Crap Day

About a year ago, I was driving Emma to school. As usual, I was running late. Emma's school is located inside a residential neighborhood. After I turned off of the main road onto the residential street, I continued driving at the same speed. It's very easy to forget to slow down. I'm still not even sure what the speed limit is in a residential neighborhood, but I was going well above it in hopes of getting her to school on time. As it turned out, I was driving 37 mph, and a lovely man on a motorcycle drove up behind me. He was parked off to the side of the street, preying on desperate, speeding mothers. I won't dispute it in court, but I plead entrapment. Anywho, I was close to Emma's school, so I continued on while he followed me. I drove into the drop off lane, and when I stopped to let Emma get out of the car, he immediately got off his bike and walked to my window. I was hoping he would at least let me pull out of the school and drive away a bit. He was immediately a jerk (don't they all seem jerky when they're pulling you over?), which caused me to become a bit defensive. I wasn't disputing the fact that I was speeding, but I asked him, "Why didn't you let me pull out of her school and away a bit so that I wouldn't be sitting here blocking other cars?".
He replied, jerkishly, "Why, are you embarrassed?".
"No," I lied, "but I would rather not be blocking other cars."
"I let you drop your kid off, didn't I?" he retorted, smugly.

He was both smug and jerkish.

So, for the next several minutes, I had to sit in the drop off lane while he filled out paperwork for my ticket. Sometime during this, he had apparently called for back-up because another lovely, smug, jerkish man drove up on a motorcycle, and engaged his cop-friend in a conversation about which long sleeved shirts work best underneath their uniform. All the while, parents where eyeing my car suspiciously, making a mental note not to set up a carpool with the mom in the red civic. So, the ticket gets issued and I'm on my way back home. Waiting for me at home was a friend who was going to watch Lost with me. I tell you this because it will matter later on in my tale. After my friend left, I checked my mail, and wouldn't you know, I had a letter addressed to me which contained a picture of me turning left through a red light. Maybe it was a good thing I got both tickets in one day - why spread out the misery when it can just be piled on me all at once? I paid my tickets, did my traffic school, and all is well. Although, I still believe the photo radar ticket was invalid. I remember getting flashed that day. Previous to my turning left, a fire truck had gone through the intersection, and they're always messing around with the traffic lights. So, the time allotted to my green arrow was half as long as normal. I tried to fight it, but it was useless.

This morning, I woke up in a strangely good mood. I'm not sure what triggered it, but I was feeling pretty swell. As I was driving through the drop off lane at Emma's school (I was shockingly on time today), I noticed a parked car, with a lovely, jerkish, smug man on his motorcycle behind it. His latest victim's car looked an awful lot like the car of the friend who was waiting at my house last year to watch Lost with me. I thought that it would be a terrible coincidence that the same cop would pull us both over, and to embarrass us by doing his job while we waited at our child's school. As I was driving through the drop off lane, I turned my head to see inside the car, and I determined it was NOT my friend's car. As I turned my head back to look straight in front of me, I found myself to be entangled in a shiny black Tahoe's bumper, or in other words, I rear-ended a guy, who I think was a doctor because his license plate said AZOBGYN. Well, wouldn't you know, the same lovely, jerkish, smug man cycled himself over to our little accident, and gave me another ticket. My great mood quickly soured. My car is still drivable, but it looks terrible. My auto body shop won't be able to get to my car till Monday, so I need to wait until then to drop it off because I'm limited as to how long I can have a rental for. I asked about the raise to my insurance rate. I was told that as long as the total damage doesn't exceed $750, there's no raise. $750 sounded doable, since it looks like just my hood needs to be replaced, and the other guy's bumper was only scratched. Well, there's a reason why I'm not an adjuster, because mine was just here and he left me with a $5,969.64 estimated cost to repair everything.

I think you have it out for me, you lovely, jerkish, smug motorcycle driver.