Traffic Court

How many 4 month olds can say they've been to traffic court? Well, now my nephew can! I got directions off of Mapquest to go to a place called Algiers to pay my ticket. Mapquest said it was 18 miles away and to allow 28 minutes. Well, it took me more than 28 minutes. More like 78 minutes! By the time I found the place I had paid twice to take a toll road, stopped at two Chevrons for directions AND driven the wrong way down a one-way street. I realize that I don't have the best sense of direction but I am not a total moron and I do know how to read. Sweet Thomas took pity on me and slept the whole way there. I think he knew I could not handle screaming this morning.

(If you read a couple of entries down you'll understand why I couldn't pay online. ) To top it off, I never carry cash with me. The Lord was looking out for me though. I had two dollars in my purse for the tolls and found an emergency stash of 10 ones in Thomas' diaper bag. I needed five of those ones to pay to park across the street from the court house.

I parked the car, hefted my 20 pound nephew into my arms with his diaper bag and purse on my shoulder. No stroller today, being as how the court house is not handicapped accessible and had 10 steps to climb to get into the door. The court house was old and dirty, shocker... like everything else in New Orleans. An 80 year old lady security guard told me where to go to pay the ticket. I went into the room where a guy wrote some code on my ticket and told me to take it to the desk in front of his. That lady told me to have a seat and wait because the ticket wasn't in the system. She took the ticket to the lady sitting two desks away from her. That lady couldn't figure out how to spell my name or where I was from so she yells across the room, "Janice Tucker... what is this city you're from?" Geez, where do they find these people? So, she finds the amount for the ticket and gives the ticket back to the first lady. $181 she says. So I ask her if she takes credit cards because the back of the ticket says, cash, cashier's check, money order or credit cards. Since I didn't know how much the damn ticket was before I got there I only had a credit card. She tells me she only accepts cash and personal checks. Yep, personal checks!!! Being as how I don't carry that kind of cash with me, I wrote her a check, got my receipt and left. I waited to cry until I got into my car. Thomas did too!

Oh how funny is this... while I wrote my check the cashier lady offered to hold Thomas. That was really kind of her. My sweet Thomas made a little surprise while she was holding him! Let's just say we had a code brown situation, hee hee!

While I'm going to be really sad to leave Thomas and Molly, I can not wait to go home. This is the most ass backwards place I have ever been in!!! Only 11 days left. Pray for me... I need it. Maybe its a good thing that I cry instead of getting angry. Bad things could happen if not!