Emily’s home sick from school today. She’s not contagious, but was right on the cusp of “too tired” so we let her stay home. This posed a little problem, since I needed to go downtown and pay for the expired tag I got a while back. I knew I needed to take care of it soon, but I had it in my head that it was around Oct 10th that it had to be done by. Nope. I checked over the weekend, and lucky that I did – the court date was Oct 1st. This meant I couldn’t just go down and pay for it, I had to actually go and sit around and wait for them to call my name.<\/p>\n
I wasn’t aware of this but while you wait for them to call your name, YOU CAN’T KNIT. Or read. Or talk. As far as I’m concerned, after “no knitting and no reading” they might as well add “no breathing” to the list. I found this rule out when a bailiff approached me after I’d been waiting and knitting for 45 minutes, Boo beside me, all of us being very quiet and well-mannered. I asked if I could still talk to my daughter (as I’d occasionally been doing, quietly). The bailiff said no, and added that Emily really wasn’t allowed in the courtroom. D’oh!<\/p>\n
This was a room with a bunch of people sitting quietly, not a courtroom where people were deciding custody or something. The worst that happened was that she found a wad of pre-chewed gum under the bench and I had to throw it away. Regardless, I’m not going to argue with the bailiff, since that’s a fight even I can’t win. I had to take her upstairs to a daycare with about four toddlers, all of whom were screaming their heads off. Greaaaaaat. Fortunately, it only took them about another 15 minutes to call my name, so I was able to get her out of there and back home pretty quickly. Up side: since I had my current auto registration, they dismissed the charges and I didn’t have to pay the $145. Still, it was definitely not the way I would have chosen to spend my morning – or my child’s morning.<\/p>\n