…And it’s, “I wonder what the longest hair on my head is?”
Ha. No…although I’ll admit in times of random Space Cadetness I have wondered it off-hand.
Contrary to what some people think, I don’t post a blog when I have a thought…it’s when I have a thought I want to share. I’ll just keep those who accused me of that anonymous, okay, Dad?
I’ve been meaning to write the last few weeks, but it’s been busy-busy-busy. We’re having our Fall Sale at work, and so the usual fax-copy-email-phone work has been ratcheted up to a higher level. But it’s worth it; I got a nice bonus this month, and so my savings account is now happily fed. Plus I’ve been out and about with friends; I got invited to a cocktail party a few weeks ago, which was a lot of fun. I have to admit I felt rather mature and adult (yeah, I can hear the brotherly remarks coming in from that comment…) and it made me realize that sometime in the last year and a half I up and got myself a life.
Or at least one that involved being more social.
I’m kind of a hermit by nature, which is fine with me, but I began realizing that my truer preference is to be a “social hermit” – as in a hermit that goes out and does things with a set of select friends. When I was in the Air Force, I had a friend who called me a “social butterfly” because no matter where we went, we’d run into at least one or two people I knew. Different times, different me. But I began to realize that I missed that aspect of me a couple of years ago.
And so at the urging of my best friend Jane, I created a page on MySpace; say what you will about it, I’ve made some really good friends in the Portland area through it. Plus I’ve been getting a lot closer to coworkers as well; so I guess that new level of maturity – and even finally being in a place where I’m comfortable with myself in a way that allows others to be comfortable around me – has been creeping in for awhile. The cocktail party was just something that opened my eyes to it.
Also a few weeks ago, I went to traffic court to defend a parking ticket I was given 21 minutes before my paid receipt expired. I’d never been in the Multnomah County court building before – a big stately thing in downtown Portland – and when I walked in, I felt like I was in television deja-vu – some episode of Law and Order. (Boots sound awesome on marble floors. It was almost worth it to walk in circles while I waited for the court session to begin!)
But the courtroom I had to go to was rather shabby and basementish; the Law and Order glamour stopped at the threshold of the doors in. One door had a piece of hand-torn carpet padding propping it open, and the copy machine sitting dilapedatedly in a corner had its base held together by concrete gray duct tape. I have seen recessed fluorescent lighting like that since The Rockford Files was at its peak of popularity. It looked like someone had cut the ceiling open with giant pinking shears and then slipped the fluorescent bulbs into the upward-pointing triangle.
Dangling from one downward-pointing triangle was a piece of masking tape that looked years old; fuzzy strands and balls of dust fluttered plaintively from it, making it look like a piece of fly paper that had been stored under someone’s bed for a few years, then put on display. It matched the musty-dusty smell that permeated the air in a ghostlike way; you’d catch a whiff of it…and then just as you became aware of it, the scent dissipated, only to come back when you stopped paying attention to it.
The smell reminded me of…something. A doctor’s office? School? The Oregon State Library? It had that strange smell of dust and old-but-now-dry damp…a combination of cool air, dust and paper. It was a familiar scent that evoked muddy memories of…nothing in particular, but also specific places that had the same smell.
And I think I’ve seen nicer curtains in motels.
Even for the scruffy, almost claustrophobic feeling of the room, it did have a quiet calm to it. I think it was the recessed fluorescent lighting and the knotty pine paneling on the walls that saved it from being too closed-in. Though I must say I was confused by the scallop-shaped burn marks on the acoustic tiling above me. They were too round and perfectly- and evenly-formed to be water stains, but I couldn’t figure out what would have caused such a mark.
Overall, it seemed to simply be happy to boast the best of 1970s legal décor – but now boring and shabbily professional. Drearily official, even. And you can’t forget the popcorn finish to the ceiling, the pinnacle of 1970s décor!
There was a nice view of downtown, however, that you looked up into from the little basement-like room. As I sat there, waiting for the session to begin, I watched the creamy fall light playing off the buildings. It was a beautiful, clean, clear day that had the light and feel of Spring – the only giveaway were the crimson and ocher and fading green leaves of the trees out side of the window.
I was amused, though, by the fact that Centerpointe isn’t the only place that deals with people who can’t read (see previous post It's Been a Long Time Since I Rock and Rolled) – there were three very large signs telling people how to check in; I had to chuckle as I wondered how many times the clerk had to field the question in a single day for how to do so. I even wondered what my customer from that earlier post would say, since it wasn’t printed on “official letterhead.”
Then the court session began. I sat, amazed at how many people were no shows, and were then, by default given a “guilty” conviction – which meant they were then out $40, $60, $100 – or more! Even the $40 would be worth defending for me – that’s a damn decent trip to the grocery store. It made my little $16 ticket seem paltry.
Since the docket was in alphabetical order, I sat there listening to the excuses of the people before me for why they shouldn’t be found guilty, even though in one breath they’d say, “I saw the sign that said ‘No Parking’, but here’s why I did it!” and would then come up with something that was more of a whining excuse than a reasonable reason…so to speak. It began to sound like the legal version of the adults in the Peanuts movies: “Wohn wonh wanh wanh wanh wonhn…”
What I gathered from the excuses that there should be equal rights for passenger cars – they, too, should be allowed to park in a truck-only zone! Other people were there and didn’t get tickets so I shouldn’t either! I was handicapped! I had to keep bringing down armfuls of presents from my son’s birthday party! I don’t have eyes on the back of my head, so how could I see the sign that was behind my car! And so on…
At one point I could barely contain my laughter as a young lawyer in an ill-fitting suit got up and grilled the poor parking attendant, trying to get her to admit that the computer in her little handheld device was faulty, despite the fact its time and settings were set automatically by a satellite, and so his client should not have gotten the ticket, given to him for parking – without a receipt – in a zone ten minutes before that area stopped requiring payments. A minute or two I can get – but ten?! Even my old wind-up alarm clock I had as a child kept better time than he claimed a GPS-programmed device did.
As I whispered to the girl next to me – Shakespeare had it right: Kill all the lawyers.
He was so embarrassing, that even the judge had to work to keep a straight face, and those of us watching were squirming with embarrassment. I love finding clichés in action.
Finally it was my time. I got up and explained that I first had to run across the street to the other machine because the one I was trying to use wasn’t printing anything out. I saw the posture of traffic official next to me soften a bit. “Oh,” he said.
I held up my receipt. “I did have this on my dashboard,” I said and laughed, “But it was wholly my fault. I wasn’t aware of the requirement for having it curbside; I’ve never parked downtown on the street that I can remember – I usually take the train – or I park in a lot and I’m used to just putting it on the dash. So after I purchased my ticket, I opened the passenger side, chucked it in, and hurried off to my appointment.”
I turned to the parking official and said with a smile, “And with the way your job is, you can’t be expected to search each place of my car where a ticket might be displayed. So I can understand why I got the ticket. Now I know what to do!” He looked at me, amazed, then smiled -- clearly surprised by being treated with that level of respect...and my admission of guilt.
So did the judge – she then completely dismissed the charge, which is like getting an annulment: as far as the legal system is concerned, the ticket never happened. It’s an eradication that even a “not-guilty” ruling gives you. Life is so much easier when you just take responsibility for your actions, I’ve found.
I thanked the judge, and then I turned to the parking official and thanked him for coming. He seemed quite surprised by that as well. “You’re…welcome!” he said, and even seemed a bit pleased to simply be acknowledged as I’d acknowledged him. He’s likely got one of the most thankless jobs out there.
Afterwards, I met up with Andrew at the Rock Bottom Brewery and we had a few beers and shared some nachos and got caught up. It was a pleasant way to wind up a boring afternoon. Granted, I lost more paycheck-wise than I did in return for the $16 ticket, but it was the principle of the matter.
And that’s sort of the biggest thing that’s happened in the last few weeks. Now I’m about to head out and schlep Andrew out to Gresham so that he can get a new TV; the trunk of his car is kind of tiny, and doesn’t make TV-schlepping very easy. Mine’s a bit larger.
So I must now wrap this up to go get dressed and wash my face. More to come…when I have another thought.
One I want to air out, at least.
