I am not so good at it. In fact, I am the type of person to let things fester.
Fester, fester, fester. Rot, rot, rot. (Anyone out there seen French Kiss with Meg Ryan and Kevin Kline?)
What's all this about, you ask. The stupid ticket I got a couple of hours ago. Rolling through a stop sign. Really, I'm sure I probably did pull a stoptional. But, really? I'm tooling around in my hybrid with my adorable child safely buckled into her carseat and my Aunt Mel smiling politely beside me heading to friggin' Kmart on a Wednesday. I'm being pleasant...answering all of Mr. Police Officer's questions about how my hybrid vehicle works...explaining that I actually get better city mileage than highway...blah, blah. I was prepared for him to bring me the ticket. Okay, I get that I disobeyed the laws of the traffic gods. I'm thinking something in the neighborhood of fifty bucks. Maybe sixty. Definitely not $137. I guess I now know how the City of Dickson stays afloat in these times of financial want.
Anyway, I'm growing more and more annoyed at the situation every minute. I just told M about it on the phone, and as I explained that I could probably get it dismissed in court or by going to traffic school, he calmly just said, "or you could just pay it." God bless my husband. While the recalcitrant twenty-something in me wants to do everything in my power to keep that 137 bucks in my bank account, the mature mama in me knows that my husband is probably right. Besides, writing the check is sort of like letting go of the bubble.
We'll see if I can.
I'm out. I'm going to alphabetize and arrange all of our CDs into the case I bought at Kmart.
5 comments:
Small town cops-you gotta love 'em! I can tell you from experience that paying for defensive driving will cost you just as much as the ticket, so unless you are worried about points on your license, just pay it. But that totally sucks and now I need to put my own stuff in a bubble because I am reliving my ticket from a small town copper who had nothing else to do with his time!
Every time something yucky like this happens, my mom and I use the philanthropy argument to aid in the letting go process. As in, you just decide to see the $137 as this decade's donation from you to Dickson so that the streets and sidewalks can be fixed and without potholes, or so that someone will answer your phone call if you ever (god forbid) have to call the cops.
I like Sarah's idea.
I feel you. Like Strongmama, I'm also reliving. I ran a red light a couple years ago. Totally did not mean to. It was one of those times when I wasn't paying as much attention as I should have, suddenly found myself approaching a yellow way too fast, slammed on the brakes, realized I was going to end up stopped halfway through the intersection, so hit the gas to get through instead, and got busted. I really was trying to do what I thought was safer, but yeah, they don't fool around when it comes to running red lights. I did the defensive driving course because I figured if I was paying the same amount either way, I might as well get the points of my license.
But that was before I had a baby. Pay the ticket, let it go. I'll come over and do the hand motions with you.
I need to do that bubble thing soooo baaaaad.... My mom rolled through a stop sign once: We'd just bought a small couch and I was wedged between the couch and the inside of the car, quite literally. While mom talked to the cop, my sister frantically threw her coat over me and I scrunched down as much as possible so we didn't incur even more tickets for, I don't know, child endangerment?
I also like Sarah's idea. Very Zen.
Sorry you had a bad day! Unfortunately, I don't have any advice for you like the others, but,...didn't it make you feel better to see Sam on Top Chef last night? Oh, and French Kiss happens to be one of my all time favorites.
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