Traffic School - Yuk

So, I was stuck in traffic school 2 Saturdays ago. It is such a crock, and since I was
"out of county" I had to pay a penalty of $30 that no one else had to. Rip off #1.

I guess the whole day was ruined for me. First I had to get up at the crack of dawn (which is never a good thing for a anti-morning person like myself), then I am unable to partake in the coffee drink that I want to have (pregnant)...did I mention I had to get up early? I arrive at the courthouse (yes, the courthouse) where a gremlin of a man caustically demands to see my paperwork so that he can make a little checkmark on it. Trust me, I am NOT a morning person, and STRIPE (apparently the name of a mean gremlin) gives me attitude. At this point in my coffeeless, early morning adventure I have a hard time putting on a poker face. They tell me that I must stand in line to go through the weapons check (because you know I always carry a spare bazooka and some ammo on me), and oh yes, that nice muffin that I just purchased...I will either have to down it quickly or throw it away because "we don't allow food or drink into the courthouse". Apparently they don't allow reading materials either because there were piles of book by the door.

As you may recall, I went with two friends...Josh and Heather. Heather arrived late and drove her own car. I picked up Josh. We all scurry into the courthouse and have to try and find any leftover seats (because I am a good friend and waited for Heather to arrive before going inside). The ONLY open seats were off to the far left in the corner by a wall and of course the jury box is right in front of us. The man to my right smells rancid, and I can barely keep down my quickly scarfed down muffin. It got so bad that I had to borrow some lotion from Heather and put it under my nose so I would smell the lotion instead of the guy next to me. It was a very temporary fix - this guy's smell was very pungent to say the least. I had to resort to mouth breathing to keep my food down. I mean, really if you are going to be in close quarters with someone, could you at least have the common courtesy to shower before you arrive?

Anyway, the first part of class results in some poor kid throwing up in his shirt. This cleared the whole right side of the courthouse, and resulted in a bunch of adults acting like 3rd grade children with their dramatic reactions to this poor kid's unfortunate mishap. Remember when I said they wouldn't allow us to bring food and drinks in? I wasn't kidding. Apparently, this kid had to take medicine at a scheduled time, and he is supposed to take it with food. Since he wasn't allowed to bring food, he tried it on an empty stomach...not such a good idea.

They promptly excused us to lunch where cops awaited us to provide us with tickets for any little infraction they could think of. One poor guy got a ticket along with four other people at the same time. The same motorcycle cop just motioned them all over to the side and wrote them tickets. Another lady either had her car stolen or towed (towed would be my guess since this place is so money hungry).

Heather ended up getting 2 parking tickets (or fix it tickets). Apparently, they went around the parking lot and checked for ANYTHING that they could ticket. I mean, they really went out of their way to find something.

Well I wish I could say that I learned a lot during this class, but I didn't. I was a bit annoyed that the teacher was not sticking to the curriculum, so I completed the workbook on my own. When I was done with that I ran out of things to do, so I started drawing on myself (gave myself a tattoo). This didn't work out to well, so I started drawing on my neighbor. Don't worry, I know him, and no it wasn't the rancid guy.

The final nail in my coffee of a day was that I have to mail in my OWN certification because I am out of county, whereas everyone else could just leave for the day. Sigh...I don't like traffic school. :(