I’m mad

Warning:  Rant appears below.

Oooh, I am carrying around a powerful load of anger right now.  I’m so mad I can hardly see straight.  

I know that I wrote about my Dear Husband and his unfortunate encounter with the lawmen of Our Fair City.  I don’t think I mentioned that his court date had been postponed.  Yes, when he showed up for his appointed day in court in September, the judge was “out of town,” so the 13 people who had been netted in the big sting operation by our lovely police were assigned court dates for a future time.   They were split into three groups that day, the group who were planning to plead “guilty” got today as their court date, the ones that were planning on pleading “not guilty” are scheduled for next week, and the ones who have hired lawyers to plead their cases and argue that they were entrapped are scheduled for the week following that.  

It should be interesting to see how the other cases turn out, but what happened today was the judge fined every single person $500 plus $24.50 court costs.   I didn’t go with DH to court, I was actually discouraged from going since DH had a not-so-far-fetched fear that I might make some sort of disturbance and wind up in jail. 

I guess I am still in danger of that, since my feelings range from wishing Hizzoner The Judge would drop dead of some sort of painful illness to visualizing his house burning down to meeting him at a social event somewhere and accidentally spitting in his face.   But I’m not angry or anything.

The thing that really twists my tail is the attitude displayed by Hizzoner.   DH reported back to me after his court appearance that if people didn’t say anything, neither did the judge.   If you wanted to talk, he would talk.   But it didn’t really matter what you said, he didn’t care.

I encouraged DH to speak to the judge.   I thought it might make a difference to him if he knew who he was talking to, and that the culprit was not sullenly and arrogantly standing there saying “I did it, fine me, lets get it over.”  Not that DH spent a lot of energy trying to acquaint the judge with himself.   It was patently obvious he didn’t give a rat’s ass.   DH told me in no uncertain terms that he was not going to stand up there and lie and say he was not guilty of the crime he was accused of.  

The whole thing is so damned cynical, it makes me want to vomit.   The ostensible reason for this whole round-up was to make a statement about underage drinking in Our Fair City.  I’m not sure what the statement is supposed to be, since the routine method of dealing with under-age drinkers in this town is to call their parents (who very possibly bought the alcohol for their child in the first place) and give them all a stiff talking to and a stern warning.   I have seen this exact process in action with my very own eyes at a huge party held in the house right next door.

Suckering a bunch of clerks in liquor stores into being caught selling a quart of beer to a young person who is nearly 21 and looks like they are 25 is not addressing the true source of the problem.

This rant interrupted by the presence of lunch on the table.   Lunch consisted of a luxurious collection of salad greens from the garden, mixed with lightly sauteed onions and peppers from the same garden, bow tie pasta, and sauteed chicken breast all dressed with a homemade Caesar salad dressing and garnished liberally with calamata olives and grated parmesan Reggiano cheese.   This was followed by two pieces of delectable See’s Chocolate. 

Lunch is over.  Rant continues below:

The underage drinkers in this town are not the ones buying the liquor.   It is their old-enough-to-purchase-alcohol buddies who are procuring it for them.   So, DH and I have now had $524.50 extracted forcibly from us in the name of showing that this city cares about enforcing the law against underage drinking.  DH and his co-clerks in this town know darn well that when a 22 year old person walks up to the counter of their store carrying a case of beer, a fifth of Jack Daniels, two packages of Smirnoff flavored vodka drinks, a few wine coolers and then says “Oh yeah, and a bottle of that Pucker stuff (an extremely horrid bilious green sour “liqueur” popular with young girls), and some Hot Sex (another extremely disgusting carmine red “hot” “liqueur” popular with the same demographic),” that order of alcohol is not all for him.   Not by a long shot.   And the only thing the clerks can do is look out the window and make sure the person making the purchase doesn’t have anyone wating for them out in their car, because if they do then they can refuse to sell them the booze.

Let’s not even go into the absolute asininity of the law mandating the minimum age that you are allowed to drink alcohol to be 21.   Oh heck, why not.  Let’s see.   You are Constitutionally allowed to vote in an election and have the power to  help elect a complete moronic asshole to serve in the White House at the age of 18.    You are also deemed old enough to sign a contract that makes you a member of the military, so you can go over to Iraq (or anyplace else this country has troops) and kill people, or be killed or maimed for life.   Additionally, you are old enough to get married without your parent’s permission, have children, go into debt, hold down a full time job manufacturing boats or compliant scrolls.    But you aren’t old enough to buy some beer and drink it.   How idiotic is that?

Then you have this judge, whose over-fed visage gazes out over one of the main drags through OFC advertising the law firm where he practices when he is not being a judge.  (This does bring up the interesting question of why it is ethical for a person to practice law in the same community where he is a judge)  DH is not quite old enough to be this person’s father, but darn near.   And this (for lack of a better pejorative) little prick has the absolute gall to have the following (loosely paraphrased) conversation with DH during his court appearance:

DH:  Your honor, I want to let you know that I took this situation very seriously.  I regret making this mistake.

Hizzoner:  Yeah?

DH:  Yes, I really couldn’t stand the job any more.  I told my boss to find a replacement for me, which he has done even though he didn’t want me to quit.

Hizzoner:  So, did you get another job around here selling liquor somewhere?

DH:  No, your honor.   I no longer have a job.

Hizzoner:   Good.   $500 fine plus court costs.  (Gavel)

Hizzoner has not had the pleasure of living with this man for the past two months, who is in an absolute tailspin of deep depression because he has made this (extremely expensive for us) mistake.   Normally, DH cards anyone who he doesn’t know and who doesn’t look like they are at least thirty.   That has been his own personal rule for the five years he has held this job.  Sometimes he has carded people who are over 40 (he reports that the women find this highly amusing and rather flattering).   On this ONE night, one of the hottest Friday nights in August, when the store was very busy, there was a line of people waiting to check out, he was distracted by the fact that it was our 22nd wedding anniversary and rather than being at home with his wife celebrating he was working, and not only that there was a new clerk to try to train, he was distracted and neglected to ask for ID on this person who wanted to purchase a quart of beer.  Now the judge says that it is good that he doesn’t have a job?  Happy anniversary to you too, asshole.

The back story, the fact that DH is a Navy veteran, who was probably in the Navy when this judge started college, who had a record so clean and righteous that he eventually got a Top Secret clearance and was responsible for the care and feeding of the secret codes and code machines that the military was using, who was so good at his job he got TWO Navy Achievement Awards.  Then this jerk has the nerve to treat him like some sort of community endangering scum, like he would feel so strongly about the fact that he had that error in judgment that he would QUIT HIS JOB and imply that after doing that DH would run out and get a job at some other liquor store doing the same thing?  Did he listen to what DH said at all?

Gaaaaaaaa!  (To quote azahar)

It’s not the money.   Of course our savings account has taken a huge hit this year, since we had to replace the water line in August.   Then when I got the water bill, rather than going down to the city and asking them to split the cost of the leaked water, I just paid for it all.   And now this fine in addition.  Oh yes, let’s not forget that we no longer have DH’s measly part-time job wages coming into the coffers.   Shit.   We’ll just wrap up the receipt for the paid fine and the receipt for the water line and put those under the Christmas tree.   We already figuratively did that for our anniversary.  Needless to say, the idea of going to the family reunion later this month is straight down the tubes.

But we’ll be able to pay our bills, we have enough to eat, we aren’t broke yet.   So it isn’t all bad.   It is the shitty attitude displayed, the disrespect for the real humans before him displayed by the judge, the whole cynical body of law that really eats me up. 

God help him if I find out Hizzoner drives a Hummer too.   I don’t know if I could restrain myself.

Ah, who am I kidding.   I am as responsible, law abiding, and respectful of other people’s property as my DH.  I’m just going to fume and rant.  But I have to say I’m starting to understand the rage and frustration that motivates some of the people who show up at public places and start blasting away with their firearms.  

Rant warning now terminated.