Bad boys. Bad boys…
Years ago I had a small t-shirt shop in the little town where we live. We printed t-shirts, caps, jackets and other typical fare for a shop such as ours. One of the groups I did a lot of printing for was all of our local law enforcement entities. We made summer uniforms for the Sheriff’s Department – which were fancy black t-shirts with lots of gold prints on them. We did special Sheriff’s Department hats with the gold braid on the bill. Since these guys had to kick in part of the cost of their uniforms and it never hurts to be popular with the local law enforcement folk, I rarely charged them all of the set-up costs that their orders should have included. This seemed to keep me in pretty good graces with the man. Little did I know how important that would turn out to be.
The first night of Stace’s vacation I headed down to this little rib shack several miles away from the house to get our celebration meal. I picked up the ribs and was almost home when I came upon something weird going on up the highway in front of me. It was full dark so it was kinda hard to see. But it looked like the car in front of me was just sitting stopped on the highway and mostly in the wrong lane. Now this was a pretty busy two lane highway and the car was just sitting there in the south-bound lane but facing north. And it was sitting just this side of the little county road I needed to turn left onto in order to get home. Hmmm…
I eased up slowly behind them trying to gauge if I still had enough room to slide around them and turn onto my road. Mostly I was put out that my ribs were getting cold cause of the numb-nuts in front of me blocking the road. Just when I had about decided to go around on the right shoulder, the car threw it into reverse and back right into me. Put a huge dent in the left front quarter panel of the Toyota that is still there to this day since we had better uses for the insurance money at the time. Well luckily the police were there in just a few minutes cause it’s a small town and they didn’t have anything else to do after all.
As it turns out the Deputy, let’s call him Barney, that showed up to work the wreck was one who had just bought a large order of uniforms from me a couple of days before. We chatted for a bit then he went to talk to the other driver. He came back after a while and said that the other driver was completely drunk and had been trying to turn onto my road but had started the turn way too soon and was getting ready to drive down the steep embankment when she realized her situation and stopped. Then she didn’t know what to do which was why she was sitting there when I drove up.
While he was telling me all of this, another deputy showed up, handcuffed the drunk chick and hauled her off to jail. They called a wrecker to come get her car. Deputy Barney said he just had to go back up to his car to finish filling out the accident report so I could collect on her insurance and then I would be free to go. I sat in the car waiting impatiently watching my ribs get stone cold. I might have called Drunk Chick a few nasty names. I called Stace and told her I had been in a small wreck and that I was fine but it would be a bit yet before I got home.
Finally Deputy Barney walked back to my car. I could see immediately that something was very very wrong. He was actually pale. He said, “Uhhh Hedon, I don’t know quite how to say this but I’m going to have to put you under arrest. I sure am sorry about this.”
I said, “Oh come on, Deputy Barney, get serious. Are you done with the report? Can I go now? These ribs are getting ice cold.”
He said, “I’m not joking. Apparently there’s been a warrant out for your arrest for the past nine and a half years and I have to take you in.”
I was speechless. Honestly… sputteringly… speechless. And arrest me he did. He never handcuffed me. And he was a good guy and let me follow him to the county jail in my own car. But when I got there he handed me over to the jailers who frisked me, fingerprinted me and took mug shots of one extremely large extremely pissed-off woman. About the time the jailers were finishing up, Deputy Barney came over and said he had been on the phone with the county where I grew up trying to get them to drop the charges. But they wouldn’t. So they gave me one phone call and then into the holding cell I went. Luckily for her it was a different cell than the drunk tank where the stupid bitch who had hit me was being held.
Obviously, I called Stace with my one phone call. I had just called her about thirty or forty minutes before telling her that I had been in a small wreck and would be a little bit late getting home. Now I was having to call her asking if she would come over and post bail so I could get the hell out of jail. That is seriously not the best way to start your vacation. But she rushed right over and had me sprung in about two hours. Felt like days sitting in that cell.
When we got home, I was still in a daze. Stace thought it was extremely funny. I didn’t quite see the humor yet at that point. Now I think it’s a pretty good joke by the Universe. What had happened was when I moved from my home town years before I had apparently closed my checking account too early and bounced an $11.62 check. I never knew it. I had filed a change of address form but never got any notice that the check had even bounced much less that they were prosecuting me. So there had been a warrant out on me for damned near a decade. Over an eleven dollar check that I would gladly have paid if I had known anything about it.
It was pretty easy to get the whole mess cleaned up. I mailed a money order off the next day and that was the end of it. Well it would have been the end of it if word hadn’t made it to every law enforcement officer in the whole county. I thought I would never hear the end of it when they came in the shop to get uniforms. Finally I realized how to turn the tables on them. When they started razzing me about being a criminal, I started giving it right back. I made it clear I didn’t think too much of their law enforcement skills what with I had been living in their midst for ten years as a wanted woman and all… I think at that point we all just silently agreed to call it a draw and let it go.
The experience did stick with me though. Now I don’t politely sit and wait trying to figure out what a car that’s acting strangely might be doing. I get the hell away from them immediately. And I have never ever closed another bank account. Doubt if I ever will. Also, even if I’m wearing my hat I still comb my hair now before I leave the house. They won’t let you wear your hat for your mugshots and I don’t need any more of me on file looking like something from “The Smoking Gun” gallery of inbred losers. I’ve already got a couple of those, thanks.
That is too funny. It reminds me of just recently when I received a letter telling me that my license was being suspended (in a state I didn’t even have a license in anymore) because of an unpaid ticket. I had NO idea what they were talking about.
I made several phone calls and found out that I did have a ticket over 12 years ago and although I did send in payment (they even told me they had the check number, etc.), there was a fee that the check didn’t cover, so when the state recently did an audit (trying to collect on past unpaid tickets, etc.) they found the fee I still owed on the books.
So not only did I have to pay the administrative fee from 12 years ago, but I had to pay a late fee and a fee to reinstate my license. It took forever trying to explain that I was no longer licensed in that state but because they shared the information nationwide, I needed to make sure it was taken care of because it would have affected the renewal of my CDL in its current state.
Fools, I say! The dumb leading the dumb.
I wonder if we will see more auditing of the county/town books to try to pull in more cash from long, long ago in the midst of this economic downturn.
Anything that might endanger someone’s CDL and therefore living: ka-ching!
Captcha is 8:30 doors. What show we going to see? Caught the Pretenders about a month ago. Chrissie Hynde still rules.
OK, this chick was in the Smoking Gun gallery and she doesn’t look like an inbred loser. WTF? Why is she even in here?
http://www.thesmokinggun.com/archive/years/2009/0320092mugs7.html
Excellent story. What a criminal you are. A misdemeanor warrant for an $11.00 check should have disappeared after 3 years. More stories to come I hope.
Limericc,
That’s how I felt! I couldn’t believe the warrant was still alive so to speak. I mean I didn’t mind paying the piper and all but I was less than thrilled with all the booking process.
And as for the little tiny holding room with the cameras in the corners and the toilet sitting out there in the open… well let’s just say I wouldn’t want to go back.
~~~~~~~~~~
Salena,
I don’t know why she was in there. She didn’t look bad to me. Does she have some sort of minor fame?
Did you go to the next guy in the list after her though? Man that one had me laughing out loud. If I had a boyfriend I hope that’s what he would look like.
Salena and Belledog,
I have been hearing more and more about states doing this. I even heard about a state that was flat out saying that tickets from more than a dozen years ago had never been paid and demanding cash or a driver’s cdl. Of course the driver who was telling me about it didn’t still have the check to prove he had paid the ticket so in the end he had to pay it again or lose his cdl.
He insists that he had paid the ticket immediately after he got it and that the state was just shaking him down. He likened it to a cop stealing from a drug dealer cause really what’s the drug dealer going to do about it? Wish I could remember where he lived.
I know I’ve had two scale tickets from the first couple of months I was driving and a parking ticket in Ohio. I went home and found my paperwork and the checks and set them aside in a safe place in case I need them.
Hedon’s brush with the law happened on the first day of my vacation that year. Our daughter was staying the night with a friend, so we had the whole evening to ourselves for once. Had a nice night planned for just the two of us, alone. So much for that.
When Hedon called about the accident, the first question was, “Are you okay?” The second question was, “Are the ribs okay?” The third question was, “Is the car okay.” If you’d ever tasted those ribs, you’d know why they ranked over the car.
When Hedon called about being arrested, I didn’t know what the hell to do. Bail was $500, and we didn’t have it. That meant I had to find a bailbondsman at 7:30 at night on a Friday. I finally found one who was willing to bail out Hedon, and drove to his office and waited for him to show up.
I had a lot of time to sit there and wonder how this whole process worked. He took over an hour to arrive. Took about another half hour of listening to him blabbing about nothing, and then getting the info and payment he needed from me, before he’d go to the jail and spring Hedon from the pokey.
Then there was more paperwork, and Hedon had to be firmly threatened about not skipping out on her bail. LOL. Not having any clue about bailbondsmen and how the system worked, you should have seen his face when I asked how much of the money I’d paid him that I’d be getting back. Turns out, not a damned penny of it. Jesus, if I had known that, I would have hit up a relative for a loan! Won’t happen again. I’m onto their wily ways, now.
It was after 10 p.m. before we got home. Didn’t care that the ribs had been sitting out for hours and hours. Ate em, all the same. We’re committed that way.