.traffic court.

i have to get up early tomorrow so that i can go to court for a $240 traffic ticket. i've never had a traffic ticket in my life (this is not completely true), and then a few weeks ago i heard sirens behind me after squeezing through the end of a yellow left arrow. i do that all the time. everybody does that all the time. up until i was pulled over and reprimanded by someone i initially assumed was a gentle grandfatherly cop (he was a hard-hearted bully cop), i figured driving a little past the green on a left turn signal in portland was unofficially legal.

i also have spilled feta cheese and pizza sauce in several places on my clothes: on my shirt, right between my boobs, on the zipper of my pants. i'm a veritable two year old who is allowed to work in an office. i wish i were more presentable.

part of me (and by part of me, i mean the part of me who fears public humiliation and also the part of me who controls the alarm clock) wants to just pay the ticket and get it over with. i know that i could save a hundred bucks. i know that a hundred bucks is a quarter of my rent, is a month's worth of groceries (that is, if i stop shopping at new seasons), is a sweater from anthropologie that i will never allow myself to buy. however, a hundred dollars may also be the price i pay to avoid making public acknowledgement and apology for my having run a red light. cuz by yellow, i mean probably, more honestly, it was red.