure.

I looked at the police officer, my eyes and nose red from crying, and said, "Tell you what. Why don't you just take my car and let's call it even. I mean clearly I'm not responsible enough to take care of everything that needs to be taken care of in a timely manner. And I'm broke. I can't afford to pay all the fines and fees required to make things right." I actually considered showing him one of my paycheck stubs, which was conveniently in my bag, for verification of this fact. But I could sense his confusion behind his reflective sunglass lenses. So I dropped this maneuver. He gave me two tickets: one for the failures to appear in court, or the driving around on a suspended license....I don't even know, and the other for the burned out brake light.

I called my lovely boyfriend and asked him to pick me up instead of my co-workers. I needed time to decompress just a little before work. Decompress means cry. As I waited for my boyfriend to arrive, I decompressed and sat in my car with the door open as I wrote this note:

Dear City of Greensboro. You can have my car. I can no longer afford it due to all the traffic violations you say are still outstanding. Please take my car and let's call it even.

I cry very loudly. With my car door open several people observed my spectacle. One lovely lady walked by a couple of times. On the second pass she asked, "Are you alright?" And she was genuinely concerned. That was nice.

When my boyfriend arrived, he advised against leaving the note on the windshield of my car. He said I'd probably be stuck with a towing bill and some additional fees. That's all I need.

So I went to work and pretended I was ok.

It's funny how hard it is to answer "How are you?" repeatedly after something like this happens. It's times like this that make me acutely aware of the mindless repetition of my day.

I remembered a story one of my favorite customers told me. He said his father, when asked how he was, would always say, "Great! Never better!" No matter how rotten his day was, no matter what ailment he might be experiencing, his response was always the same. "People don't want to hear how you really are. This is just their way of saying hello. It doesn't really matter what you say, so you may as well lie and give them a pleasant response."

And so I wore this unmet father's mantle today. And every time I was asked "How are you?" I responded, "Great! Never better!"