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April 6, 2005
Fancy meeting a guy like you in a place like this.
I batted my eyelashes at the handsome police officer in the crisp, dark, heavenly suit as he leaned in my window. Breathing heavy and fast I reached over for my bag, stalling even though time had stopped...
Yah, right!!!! When last week I pulled up to the stop sign and thankfully did my S.T.O.P and the older, heavy set police officer pointed the radar gun at my head and then used it to direct me to where I should park, I was shaking like a leaf. I HATE getting in trouble and my kneecaps were knocking. Like visibly, through my pants.
Perhaps I should take you back to my December hit and run. In Quebec we have something called no-fault insurance which amounts to it not mattering whose fault an accident is. Your insurance pays, though there’s a hundred million rules about who pays the deductible I’ll never understand. Now someone smashed into my car and ran. I was gone less than ten minutes. The car beside mine was not that which did the deed and I know that because I’m a private investigator in my other life, well at least socially. If I filed my insurance claim within 24 hours, I wouldn’t have paid the deductible. This happened on Friday, my insurance company was closed on the weekend and obviously I learned about the 24 hour rule on Monday. Just as I got defensive, they told me because I’d never had a claim, they were waiving my deductible. They gave me 24 hours to file the police report so I went directly from work. At the police station, I met with an officer, a young, cute guy, we blabbered back and forth as much as you can whilst wondering what if he thinks you’re a suspicious character? There was a problem (obviously!) with where my van was during the incident because the mall happened to be zoned in two cities, but eventually I got my claim number and went on my way.
When I got home, the officer called to say he made a mistake and then gave me a new number. I cheerfully wrote it down. He called twenty minutes later. Did I know my van hadn’t been registered since 2002. Impossible! I asked him to look if it was under my husbands name. No. While on the phone, I asked Remo to get the car registration file, actually I sang it in a crazy, crazy voice. I said there had to be a mistake, we would look it up in our records and call him back. When we absolutely could not find the registration papers anywhere we flung responsibility back and forth like a hot potato. Holy freaking crap. I wanted to throw up. All this time and no registration. How did it happen? We are bill paying people. Responsible people. I called the officer back and he was very good. First off, he told me that he genuinely believed I did not know my car was not registered because I would not have knowingly driven it to the police station. He told me my van should have been seized but he would give me 48 hours to get it registered.
The next morning I was first in line at the motor vehicle registration bureau. We moved three years ago from our old house to my in-laws while we built our new house. I couldn’t switch my driver’s licence address over at the time because I was pregnant with Kaillan and on complete bed rest but I went as soon as she was born. There was some delay on their part in updating their system so my registration renewal went to my old address. We didn’t exist there so it was returned to sender. They don’t send a second notice. Only for my car, Remo did his transfer from the beginning and was fine. In the meantime, out of sight, out of mind, he thought I took care of it and I thought he did. What still kills me is I drove around for all that time with my family in the car with no registration. On road trips even.
I explained my sad, sob, stupid story to all of them. I WAS a criminal. Given that my car had been “off road” for two years, they said I had to have an inspection done. It’s still fairly new, this shouldn’t be a problem, right? First I had to pay them to store my licence plate. For the two and a half years. That was $280 and actually, I was parking the plate for them on the back of my van. Who was I to be pushy. There were fees coming out my ears for this and that, it cost me over $800 and obviously my car FAILED the inspection because where it was hit, the light on that back smashed panel, was broken. They gave me twenty four hours to fix it. Now what excites my story more is that this was all happening during the holidays and snow storms. The inspection place didn’t have room, the garage who could fix my light was full, I had twenty four hours to get my car registered but I couldn’t register it until my inspection was approved, I couldn’t fix the light until the insurance adjuster could see me and had taken pictures, and ultimately they might not even cover me because my car wasn’t registered at the time of the accident. Tick, tock. I take back the part where I’m a responsible person. I’m simply, me.
Ultimately, the whole thing worked out. I swore from then on I would mark registrations and expirations in my agenda. I beat myself up over being a responsible grownup. For how organized I am, how can I be so disorganized?
Back on track here, back to last week with the police man coming up to my window, and I’m pulling things out of my purse: three containers of playdough and a singing Barbie, a juice box, a lint brush, my makeup bag and forty million pieces of paper, lists, internet printouts and absolutely no wallet. I flung myself out the door to look in the back of the van. I had shoes and cookies and toys everywhere. The cop shadowed me and I thought for a moment anyone watching would think we were looking for drugs. I didn’t have my wallet. No driver’s licence, no registration, no insurance papers. Just typing this, my heart is pounding as loud as it was that day. I was toast. He wrote down my birthday and went back into his car. I considered what my name would say in the computer, prayed my registration was now all ok and tried to reassure myself this was not a jailable offence. Both Remo and Shelley called and I couldn’t talk to them because I was in serious trouble.
The officer came back and I told him I was sorry. So sorry, so sorry. He told me this was my first speeding ticket ever. I nodded. Though had he told me at that moment it was my forty fifth, I’d have believed him. He told me he could’ve given me $500 worth of tickets but he was only giving me the speeding one. $150.00 and two demerit points. I apologised for speeding, for not having my wallet, told him the baby had been in my purse that morning, I was about to tell him I stole Dopey, Snow White’s Dwarf from the Value Drugs when I was nine years old when he stopped me and winked. I’m probably older than him and he winked at me. Sent me on my way. Though I started (you know how it grinds when it’s already on?) my car again and I took off so fast, I swear my tires squealed.
Two days later we were on the way to Brandan’s end of the hockey season party, LATE and with food for the party in hand, when Remo did a rolling stop. A blue and white officer in a blue and white car noticed it. Remo drove right to him before he could flip on his lights. Again no registration or insurance papers in hand, my wallet was in my purse at home. Remo got a $150 ticket, the first for him too. This week we’re cruising like a couple of eighty year olds.
My luck continued.
For that hockey party, the parents had each contributed $5 to buy nice bottles for the coaches and manager of the team. Given that I can get diplomatic rates at work, I offered to buy it. When one of them was giving me the money, I suggested she give it to Remo because my coat pockets were small, but Remo was nowhere in sight so she gave it to me anyway. Emmie was up and down, up and down and we were in an arena full of people and I lost it. Forever and I know so because I ripped apart everything I own in my search. So I single handedly had to buy the coach’s gifts. And gift bags. And coleslaw. And turkey sandwiches. And drink boxes for 40 people. I only noticed at the last minute they were on my list too.
A colleague from work was going to Brazil and mentioned he knows someone who knows someone who does beautiful embroidery on pillow cases with the children’s names in a corner and perhaps little butterflies or soccer balls in another. For $10, the quality would be beautiful and we’d be helping out the locals. His flight was two hours away but I get caught up in these things so I worked hurriedly at producing a list of 11 orders. I did my very best to describe colours. The pillow cases came back and I liked two of them and while I was trying not to show my disappointment over the other nine, he told me they actually ended up costing $20/each. $220 on tacky pillowcases.
My turn to host my cooking club is in April I’ve had serious anxiety about my turn since September. I’m really excited about my theme, the Phantom of the Opera, and so far the only plans I’ve settled are atmospheric. I’m going to put red light bulbs in my dining room and have dry ice going. The place cards will have single roses attached to them and the menu will be written on CDs of the Phantom of the Opera. I thought my entree could be a romantic beef or veal serenade so Saturday I picked up the best veal and beef roasts I could buy for a trial run. That night we went out so I didn’t prepare them. We spent Easter Sunday with Remo’s Italian parents, the first chance I had to prepare my roasts was Monday. There were no dates on the packages but when I opened them up, there was no question one of them was past it’s life. The other one was labelled guilty by association, I have that kind of mind. Another $50 gone.
So much for early retirement. What with the Children’s Hospital telethon, my God, did those stories put my veal in perspective and with the deposit on the house we’re sharing in Martha’s Vineyard this summer, I may have to walk into a bank with a note. Martha’s Vineyard. Have you ever in your life heard of a place more peaceful? Have you ever been there?
Hey! I found my sport! For Remo’s birthday, we gathered up twenty friends and went indoor rock climbing. We had a blast and what was especially cool was that the women out-climbed the men. We were like monkeys and feeding off each other. You did that one with the cliffs? I’m doing that one with the cliffs. Last week Remo and I went back with Brandan and Kaillan. Brandan did every wall I did, with those skinny little arms and a smile as wide as the sun. Kaillan was timid but you could see she desperately wanted to do it. When we were leaving she made it up ten feet and since then she asks daily when we’re going again.
I see a lot of myself in Kaillan. First off there’s the talking. I’m a yappy Chihuahua but I can also be very shy too. If Kaillan doesn’t know someone she will simply stare but if she feels comfortable she will tell them everything she has seen since the day she left the hospital. Yesterday at daycare she had Ashley’s birthday cupcakes. The act of having cupcakes is a simple feat, no? We discussed the shade of pink the icing was, the kind and number of sprinkles...who made them, who brought them, where they were stored...when they had them, who sang...we would probably STILL be talking about the cupcakes had I not joined the search for Brandan’s library book. For all her stubbornness, she really has a sweetheart nature, a big, fat, sensitive, kind heart. Remember back when I told her I loved her and she’d hold up two fingers and tell me she loves me two? Now she loves me more than ten. Brandan and I were making a sour cream strawberry rhubarb streusel coffee cake and Kaillan announced it smelled like cinnamon. She said cinnamon flawlessly and she comes from a long lineage of those who can’t. Kaillan uses words like impatient and frustrated and excited. Big words for a little girl. Her memory is amazing. Nana told her last October that she would take her to buy a new umbrella when the snow was gone. She never said a word to any of us about it till she reminded Nana on Monday. She picked Dora.
Now Emersan is a little rascal. Her vocabulary stops at Mamma, Dadda, baby, Baba (for Brandan) uck (for stuck, you’d be AMAZED how often she needs to use it in a day) and ca-ca (my all-time WORST word). She’s very, very into babies, feeding them, wrapping them, cuddling them. Where Kaillan could’ve cared less about dolls, Emmie has a collection she can’t sleep without. Picture ET in the closet. She has a serious addiction to sugar, I think she came by it because of our distractions with the other two. If she comes across a treat she grabs it and runs for the dining room table, scoots under and sits like a squirrel to eat it. Wrapper and all. Last week I was opening up some Pampered Chef boxes and in one there must have been a silica gel pack, you know those little things that come in a shoe box, and she went to eat it. She actually swallowed at least one of them and threw up after. It doesn’t matter how big they seem, you can’t turn your eyes for a second.
Brandan was drafted as one of the top 17 players for his age to represent our city in a hockey tournament. Though I still wonder how much of it was skill and how much was who you know, they brought home the gold! Wish as I might, I hate to think how in years the sport will change for us. For now, all our friends are on our team or we’re playing against them. We’re rooting for our guys and theirs. It doesn’t matter how polished their skills are because we’re just in it for a good time. Brandan’s coach actually sent me an e-mail that made my heart burst with pride when he said Brandan was the kind of kid a coach dreams for because when he goes after the puck he’s like a bulldozer, he won’t give up. Admittedly that doesn’t read well after I’ve just been saying I want it to be only nice and fun, but anyhoo, he did sort of say he’s a dream.
I know I have more, but there’s a very long lunch hour GONE. Quick blitz: Brandan and Remo have been taking piano lessons and love it. I’ve been zapping my spider veins and have this advice to share... the sooner you get rid of them, the better off you are. I joined Curves because it’s only a half hour though I’m having a hard time rounding up a half hour. On American Idol, I’m rooting for Carrie, on Survivor I’m rooting for Tom, Ian and Stephanie, in that order. On Apprentice - I’m rooting for the health-club owner, I forget her name. On the Amazing Race, I’m rooting for Meredith and Gretchen then Uchenna and Joyce. On the Bachelor, I think he’ll pick the 26 year old blond he keeps giving roses to. Though I’m half watching the shows and falling asleep through them, I’m catching enough to have opinions.
That’s it.
Allisun. Out.
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