In October I wrote about being a criminal, at least, in the eyes of one zealous local officer of the law. This is the next installment. I’ve hesitated to even write about this because it really belongs in the Theatre of the Absurd, and I am not ordinarily as stupid as I’ve been with this whole mess. Maybe it’ll give anyone who reads this something to laugh about, or at least, something to be “glad it’s someone else” about.

In the first installment, yours truly was left walking home in her sweats and slippers, having promised never to get behind the wheel of any car without a valid driver’s license. The very next day, I got T to drive me to the DMV, where I hoped to fix whatever glitch had caused mine to expire. The first thing I discovered was that the DMV had me licensed under my married name, but the Social Security Administration hadn’t bothered to update their records, despite the fact that I sat in their office for nearly 3 hours back in August, 1989 right after we got married. The nice lady at the DMV agreed to give me a temporary license so that I would be street-legal provided that I could get my name changed with the Social Security Admin. The reason for the matchup has something to do with Homeland Security (though I think it REALLY has more to do with illegal immigration…but whatever).

Fortunately I had all of the required documents, or so I thought. I had gathered all of the certified documents three or so years ago when I thought we all might need passports. As it turns out, only Sticks and T went to Ireland, so I never got Dancergirl’s or mine. Nevertheless, I still had all of the documents that could possibly be required to establish my identity.

• First Mistake: About the time that all of this happened, life accelerated in the biz and at the job, so the next couple of weeks were consumed with deadline-meeting. I confess that I did not go to the SSA and fix things immediately. Spell that one PRO-CRAST-IN-ATION.
• Second mistake: (note to self: always READ the ticket the nice officer hands you instead of relying on your memory….) I managed to completely MISS the date I was supposed to appear in court for my flagrant violation of the law. As it happened, I was in a rental car driving Dancergirl up to San Francisco on the very day I was supposed to be humbly appearing in court and proving that all was good. How did I manage that? Well, I heard the nice lady officer tell me the court would send something to me about appearing. Only, there was a NICE BIG DATE on the ticket — November 17, 2005 to be exact — that specifically said to appear.

When I came home from San Fran, there was a warrant for my arrest waiting. Now I’m in a panic….literally.

Here is a lesson on how NOT to handle a legal matter: Get so afraid when you see a warrant for your arrest that you are paralyzed with fear and do absolutely frickin’ nothing. It will for sure come back and bite you in the ass, so when the doorbell rang about a week later and the nice policeman asked me to step outside, I could feel the teeth nipping at me — HARD.

To be continued….

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