Survey pt3

32.CAN YOU SAY YOU’RE A B C’S BACKWARDS? Yes, slowly. I used to have them indexed so I could say them forward or back, starting at any letter, and cycle back to my starting point, at singing speeds. Alas, another skill gone due to attrition.

Can YOU sing the “A b c d, e f g h, i j k l, lmn o p, q r s t u, r s t u v, s t u v w x y z (aaabbcccc)” song from Sesame Street? How about the theme to “Letter Man” from the Electric Company? Or the Letterman theme from Late Night? *g*

33.DO YOU HAVE A HAIRY MOLE ON YOU SOMEWHERE? I have a mole on my right chin… okay – on the right of my chin. It is hairy only because it is in the whisker area. It used to grow at this amazingly wild rate, so that I’d have this little tuft of mole hair while the rest of my chin just had whiskers… but that has changed since I started shaving more regularly. Now it is not noticable.

34.DID YOU EVER HAVE ONE? Still do.

35.WOULD YOU TELL ME IF YOU DID? Just did.

36.HAVE YOU EVER STOLE SOMETHING? The first and textbook case of my stealing anything was when I was 5 ot 6. My mom was taking me grocery shopping at Falleys in the White Lakes Mall as she often did. We had a habit that she would give me a peanut (in the shell) from the open peanut bin to entertain me for a few isles while we shopped. On this particular occasion, she refused, and kept shopping.

So, I asked to be released from the cart-seat. I got down, acted coy, and lingered as she turned the isle. I went and grabbed a peanut, then ran to catch up. I lingered behind because I hadn’t figured out how to hide the evidence.

I don’t remember much else about shopping that trip. But when we got near the register, a clerk saw me holding it. He leaned down to me and asked “Did you steal that?”…I got all guilty and nodded sadly. “Go put it back.” And i did. He didn’t tell my mother, and I haven’t “stolen” anything since. I did cry for 5 minutes after we left the store. I don’t know if my mom figured out why.

Now, having said all of that – I do “appropriate” things occasionally. Not from stores, but from friends or family. I find unused items that I can use, borrow them, and then put them back/replace them. The problem is, sometimes I forget the last part.

37.DID YOU GET CAUGHT? See above.

38.WHICH BRINGS ME TO HAVE YOU EVER BEEN TO JAIL? Yes, but not for theft. I live “downtown”, on a city block with parking meters (actually, in front of my apartment there aren’t meters, its just a time-limited zone – 90 minutes). Well, back when I ran my own business from my home, I couldn’t afford to go down and move my car every 90 minutes – I might miss a call from a client, and it was just a waste of gas and time anyway.

So, I just got tickets. Up to 5 a day. And they are incremental: $3, $10, $15, $15… Since I got them all EVERY DAY, I would pay them in bulk. And, since if they are unpaid after 15 days they go on warrant, what i usually did was go into the city courts every 90 days and pay my warrants.

The largest fee I paid at one time was $4000.

I know. Insane.

I was trying to make a point to the city. It kinda worked: the cashiers would open a window just for me when I came in; it would take them aproximately 60 minutes to process all my warrents, writing out a reciept for each one; I was known all over the city traffic system as “that parking warrant guy”; and as a final kudo/insult, one of the parking meter guys thanked me one fall “Thanks to you, the whole department got new winter hats and coats this year!”

Anyway, thats not how I went to jail.

When I started my current job, I was no longer at home during “meter” hours. So I rarely got tickets, if ever. Two weeks at my new job, I went down to the courts, and paid off all my warrents, using that first check from my job. “Great!” I thought, “I’m finally clean and sober!”

Well, a couple of months later, I was driving home from Trynity’s on a beautiful fall evening. The sun was setting just so, and I turned on my headlights just for safety. Well, a deputy sherrif was passing by the other direction, and saw that I had a headlight out. So he turned around and flashed me (with his LIGHTS!!! *g*) and I pulled into this nice residential area.

He got out, came over, was real friendly. Told me about the light. I thanked him. He went back to his car for a bit, then came up and apologized for the delay. He explained that he still had to run my tag number even for such a simple citiation, and the computers were running slow tonight.

So we stood there and chatted about the beautiful weather, autumn plans, etc. Nice small talk. Then he got a beep over his radio that his request was coming through, and he went back to his car.

He was in there just a tad too long, and I started giggling. I knew what his delay meant.

He came back up “I’m sorry again for the delay. We are confirming this, but it seems you may have some trouble with a couple of parking tickets??”, he inquired.

I chuckled. I told him about living down town, about clearing everything off, and that I must have just missed those few in the difference of time between when I got them and when I paid the others off.

“Can you just let me go on this? I’ll swing by and take care of them tomorrow..”

“No, I’m afraid I can’t. But…well, you seem like a really nice guy, so I’m going to go out on a limb here. Normally, with a situation like this, I have to radio for a backup to come and stay with your car while the tow truck comes, while I take you down to the jail. But, if I trust you, will you follow me down to the jail yourself?”

Sure! So, he told me the route to take, and I drove down to the county jail with him behind me. He told me to take everything off that I could (watch, belt, billfold) and lock it in my car. Then he walked me in through admitting.