Midweek Maundering

So one day, I was blasting around a tight freeway onramp and when I got to the bottom, durned if there wasn't a red light. I never use freeways on weekdays, just weekends when the metering lights aren't on. But this was a weekday and I was taken by surprise. Well, it was too late to stop. I tried, but there was no way, so I gave up and hit the gas. The onramp was a two-lane job and there was a truck in the inner lane, just slowing down. He honked at me. Why not, I was the asshole in the convertible Mustang breaking the law, not him. I had to ignore that and just get going.

Thing is, Mz Liz (or is it Mrs. Hip, I guess the Liz reference doesn’t mean anything to folks who never saw the previous blog), she said I was screwed because there was a camera taking down my license plate. Well, that sucks, I said. Prospect of a multi-hundred dollar fine put something of a damper on the evening. But you know? The ticket never came. Slipped under the radar again, I did.

Not like that other time. Pennsylvania, July 2003. Rented a car to drive from Gettysburg to Harrisburg and when we got to the tollbooth, everyone in the car but me saw that I had pulled up to an automatic quick-pass type of booth and there was no one in it to take my money. I sat there gawking like an idiot. Finally pulled over to the side and talked to a toll-taker in another booth. Nothing she could do. I’d already driven through and there was no procedure with which I could pay the toll. Sorry.

So I went on and sure enough, several weeks later a citation came in the mail complete with a nice picture of the back of my rental car and a bill for a hundred bucks. I felt stupid all over again. And paid the fine.

I writ this rather than leave a long-ass comment at Paula’s.