As a preface to this little playlet, please know that, yes, during the months leading up to our foreclosure in January, because we were just a tad distracted with packing and moving and intermittent sobbing, the registration on MB’s vehicle lapsed, which, as we all know, is a felony. He’d gone in and paid the fees, was told to get it smogged, got it smogged, and, oh, paid a couple of unpaid parking tickets — extremely easy to get in this completely bankrupt town and I mean “bankrupt” literally — and which, as we all know, are felonies. After paying all this, the DMV issued us a temporary registration that did expire a couple of weeks ago. We have been distracted, but that’s an explanation, not an excuse. Because our state is also bankrupt, the DMV is now closed on certain Fridays, all Saturdays, and they don’t take appointments anymore. You have to be able to spend, literally, your entire day there. Slightly harder when you’re self-employed. Still. Shoulda gotten it done because, it should be noted before we continue with this scenario, the only thing missing is the tab. The little sticker. Yeah, that.
Yesterday, a.m. MB and Tracey are in MB’s vehicle.
Because MB is moving his office, there is video/film equipment stacked in both the back seat and the back of the vehicle. They drive past a cop, not a Highway Patrolman, a cop. He pulls them over, approaches the window.
COP: License and registration, please.
MB hands it to him.
COP: (looking at the registration with MB’s name on it) Do you own this car?
MB: Uhm, yes.
COP: Okaaay.
Cop starts to act weird. There is immediately a strange vibe, as if he thinks, based on the stuff packed into the back of the vehicle, that MB and Tracey are living in the car, which, praise Jesus, they are not.
COP: Well, Mr. Beloved, your registration is expired.
MB: Here’s the paperwork. I’ve paid the fees, just got it smogged, all that.
COP: Okay. But your temporary expired a few weeks ago. Why haven’t you gotten that fixed?
MB: Well, Officer —
COP: (interrupting) Because, you know, there are rules. Everyone needs to follow the RULES.
MB: Yes, sir. I understand, but —
COP: (interrupting) It’s within my power to impound this vehicle.
TRACEY: Officer, can I say something? We recently lost our home and we do intend to get this taken care of. It slipped through the cracks.
Tracey needs to learn to shut up, just in general. Mercifully, she doesn’t speak again in this scenario.
COP: Well, you know, lots of people are having problems, but that doesn’t change the facts. I’ll be back.
Cop returns to his bike. MB and Tracey sit there discussing what’s going to happen. MB says “It’s a fix-it ticket, obviously.” Tracey says, “He’s gonna take our car.” Cop is at his bike for a long time. Tracey, big baby, starts to tear up. Who knows why anymore? Finally, he returns.
COP: Well, Mr. Beloved, you know what? This registration thing is the least of your problems. You’re driving on a suspended license.
MB: What?
COP: Yep. Your license is suspended. You have some unpaid parking tickets.
MB: WHAT??
COP: You were sent noticed of this via certified mail in January.
MB: I didn’t receive any certified mail, Officer.
In the passenger seat, Tracey shakes her head to reinforce the truth of this. The cop, of course, with his head above the car window, cannot see this all-important emphasis.
COP: Well, it was sent. Certified mail.
MB: Officer, I showed you proof that those tickets are paid. Here it is again. I don’t have any other tickets outstanding. They were paid.
COP: It doesn’t matter. And I didn’t check, but for all I know, there’s a warrant out for your arrest.
MB: WHAT??
COP: So I’m going to go ahead and impound your vehicle.
MB: But, Officer, I’ve paid everything. I just need the tab.
COP: You need to exit the vehicle. Take out anything valuable.
MB and Tracey sit shocked for a brief second. Tracey — that pain in the ass — starts to cry, having relinquished months ago her strict policy about not crying in front of strangers. Whatever dignity she once possessed has vanished into the ether, to be absorbed and assimilated by drunken homeless people stumbling about the streets. MB and Tracey climb out onto the sidewalk, start to unload the car. The cop suddenly begins to act conciliatory, giving MB detailed instructions of what he needs to do to stop being a felon. Tracey refuses to look at the cop again. They realize, since they are now walking home from where they currently are, that there’s no way they can schlep all of the equipment. They decide what to take and what to leave. The cop calls for a tow and tells MB where he can go to bail the car out of car prison. He then tells him how to fix his “suspended license for unpaid parking tickets” and be made whole and human again.
COP: Give me your driver’s license.
There is a uncomprehending pause.
COP: You need to give me your driver’s license. She can drive you wherever you need to go until you get this fixed. There may be a penalty fee assessed, but maybe you can make it in payments. I mean, it’s obvious you’re having money problems.
How this is “obvious,” one does not know. Tracey volunteered the housing information. Beyond that, the car is clean, they are clean, their clothes fit, they do not reek of booze, they aren’t high, although they may be be starting to wonder if they are hallucinating. It would seem the cop still thinks MB and Tracey are living in their vehicle. So let’s take it away from them. MB hands his license over to the cop’s outstretched hand. Tracey sits on the sidewalk, looks the other way, and thinks, “YOU try making those insane mortgage payments, Slappy.”
MB and Tracey load themselves up with their belongings. This shoulder, that shoulder, this hand, that hand. The cop takes an “inventory” of what’s left in the car. Tracey mutters, “Just because it’s written down, doesn’t mean they won’t steal it.” She means the impound people, she does, but the cop hears her and makes a huffy sound. She waits to be hit with the nunchuck, but the inventory is apparently redirecting all of his whuppin’ energy.
Loaded like pack mules, MB and Tracey begin the long schlep home, just as the tow truck pulls up. They are now car-less because Tracey’s car is in the shop for a new clutch. As they walk away, they notice that the cop and the driver seem very friendly with each other.
Much later, after hours and hours at the DMV to get that all-important sticker, that tiny pivotal item, they bail their car out of car prison to the tune of $381, despite being quoted $325. The girl at the DMV had said, yes, all your tickets were already paid. You were fine.
As of today, The Dread Thug MB has an appearance pending in Traffic Court to explain his felonious behavior. Unless, of course, the cops come pounding on the door first waving their guns and that much-deserved arrest warrant.
Curtain.
You know, I have several unkind thoughts on this topic. I would even suggest (despite my natural inclinations in this regard) that you should sue the department… except for:
1. the man technically could impound the car anyway because of the registration
2. you may not get a judge sympathetic to your situation
3. even if you won, the city couldn’t afford to pay you.
We’ll just have to wait for karmy to catch the smarmy little bastard.
Oh my gosh, tracey.
This was agony to read. Insult to injury, all that … you two must be so damn TIRED.
You must get comments like this all the time but I seriously just want to fluff pillows and bustle about bringing you guys tea, and giving you a damn BREAK.
sorry, hon.
love you.
You have no idea how much I want to beat that cop’s butt. And kick him in the nads while I’m at it. Ok, you probably have an idea of it.
All right… seeing what I wrote in print actually bugs me. Zero grace, and no help to you at all. I’m very sorry. Just nettled on your behalf and feeling rather powerless to mend anything.
NF — No apology necessary! Please! And yes, he could technically impound the car — his discretion, I imagine. It’s just so AHHHH! — FRUSTRATING-– when all you’re missing is the DAMN TAB and he still does it. So the city can make some money.
Honestly, it felt like the whole thing was a big get-off for him. And you just feel so powerless.
sheila — As I wrote to you last night in my huge self-pitying email “I WANT a damn break!!” Wah wah wah. That’s what the whole Sudden Yurt Commune is all about. I go there in my head daily now. Sometimes hourly.
sarahk — I do have some idea. I am now picturing your one hand beating the cop’s butt while your opposite legs kicks his nads. Hahahaha. Ah, joy in the little vengeful things, just the way Jesus wants it.
Oh, man, I am so sorry–bureaucracy sucks. I don’t understand why the proof of payment didn’t do anything for you. Casually tossing out “there’s probably a warrant for your arrest” is MEAN! Hope everything went well at traffic court.
If I may sympathize and possibly make you feel better, yesterday the credit card company for a certain undies store tracked me down and threatened me with collections (Gisele and Heidi kicking open my door with their stiletto heels) because I thought I’d changed my address with them after I moved, and in December ordered myself some stuff. . . and then didn’t notice the bill never arrived.
It took two phone calls and the argument of “but the billing and shipping address were the same, and both new–you should’ve caught it” to get them to relent and take off the late fees. I feel simultaneously stupid and vindicated.
Girlfriend, if that picture helps you at all, you may use it and embellish it at will. Just–if you put me in dominatrix gear, make it tastefully modest, k?
Tracey, how terrible! Don’t they have real criminals in San Diego to bother? I’d love to see sarahk go after that creep! I’d buy tickets.
Oh.
Em.
Effing.
Gee.
I’m feeling a bit stabby here… okay, more than just a bit…
SarahK is gonna hafta hold me back.
Oh, Tracey! While Sheila bustles about bringing tea and fluffing pillows, I’ll make some cookies to go with the tea and a big pot of soup or something for later.
I’m so, so sorry you two had to go through that. And Kate P was right – the “there’s a warrant” thing WAS mean.
Go get ’em, sarahk!!!
We need to get that yurt thing going NOW.
Oh, I’m so sorry.
I hope someday when that cop needs the sympathy that he didn’t show you and MB, he’s around someone who is a bigger person than he is and who will give it to him.
I hope everything went well, and after all this is over, you’ll never have a reason (other than for happiness) to cry in public again.
(I would have been crying, too. The ugly kind of cry. The big choking sobs kind of cry. Because there’s just a point where if I get pushed past it, I can no longer COPE no matter how much I want to)
Foot massages. To go with the fluffy pillows and tea and soup.
And the sympathy. Lots of that.
That cop doesn’t know it, but he’s getting the biggest psychic ass-kicking…
Especially because he was just WRONG. That’s what makes me furious for you.
And add homemade creme puffs… classic recipe. Full of yummy fats and sugars.
“He just seemed to get off on it.” EXACTLY, Tracey. And that’s why I was (and AM) so irked. He could have cut you a break, OR even if he didn’t, he could have been a real human about it, instead of the Clown Prince of the Nimrods. URGH that “I’m Better Than You” attitude just rankles.
GDazz, I think Sarah would hold you back just because she wanted to thrash him first. But me, I’m a gentleman – I’ll hold him down for you.
ricki — You know what? Thank you for validating my crying. Sounds like a weird thing to say, but I’m super self-conscious about it. I mean, I THINK about it after the fact when I do this and berate myself vigorously, but there’s just that “point,” yes, that you were talking about. It’s different for everyone, I’m sure. Since our move — what, six weeks now? — I have not cried about all this. I cried some while actually moving, I cried the very last day, but since then, I have clamped up inside in a weird weird way. I didn’t WANT to cry yesterday, but it seemed like the crying WANTED to happen, you know? So thanks for getting that.
And everybody — YES! I feel like it’s like “To the Batmobile, immediately!”
To the Cosmic Yurt, immediately!!
And I would — I’m sorry that I’m a cow — totally accept all the fluffy pillows and tea and creme puffs, for a little while, I WOULD, and then move it on to the next one of us who needs it, too. We all need extra love these days, I’m convinced. The world is scary. “I’m frightened and there are wolves out there,” to quote Abe Simpson. But our Sudden Yurt Commune is the perfect SAFE pampering place. Bodies get fed, spirits get fed, and *by God, THERE WILL BE DANCING*!
*Name that movie
I am envisioning new Yurt Commune Workshops!
Sarahk will teach us the art of using all your extremities (hand to butt, legs to ‘nads) for self-defense, or defense of a friend. GDazz will be on the teaching team.
Sheila (and Hope) will show us the fine art of choosing the most comforting fluffy pillows.
Sal will help us hone our “psychic ass-kicking.”
Jayne and ‘Fly will hold a special dessert boot camp.
Ricki will lead us in an “It’s O.K. to cry” seminar.
I can teach everybody foot reflexology so we get really, really gooood foot massages.
The funny thing is I TOTALLY berate myself after crying, every time I do it.
I’m bad that way…in holding myself to impossibly high standards.
But, seriously. That cop crossed a line.
* Movie line
My Best Friends Wedding
“There may not be marriage, there may not be sex, but, by god, there will be dancing!”
Cops can be scary, and cranky. I know because I’m married to one.
Sorry for your trauma, Tracey.
CV — I wouldn’t mind if he were scary and cranky; what I mind is when he’s presented with proof that the tickets that generated the alleged “suspended license” were paid, his response is, “It doesn’t matter.”
It makes me shiver a little to hear an officer of the law say this.
And please don’t think I am anti-cop. I am anti-THIS-cop. He would NOT listen.
Tracey, there is nothing left to say that everyone else has not said perfectly. I am so sorry the world seems so intent upon hurting you these days. Who could balme you for needing to cry now and then? These things simply cannot be contained.
Since SarahK, GDazz & Nightfly seem to have all of cop booty whupping well in hand, and Sheila and Jayne seem to have all of the pampering taken care of, I will be left to do something like…report that cop to the IRS for an audit.
Let’s see how condescending he acts when the IRS agent is saying, “it doesn’t matter” as he tries to explain himself.
Um, there’s doing your job and then their is being a D!@K – guess which one the cop was.
MM — I’m sick. I cannot contain my level of vengeful glee at that idea.
I love how we’re all splitting up into separate jobs in order to protect Tracey.
“Okay, I’m on the tea – you got the cupcakes – you got the audit – you got the ass-whuppin’? Okay – on the count of 3 – GO.”
Hey Tracey, I’ve baked some virtual cookies for you…and the rest of the SYC group.
http://www.barefootkitchenwitch.com/the_barefoot_kitchen_witc/2009/03/for-tracey.html
🙂 Imagine some are gluten-free for sarahk as well.