Tuesday, 04 June 2002 | Speedometer

Mom offered to go with me. My parents live between me and the court house, and apparently today it was particularly easy for her to take the morning off. It's not a pleasant thing to do alone, she'd said. She was standing out in the yard when I got there, collecting litter that had been thrown from a passing car.

Our first stop was a service station in a town called Coats where they calibrate your speedometer for $34.95. I'd assumed that my speedometer was accurate, but I wanted some basis for the "guilty of faulty equipment" plea I'd been advised to give. We only had to wait five minutes, the two of us seated in a dingy room with a noisy A/C unit, some baseball trophies, a Bible, and an old hymnal.

As it turns out, my speedometer was off by about 5 miles per hour. Unfortunately, it was off in the wrong direction. I was driving slower than I'd thought I was. I mentioned my concern to the man behind the glass, and he reassured me, "It was off. That's all they care about."

Second stop, the court house in Dunn, a line snaking down and back up a narrow hallway, sweaty people leaning against the concrete, holding pink slips in their hands, staring ahead at nothing. A young girl with cornrows in her hair bounced against the wall and watched as the beads swept by her face. A guy had on a shirt that said, "Real men don't need directions." A large woman gripped a newspaper in one hand, fanning herself between paragraphs, gripped a bottle of water in the other hand.

The courtroom itself was cold and full of brown wood and pews and reminded me of a church. When I walked in, I wasn't quite sure what the procedure was, but almost as an answer to my insecurity, I got to watch about 40 people go through the ritual: whisper to the DA, show her your ticket, walk up to the bench, answer "yes" when asked, "Do you plead responsible?" and pay $90 in court costs. It seemed to me that it would be much more efficient if we would just line up in front of the cashier, but I didn't mention that to the judge.

So, that's it, I think. The insurance god is pleased.

Stop number three, my mother had to pick up a few wedding gifts. We printed out lists of somebody else's wants and shopped for them, as the custom goes. I didn't see anything at all that I'd want for myself, and I wondered how the lists were so long. ...a gravy boat for $100?

Stop four, standing in the kitchen at my parents' house, both my mom and I eating peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. It was then I realized the morning I dreaded was over.