Since I’ve posted. I promised a note on my court experience. I’ll try to remember the salient details.

After my guitar lesson and moral support from Roger. I made my way back to the office to finish up some work before my court appearance at 7:00 pm. I was a bundle of nerves. When I got in my car, I sat on my sunglasses and broke them in half. Then, I drove down a one-way street and had to back up half a block to get turned around.

Inside the courthouse I met other very nervous people. One guy broke the ice with, “So, who was going the fastest?” We all grimaced and wrung our hands. On the way in, I spotted an RCMP cruiser and wondered if it was my constable. From the long list of appearances, I was the only one he was there to see that night. I hoped he had just forgotten, was out of town, transferred to another province, whatever. On the other hand, he was very nice as I remember, and my single-mom head was thinking it would be great to see him again. I honestly couldn’t remember if he was wearing a wedding ring the day he stopped me.

He entered the waiting area. “Ms Hindle?” We went into the foyer and he asked if I was fighting the ticket so that I wouldn’t lose my license. I told him yes and he said he would talk to the prosecutor to see if it would be ok for me to plead guilty to a lesser charge. He disappeared and I waited anxiously. Reappearing, he motioned for me to move into the prosecutor’s meeting area. Inside were a dozen police officers and sherriff’s deputies. All those guns in such close proximity were getting me all excited.

We talked while we waited and he was just as nice as I remembered. He told me he wrote over 60 tickets in a 2 month span on that stretch of road over the summer. Which no doubt is the reason he’s been spending a lot of evenings at the court house lately.

The prosecutor was quite approachable and accepted the plea bargain. He put me near the top of the docket so we wouldn’t have a long wait in court. 

The legal system is fascinating. It was entertaining to watch the couple of cases before me. One guy had a lawyer and got his court date put off. The second wasn’t present but had his friend there to request a later date. The judge seemed a little bewildered by this one, but accepted the request. 

When they called my name, the Prosecutor announced they wanted to change the offence and the judge confirmed that with me. So, I won’t lose my license, but still have to pay a $220 fine. She asked me how long I needed to pay it. I asked, “What’s reasonable? Six months?” She said, “Six months. Don’t you work?” She then suggested three months. Which works ok. I’ll throw it in with the Christmas bills.

After it was over, the nice officer and I left the court room together. I thanked him for suggesting this and apologized for making him spend another evening in court. He does get paid overtime, but still he said it  gets tiring. He told me it was no trouble and that the system is set up for this. It’s my right to go to court. He also mentioned it was the quickest court night yet.

We then went for coffee and have been dating ever since. So, that’s why I haven’t been around these here blog parts lately. I keed, I keed. But, what a nice little story to tell the grand kids. Come to think of it, I still don’t know if he was wearing a wedding ring (with apologies to any potential significant other for the fantasy portion of this post).

 It’s good to be back!