This story's beginning dates back to August of 2007, back when it was time to for the Moore clan to get their tags renewed. That’s right, it didn’t happen. I completely forgot. To give myself a little credit, August was a busy month: my birthday, LB’s birthday, Ada deciding it was time for her to enter the world (on my birthday), I was in the middle of interviewing and changing jobs…. as you can see, a very hectic time in the Moore household. I know that there are no excuses, it is another one of my many civic duties to keep our cars legal, but I just plain forgot.
Fast Forward to about 2 months later, October 1 2007 to be exact. I had been at my new job for about a month and a half and was finally starting to figure out what the heck I was doing there, life was good. I had been bringing my lunch every day to give myself more time in the office to learn what was going on. So, this day,I decided for lunch, I was going to drive around, explore my new surroundings, see what kind of places there were to eat, see if there were any good used CD stores, etc. I quickly discovered, as mentioned in a previous post, that my new locale had much to be desired and probably wasn’t the best place to be cruising around, especially in my current, though unknowing, illegal status.
I got maybe 5 miles down the road and guess who I was staring at in my rear view? That’s right, Johnny Law, along with his accompanying red and blue flashing lights. I eased the Altimator over to the side of the road with the greatest of precaution, all the time wondering why one half of the ChiPs duo had decided to pick me, out of all people on this urbanized stretch of road, to pull over. Was I speeding? Did I not use a blinker, not come to a complete stop? Did I turn the volume to far up when Better Than Ezra’s 'Desperately Wanting' came on? Only time would tell. He threw his right knee high leather boot over the seat of the still running motorcycle and began his slow, confident swagger all the way to my driver's side door. Time seemed to stand still. As he got closer and closer his silhouette morphed into a 6’3” 250lb solid muscle African American motorcycle policeman, complete with one sweet mustache. I knew I hadn’t done anything wrong, but by the time he had finally made that 15 foot walk seem like 15 miles, I had to hold my heart in my chest.
When he approached the already lowered window I sheepishly squeaked out, “What seems to be the problem officer?”
“Son, do you know I could have your car impounded this very second and send you walking home if I wanted?”
“No sir. Why would you do that?”
“License and registration.” As if I had said nothing….eerie silence as I fished out my registration from the glove compartment….“Because, Son.” – strong emphasis on son – “your car tags are expired by 3 months.”
My mind began racing and I suddenly realized that he was right. I remembered that I was going to go down to the tag office and take care of everything on August 6, but that was the Monday after, more specifically, the day after Ada was born and I hadn’t thought about it since. I also didn’t have the courage to tell him that, technically, I had until to the end of August and it was just October the 1st, so in reality, they were only one month late. But, late none the less and I could tell this manbeast probably wasn’t to keen on technicalities. You have to choose your battles and this is one that I definitely had no problem lying down.
I made no excuses to the man in blue, I just sat there and took it like a man. I listened as he rambled on during his power trip about how I wasn’t better than everyone else, nothing exempted me from abiding by the law blah, blah blah. I peppered in my occasional “Yes Sirs” and after about a 5 minute speech about how I am the scum of the Earth for forgetting to renew my car tags, he took my license and registration back to the two wheeler to no doubt, fill out my citation.
As I was sitting there, in what now seemed a very lonely driver’s seat, many things began to run through my head: I can’t believe the dude is serious; There is no way I am getting out of this one with this guy; Wonder if I would get out of it if I were a girl; I dread calling LB and breaking the bad news; I wonder if it is illegal to talk on the cell phone while driving in Clayton County because I could call her when I leave here, but if it is illegal, this guy would probably throw me in jail for life with no parole; I can’t believe I missed the end of 'Desperately Wanting'; What is taking Ponch so long?
What seemed to be another, at least 15 minutes later, I finally saw some movement in my direction. Round Two wasn’t near as bad as the first, I guess he had already had his fun. Less than 2 minutes later I was pulling back out onto the highway with my freshly torn from the perforated edge citation and on my way back to work. I had exactly one month before my court date, but as long as I paid the fine by said date, this whole ordeal would be water under the bridge. The next week, I went down to the tag office and took care of my previously forgotten tag renewals.
So, that was that right? WRONG! Fast forward to last week. I go to check the mailbox the one day, there was an initial burst of excitement. I got the new Sports Illustrated, Entertainment Weekly, and there were no unexpected bills. But…wait…what was that in the back? I reached in and grabbed the little square envelope that had been pushed to the back. Return address: Clayton County Municipal Court. Uh-oh is right! I was in no hurry to get it open, but had to quit delaying the inevitable. Centered right at the top in big bold letters, something to the tune of “Failure to Comply with City Ordinances.” I can’t remember the exact wording, but you get the gist. I had paid for the new tags, but had completely forgotten about paying for that little reminder so graciously handed out to me by the slightly less facial haired, uniformed Mr. T.
There was an initial wave of shock that ran down my spine. Was my license going to be revoked or suspended? Was I going to be arrested? I quickly called the number on the letter and began preparing my sob story for whoever was unlucky to answer the phone. What seemed to be a sweet little old lady answered, a sigh of relief, and I began. She was very cordial and listened to everything that I had to say. Upon my completion, she informed me that all I had to do was come down to the courthouse and pay for the ticket, plus and extra $50 for missing my court date. I questioned her, “That’s it?”; “That’s it, Sweetie.” Easy enough.
Present day and $242 later, I am once again a completely legal citizen. I did fight the law, sort of, more like forgot about it and they did win…almost $250.
though because all of the comments on Youtube appear to be positive. And lets not forget Randy Jackson in the background bobbing back and forth while playing his bass doing his best Robert Palmer I’m Addicted to Love video impersonation. We got a hot one tonight dog!
