Karma

Happy Driver’s License Suspension Day to me… Happy Driver’s License Suspension Day to-o-o me-e-e-e-e…

It seems that the Great State of Texas has seen fit to set my next great blog vow for me.

But it has an air of inevitability to it, doesn’t it? Divine justice, even. All things considered, I’d say it’s not the most surprising thing to ever happen on this big blue orb. Not by a long shot.

In the grand scheme of things, if you stop and think about it for even a fraction of a portion of a moment, “Animals now using flippers to walk on land” or “Vice President shoots old man in face” are a whole lot further up the list of most historically surprising headlines than “Adri has driver’s license suspended, vows revenge.”

Regardless of whether or not it’d been written in the stars by some perverse old-world god with a fateful magic marker, there were sure as hell forces aligned against me today. The District Attorney’s office inexplicably sent down one of its top assistant DAs to argue the damn case. I’m talking the kind of hot shot, hang-‘em-high, the-eyes-of-Texas-are-upon-us bastard who hasn’t seen the inside of a traffic court since three weeks after he passed the bar.

Standing there before the judge, caught entirely off guard in my attempt to represent myself, I tried in vain to drag the hearing out. I mean, if the hearing never ended, then I’d never actually lose my license, right?

The logic seemed airtight!

We weren’t even five minutes into the mess before the judge started asking, “Is that it? Is that it?”  He’s checking his watch, checking whether he’s going to be late for his golf game, or that scheduled threesome with his clerk and the cute Vietnamese landlord who had appeared before him earlier in the morning.

Yes, the blind 104-year old great-grandmother who had driven clean through the front of a day care center whilst in a diabetic coma – whose traffic case was heard just before mine – all that flea-bitten cat lady hag got was defensive driving, but me? The DA’s office sends Mr. Top Prosecutor of the Year down to personally oversee the shredding of my driver’s license by the Official State of Texas Driver’s License Shredding Department.

And I mourn, because it was the most perfect driver’s license photo that ever was, is, or shall be, amen.

The DA, he listed traffic violations for which I had only the foggiest of recollections. I mean, I can hardly have an incident held against me if I don’t remember it, can I?

“Is that it? Is that it?” the judge, like a god-forsaken skipping record out of my darkest nightmare, hissed yet again.

The DA was positively aglow. “Tragically, Your Honor, this list of past traffic violations goes on for quite some time. I would ask that Your Honor allow the State to read the entire list into the record so that the Court might fully comprehend the nature of the Defendant’s driving record.”

“Wait!” I knew what to do. I’d prevailed in court lots of times – albeit never traffic court, and never whilst representing such an incredibly hot client. “Objection. The list’s probative value is outweighed by its prejudicial…”

“Overruled.”

“Well, then… I, um, Defendant stipulates as to all of the past traffic violations and moves that the Court…”

“Denied.”

In the midst of everything, I started wondering about the legality and practicality of riding a horse to work. I mean, I only live a mile from downtown, and this is Texas, after all…

Or I could require my legal assistant to pick me up at home every morning, as part of that “Other duties, as assigned” clause in her job description…

Or I could [wince, shudder] take the bus…

The judge was talking again. I had no idea how long this had been going on. “Ms. Oopsy, as much as I commend you on your admirable attempt here today to make chicken soup out of chicken waste, for the sake of my grandchildren and every other living thing in the community, this Court is ordering suspension of your driver’s license, to commence immediately and to last for a period of one hundred and twenty days.

“Defendant is also hereby sentenced to a period of no less than ten hours in county jail, which you can schedule with my clerk at the conclusion of this hearing.”

From somewhere at the back of the courtroom came the sound of at least two people applauding.

“Objection, Your Honor!”

“What? Grounds, Ms. Oopsy?”

“Um… irrational exuberance. Excessive celebration. Um…”

“Overruled.”

I hitched a ride to work with the DA. Walked in only to find a striped prison uniform and a “Sorry about your criminal conviction” card on my desk. Someone trying to be too clever by half.

Nevertheless, it all still had a familiar, inevitable quality about it, as though the license suspension and ensuing incarceration had been floating around out there in the æther, beyond the reach of time and space, but had only just now materialized into this particular dimension.

Plenty of respectable people have survived stints in the pokey…

Happy Driver’s License Suspension Day to Adri… Happy Driver’s License Suspension Day to me-e-e-e!