Adventures in the Labyrinth Part 3: The Final Struggle

--Robert Langellier

For the last four months, I have been locked in a deadly battle of patience between me and a small speeding ticket I received a really super long time ago. Many blows have been struck, many tears have been shed, inanimate objects beaten, time and money wasted, friends killed, etc., since the onset of the war. I often go sleepless for whole nights, constantly alert in fear of a surprise attack by my ticket's minions. There were times I was sure it was going to take my life eventually. The grace of determination, however, allowed me to persevere. The Golden Day, November 30th, or, the Day of Reckoning, or, the final end of the long, difficult struggle, is nearly here. Unfortunately, my ticket has become just as aware of this as I, and it has bucked its ugly, disgusting, paper head one last time...

I thought this was almost over. I knew it was. Nothing could have gone wrong. I had merely to take a 4 hour online driving course at some point this Thanksgiving break, proudly show off my certificate of completion to some tool in the Attorney General's office, and give them lots of my money. Clever judicial system. You used a long period of inactivity to lull me to sleep and birth dreams of judicial convenience. How rudely you awake me with such malicious teeth.

Honestly, your breeching of my castle walls is probably my fault. I waltzed into this online driving course like I deserved the opportunity to pass it. Foolishly did I click with my mouse hundreds of times as a cheesy male voice told me repeatedly that I was an "individual" who needs to make my own responsible decisions behind the wheel. I should have known better. I should have prepared for the blast. I should have protected Java's walls of defense from my ticket's Flashware torpedoes. Why wouldn't Chrome's Flash player repeatedly crash in the middle-to-closing points of every second lesson I attempted? Why wouldn't my "progress chart" repeatedly tell me I've completed 0% of Lesson 2 Section 2 even after it's told me that I've successfully completed that part six times? SILLY ME.

I'm just glad the host site lists an unmonitored email address and a phone number that nobody answers if you need help. If not, I couldn't have spent a large part of two days sleuthing before figuring out that my family's Macintoshes cannot pass the 25-minute Lesson 2 Section 2 for some reason. IDKY.

Now, because of the extra time spent troubleshooting, I've been forced to stay in Springfield an extra school day to lie in wait for my time to pounce - Monday, the day the General's office reopens. This is my final chance to end this nightmare. This is the final struggle. As I type this, I have just completed Traffic School. I expect my printer to break and/or explode tomorrow morning. I expect my USB ports to continue not functioning, as they haven't all year. I expect to have taken the wrong Traffic School course and to have only $204.50 left in my bank account. I expect to be caught speeding on the way to the General's office.

Tomorrow I wake up early, at the crack of 9:00am. I armor up and make a sacrifice to the gods in preparation for battle. I take a deep breath and head downtown to see just how much more pain a traffic violation can do me. I expect it to be a lot, and I expect this to not be over for a long time to come. There. Undermine my expectations now, ticket. Come on. Do your worst. I'll be ready, money and blame ready to be thrown every which way in a hellstorm of nagging irritation. I will kill you.

Adventures in the Labyrinth Part 1: Robert Lange vs. the Traffic Court Minotaur

--Robert Langellier

An event about 2 months ago where I went 45 miles per hour on an almost empty street has resulted in an honest want to live in a different country. Damn you, judicial system.

When it comes to traffic court, I think the goal of Illinois’ government (and I imagine pretty much all other states’ governments) is to beat you into submission via boredom and mental exhaustion. You dare venture outside the literal boundaries of the law, and you will be duly punished and taught a stern lesson. Yes, you’ll pay a good $75-100 in fines, or an extra fee for supervision, or take an idiotic, I-could’ve-passed-this-without-eyeballs-or-eardrums driving course, but the real motivation to stop legally sinning is the bureaucratic rap on the knuckles you get from the time you get the ticket to the time you’re finally done with it. It’s a fear-based system – a fear of being really, really irritated for a really long time.

First you sit in your car on the side of the road for a half hour staring at the fireworks display of red and blue in your rearview while Jerome the Policeman unearths your English grades from summer school before freshman year. He asks for your insurance, you realize you have no god damn clue where that could be, and you wait while Jerome goes back and double checks that those English grades are correct, because there’s no way you passed school without knowing where your insurance is. Then he writes you a short biography about yourself on a yellow slip of $75 paper and thanks you for being so cooperative.

You go home and tell your parents how the child they’ve raised has grown up to be a failure, and you make a mental sticky note of your court date that remains in the back of your mind, occasionally resurfacing, for weeks and weeks. Of course, it hits you shortly that, on September 7th, you’ll have been in college for 3 weeks. Wuh oh! That’s okay, quick fix. All you have to do is call the Attorney General’s Office, allow them to transfer you between every employee on duty that day, and then be told that you can’t change court dates because your ticket isn’t on their record yet. Fortunately, you can call back a month later and be told that you can’t change court dates because that’s not allowed.

September rolls around eventually, and you’ve accepted the fact that you’re going to have to take the ticket in the face like a man, so you arrange the 4-hour ride back to old Springfieldtown. Traffic court is always packed, so you show up early, just in time to realize you’ve left your license at home. By time you’ve punished your steering wheel with a stern physical beating for making you forget, gone home to get your license, and returned to court, you’re 15 minutes late and just 2 short hours away from your 60-second guilty plea to Judge Indifference. You spend those 2 hours either sitting in line waiting to be let in the courtroom, or sitting between 2 strangers staring at the wall waiting to be let in front of the judge. In respect to His Honor (the judge, not God), there are no cell phones, no reading, no talking, and no practical way to whittle the seconds away except to pet your dislike for a system far more powerful and constrictive than you are. Minimal breathing is allowed.

They finally call the magic words, - “Robert Langellier” - and you step up to the throne, where you find that your supervision fee is slightly more costly than you were expecting (by $80). Good. On the 4 hour drive back to the college courses you’ve missed that day, you can contemplate the extra course you get to take now, one that will provide you with 0 learning opportunities, 0 opportunities for your future, and 0 enjoyment opportunities. But come November 30th, you’ll be done with all this. You’ll have mailed your Certificate of Completion back to Room 402 of 200 S. 9th Street, along with a check worth two and a half weeks of a college job.
And all you wanted to do was see Conor’s pretty face before you went to bed one night. I knew this was somehow his fault.

(End note: I was really torn between the ending I chose and finishing with “Fuck tha po.” I have some regrets.)