Epic Day

Today was a little overwhelming. First of all, I got a job writing for my university's newspaper (yay me!). Secondly, I had to go to court (boooo).

Two months ago, in September, I was driving down Lee Street on my way to school. A state trooper got behind me in order to pass an extremely slow school bus and then turned his blue lights on. WTF, right? I wasn't speeding, had my seat belt on, and even used my directional when switching lanes (I don't usually do that). He pulled me over and gave me a ticket for driving with an expired car registration. My dad usually takes care of that for me, so I had no idea it had expired in April (whoops). Today was my court date, and I had to go present my renewed registration to the D.A. in order to get the charges dropped. 

I had no clue where the court house was, so I got lost and had to call one of my friends for directions. Then, when I went through the security at the courthouse door, there were some problems. I thought they were going to strip-search me or something because of how many times they had to check and re-check my purse. Ipod--check, phone--check, nail clippers--check, bottle of vitamins (?) --check, and oh yes--ipod headphones. They couldn't just look at those things all at once. No, they had to make a separate trip for each thing. I thought I was gonna miss my appearance with the judge, they took so long.

After the painfully long security inspection, I had to find the right courtroom. Room 1A had a line outside it that was long enough to be a paradigm of the small intestines. After everyone was ushered into the courtroom, we were given basic instructions, and left to sit for the next two hours until our name was called. The D.A. said that if a phone went off, it would be confiscated and would not be returned to the owner. Also, we were not allowed  to talk. 

After an hour and a half, the monotony of staring at the clock was interrupted. The D.A. was talking to a person with long dreadlocks, and she looked very angry. Apparently, the person in question smacked his gum a little too loudly, and when the D.A. told him to stop, he did it again. He was escorted from the courtroom by the bailiff, and the D.A. told us that the man was going to jail. I guess he should've chewed his gum more quietly. The woman sitting next to me turned and said, "That was a man?" He was a bit effeminate, I'll admit.

All in all, my own experience in court was boring. I showed the D.A. my car registration, and my case was dismissed. BUT I GOT TO SEE SOMEONE PUT IN THE SLAMMER. Hell Yes.