“I must have dropped my ticket getting on the train.”
“Give me your ID.”
“You just saw me last night!!”
“Yeah, that was last night.”
*screams internally*
I literally took a picture with the ticket and my change from getting cash back at Target to buy the stupid fuckin thing because I really can’t afford a fine for clumsiness.
I’m livid rn.
If you don’t have a train ticket when you get checked, it’s a hundred and fifty three dollar fine.
That is almost fifty six times as much as the ticket. So I’m sure you understand the levels of livid I am that this is over a train ticket that just fell from my pocket.
So my choices are basically that I suck it up and pay it, or I fight it. I think I can prove from the contents of my pockets that this was an honest error. But, it’s at Carol Miller, and Sacramentans may know what that means: If I plead not guilty and I make my case, and then lose, my ticket will be at least doubled, maybe even quadrupled. ‘Court fines.’ Because ‘engaging in the right to defend yourself fines’ would be illegal.
My dad, ever the empathetic (/s), really drove home that as much as he would admire me for challenging it, he wouldn’t help me pay any of the extra fines I incur fighting it, if I lose. Considering I never asked him to pay the original ticket in the first place, or even the previous ticket he did pay in full which he’s currently guilting me with (over a cop encounter I could have DIED in), I really appreciate his commentary.
I have a few months to figure it out. Meanwhile, I’m livid.
I just witnessed seven cops and two probation officers arrest a MoC for riding one stop and not having a train pass at Zinfandel. Literally not enough time had passed for them to even check his warrants. WHY ARE PROBATION OFFICERS CHECKING TRAIN TICKETS. Kinda saying this just because who the fuck do I even say something to, but also be careful today and pay for your transit — it’s the end of the month.
—melony ppenosyne
Flommist Melony Ppenosyne is a writer and weird artist type. In the last year alone, she’s traveled to Virginia as a competing poet, co-written a play on mental illness that is presently being produced, and crafted a published essay checking the privilege and scope of art galleries. Copyright © 2016 Melony Ppenosyne.
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